Scarborough, Ontario native Andre De Grasse will hold court at Woodbine Racetrack on Wednesday afternoon when he assists with the post-position draw for the $800,000 Ricoh Woodbine Mile.
Andre was born in Scarborough, Ontario on November 10, 1994 and raised in Markham by his mother Beverley, who was a high school sprinter growing up in Trinidad & Tobago before moving to Canada in her twenties.
Once a promising basketball player, Andre’s life changed in the space of 10.9 seconds, the time it took him to run his first 100m at the York Region High School Championships in the spring of 2012. Andre was convinced by a friend to give track a try after his high school, Milliken Mills H.S, was unable to field a basketball team in his senior year. So De Grasse laced up a pair of borrowed spikes, donned some baggy basketball shorts and raced to a second place finish without the benefit of starting blocks. Tony Sharpe, himself an Olympic medalist for Canada at the 1984 Olympics, was in the stands that day and immediately took Andre under his wing. Andre joined Sharpe’s Speed Academy track club and by the following summer had set a new Canadian junior record of 10.25.