Andre De Grasse to face Olympic 200m champion in season opener

Canada’s most decorated male Olympian, Andre De Grasse, will kick off his outdoor season at the Botswana Grand Prix Continental Tour Gold meet on April 12. De Grasse is set to race in his strongest event—the men’s 200m—where he will face defending Olympic champion Letsile Tebogo.

Star sprinters to headline the Botswana Golden Grand Prix! 🔥

Marie Josee Ta Lou-Smith, Leo Fabbri, Andre De Grasse, Wayde Van Niekerk, Letsile Tebogo, and Akani Simbine look set to headline the star-studded Botswana Golden Grand Prix on April 12th! pic.twitter.com/Cptl3Eg9qy

— World Athletics Hub (@wldathleticshub) March 31, 2025

This marks De Grasse’s first 200m race since reaching the Olympic semi-finals last August in Paris. The last time he competed at the Botswana Grand Prix was in 2023, a season in which he clocked 19.76 seconds and won a Diamond League title in the 200m event.

The 31-year-old from Markham, Ont., will face tough competition from Tebogo as well as South Africa’s 400m world record holder, Wayde van Niekerk, who is stepping down in distance.

Over the next few months, De Grasse will focus on achieving the 2025 World Championships entry standard of 20.16 seconds for the 200m. While he has already qualified for the men’s 100m event at the 2025 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo this September, he has yet to meet the qualification mark for the 200m.

So far in 2025, De Grasse has raced only once—a 60m indoor event in Kazakhstan in January, where he recorded a time of 6.74 seconds in both the heats and the final.

The seven-time Olympic medallist capped off his 2024 season on a high note, anchoring Canada to victory in the men’s 4x100m relay. This marked the country’s first Olympic gold in the relay since the 1996 Atlanta Games.

Tebogo enters the Botswana Grand Prix in fine form, having clocked an impressive 45.29 seconds in the 400m at the Maurie Plant Meet in Melbourne last week. Like De Grasse, this will be Tebogo’s first 200m race of the 2025 season.

You can watch or stream the event live from Canada on CBC Sports on the morning of Saturday, April 12.