As the pair crossed Bolt shot another huge smile and even laughed with De Grasse who was flicking back his own cheeky grin.
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After the race, speaking to BBC, Bolt said: “Andre was supposed to slow down!” He sped up, caught up and suddenly, the two were nose-to-nose, peering and smiling at each other down the stretch.
The Jamaican superstar comfortably won his semi-final race clocking 19.79 seconds to move into the finals.
Speaking after the race, the 19-year-old old said he never expected to go this far in the Olympic Games. “I don’t know what he was trying to do”. He’s great. He has a lot of talent.
Despite the absence of American Justin Gatlin and Jamaica’s Yohan Blake, the rest of the final has several medal threats that could force their way into the narrative.
Some things don’t change much in track and field at the Olympics: Usain Bolt easily advanced Wednesday night to the 200-meter final. “I was a bit lazy but I got round”, said Bolt, who is aiming to win his third triple batch of Olympic gold medals in Rio.
He’ll be joined in the final by LaShawn Merritt of the US, Britain’s Adam Gemili, Christophe Lemaitre of France and Turkey’s Ramil Guliyev. Both men qualified handily for Thursday’s final, but it was how they did it that turned heads. He set the record at the 2009 World Championships in Athletics in Berlin and is unbeaten over 200m since 2007.
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“I need to run efficiently and get into the straight and run the flawless race – if I can run a little more efficiently on the turns”.
