Jerome Blake (born August 18, 1995) is a Canadian track and field athlete specializing in the sprint events. As a member of the Canadian 4×100 m relay team, he is the 2020 Olympic silver medalist and the 2022 World champion.

Career

Early career

Blake was born in Buff Bay, Jamaica, where he started his young track career as a hurdler in the 400 m. After attending his brother's soccer game, he began testing his speed on track which a coach noticed and convinced him to switch to sprinting. The Blake family moved to Canada in 2013, taking up residence in

Kelowna Kelowna ( ) is a city on Okanagan Lake in the Okanagan Valley in the southern interior of British Columbia, Canada. It serves as the head office of the Regional District of Central Okanagan. The name Kelowna derives from the Okanagan word ' ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include ...

initially, and eventually moving to

Burnaby Burnaby is a city in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia, Canada. Located in the centre of the Burrard Peninsula, it neighbours the City of Vancouver to the west, the District of North Vancouver across the confluence of the Burrard ...

. Because he did not acquire Canadian citizenship until 2018, he was unable to participate in many international junior competitions, though he remarked that had he been born in Canada "I probably would have been playing

hockey Hockey is a term used to denote a family of various types of both summer and winter team sports which originated on either an outdoor field, sheet of ice, or dry floor such as in a gymnasium. While these sports vary in specific rules, numbers o ...

." Blake competed for British Columbia at the 2017 Canada Summer Games where he won gold in both the 100 m and 200 m. Debuting at the senior level, Blake soon became a regular member of Canada's relay teams, winning a gold medal at the

2018 NACAC Championships The 2018 North American, Central American and Caribbean Championships was a regional track and field competition held at Varsity Stadium in Toronto, Canada, from August 10–12, 2018. It was the third edition of a senior track and field championshi ...

. Blake competed at the

2019 Pan American Games The 2019 Pan American Games ( es, Juegos Panamericanos de 2019, links=no), officially the XVIII Pan American Games and commonly known as the Lima 2019 Pan-Am Games or Lima 2019 ( qu, Limaq 2019), were a multi-sport event governed by the Panam Spo ...

Lima Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of t ...

, finishing sixth in the

200 m The 200 metres, or 200-meter dash, is a sprint running event. On an outdoor 400 metre racetrack, the race begins on the curve and ends on the home straight, so a combination of techniques is needed to successfully run the race. A slightly ...

and fourth in the 4×100 relay.

2020 Summer Olympics

In the buildup to the 2020 Summer Olympics, which was taking place in 2021 due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identified ...

, Blake competed at the Canadian National Trials. There he placed in second place, and as a result, Blake was named to Canada's Olympic team. He then set a new personal best just before the games, running 10.15 seconds in Stockholm in early July. As a part of the 4x100 m relay team, he won a bronze medal in the 4x100 m relay. On 18 February 2022,

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

was stripped of its silver medal in the men's 4×100 m relay after the

Court of Arbitration for Sport The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS; french: Tribunal arbitral du sport, ''TAS'') is an international body established in 1984 to settle disputes related to sport through arbitration. Its headquarters are in Lausanne, Switzerland and its c ...

confirmed CJ Ujah’s doping violation. Canada was upgraded to silver.

Individual success and World gold

Following the Olympic season, Blake enjoyed a breakout year in terms of individual results, beginning with an upset victory in the 100 m at the USATF Bermuda Games that saw him finish ahead of American stars

Noah Lyles Noah Lyles (born July 18, 1997) is an American professional track and field sprinter competing in the 100 meters and 200 meters. He is the 2020 Tokyo Olympic 200 m bronze medalist and a two-time World champion, having won the event at the ...

and Erriyon Knighton. On the

2022 Diamond League The 2022 Diamond League was the thirteenth season of the Diamond League, an annual series of outdoor track and field meetings, organised by World Athletics. The competition was a revision to the top level athletics series since the Diamond League ...

circuit, he won a bronze medal at the

British Grand Prix The British Grand Prix is a Grand Prix motor race organised in the United Kingdom by the Royal Automobile Club. First held in 1926, the British Grand Prix has been held annually since 1948 and has been a round of the FIA Formula One World C ...

