'Kelowna boy through and through' Jerome Blake's Olympic gold!

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Updated: The Canadian men's 4 by 100-metre relay squad has been voted The Canadian Press team of the year for 2024. Andre De Grasse, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Aaron Brown raced to a surprising gold medal at the Paris Olympics. De Grasse pulled his team from third to first in the anchor leg to give Canada its first Olympic relay gold since 1996

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Original story

"That sounds really good, it has a ring to it."

That's the reaction from Kelowna's very own Jerome Blake when introduced as an Olympic gold medalist in an interview with Ara from 103.1 Beach Radio just before he left Paris for his next contracted competitive track meet.

The Rutland Secondary School educated sprinter celebrates his 29th birthday Sunday, just over a week after he anchored the second leg of a breathtaking men's 4 x 100 metre final at the Paris Games.

In that extraordinary performance out in lane 9, Aaron Brown handed Blake the baton before he blasted down the back straight to pass it on to Brendon Rodney who, in turn, handed it to Andre de Grasse for a scintillating 37.5 seconds of speed and super slick handling... well almost.

"He [Aaron] missed my hand three times, we were going so fast; most people didn't notice that, " Blake explained when reflecting on that first exchange. "I just left my hand there, I finally grabbed it [the baton], and just started motoring down the back stretch."

It's that speed of passing the baton in the zones that Blake explained is the difference between them and other teams, especially the United States, who, man for man are quicker on paper with better individual personal best times over 100 metres. In the Paris final the U.S. didn't contend after making a mess of one of their exchanges.

Blake said he needs to compete in a few more races because of his Nike contact before he can rest up and really let the notion of being an Olympic champion sink in. But chances are a few more people will stop him on the street to congratulate him if he's out and about in Kelowna.

"I'm a Kelowna boy through and through. That's where I was raised, I went to RSS," he said. "I'm a Rutland kid, my track club is Okanagan Athletics. In the summer, most people don't know, but I'm in the city. I'm very low key, I'm just hanging out doing my thing."

And what's the plan for the coming years?

"I've got a lot of running left in me," he said, noting he'd only been at the highest level for a relatively short period of time, while admitting he'd run plenty as a junior in Kelowna but had also skipped a lot of training as an adult.

"I'm only getting better and everything I'm doing is about making strides towards [Los Angeles] 2028. We [the gold medal team] have the good potential to come back and hey, maybe we'll win it again? You'll see the same four faces; maybe a little bit greyer but still fast!"