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

. The Canadian relay team won gold in the 4×100 m at the same event. In the 200 m, Blake won the

Golden Spike Ostrava Golden Spike ( cz, Zlatá tretra) is an annual athletics event at the Městský Stadion in Ostrava- Vítkovice, Czech Republic as part of the IAAF World Challenge Meetings. It was first organized in 1961. The history of the meeting was interru ...

on May 31, narrowly beating

Elijah Hall USS ''Hall'' (DD-583) was a of the United States Navy. ''Hall'' entered service in 1943 and deployed to the Pacific theater. Following the war, the ship was placed in reserve until 1959, when she was sold to the Hellenic Navy and renamed ''Lonch ...

at the line. At the

2022 World Athletics Championships The 2022 World Athletics Championships was the eighteenth edition of the World Athletics Championships. It was held at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon, United States, from July 15–24, 2022, with the country hosting that competition for the f ...

Eugene, Oregon Eugene ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is located at the southern end of the Willamette Valley, near the confluence of the McKenzie and Willamette rivers, about east of the Oregon Coast. As of the 2020 United States Census ...

, Blake did not make it out of the heats of the

100 m 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit (measurement), unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment ...

, but qualified to the semi-finals of the

. Finishing third in his semi-final, he did not advance further, noting that it "wasn't what I wanted, but it is what it is. It's my first world championships, and I made it to the semifinals." In advance of the 4×100 m relay, the prospects of the Canadian team were called into question due to anchor runner

Andre De Grasse Andre De Grasse (born November 10, 1994) is a Canadian sprinter. A six-time Olympic medallist, De Grasse is the reigning Olympic champion in the 200 m, and also won the silver in the 200 m in 2016. He won a second silver in the 4×100 r ...

's struggles with

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

infection shortly before the championships. However, the Canadian team qualified for the finals with the third-fastest time in the heats, only 0.01 seconds out of second. In the final, the Canadians staged a major upset victory over the heavily favoured American team to take the gold medal, aided by smooth baton exchanges while the Americans made multiple fumbles, breaking the national record in the process. This was Canada's third gold in the event, and the others being consecutive Donovan Bailey-era wins in

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake strike ...

and

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

. The result "stunned" the heavily American crowd at

Hayward Field Hayward Field is a track and field stadium in the Northwestern United States, northwest United States, located on the campus of the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. It has been the home of the university's Oregon Ducks track and field, t ...

, though De Grasse noted, "there's a lot of Canadian flags out there, a lot of fans cheering us on." Blake ran an 8.86 time on the second leg of the race, critical to the result. Blake was initially named to the Canadian team for the

2022 Commonwealth Games The 2022 Commonwealth Games, officially known as the XXII Commonwealth Games and commonly known as Birmingham 2022, was an international multi-sport event for members of the Commonwealth of Nations that took place in Birmingham, England bet ...

but withdrew after the World Championships, with

Athletics Canada Athletics Canada or AC (french: Athlétisme Canada) is the national governing body of athletics in Canada, which includes track and field, cross-country running, road running, and race walking. Athletics Canada is involved in many aspects of the ...

citing a need "to properly recover and prepare for the rest of the season."

References

External links

World Athletics profile
1995 births Living people Canadian male track and field athletes Athletes (track and field) at the 2019 Pan American Games Canadian people of Jamaican descent Sportspeople from Burnaby Pan American Games competitors for Canada Jamaican emigrants to Canada Black Canadian track and field athletes People from Portland Parish Athletes (track and field) at the 2020 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic track and field athletes of Canada Olympic silver medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic silver medalists for Canada 20th-century Canadian people 21st-century Canadian people {{Canada-athletics-bio-stub