'Slow cooking': Jerome Blake enjoying journey to become Canada's fastest sprinter

Jerome Blake's rise to becoming Canada's fastest man this season has been a matter of "slow cooking."

The sprinter from Kelowna, B.C., has enjoyed a career year, in which he's added another layer to with his first national title on Sunday in Ottawa. Blake, who turns 30 on Aug. 18, set a new meet record of 19.95 seconds, the first time he's gone sub-20 across 200 metres.

He also went sub-10 in the 100 for the first time in his career on June 21, running 9.97 in Germany. Blake, who was disqualified for a false start in the 100 semis at the Canadian track and field championships, also owns a win over 2023 world bronze medallist in the 100, Botswana's Letsile Tebogo, on July 15 in Italy.

"What a lot of people don't seem to understand is, yeah, I'm turning 30 [on Aug. 18] but in theory, I've only been training for five or six years as a professional," Blake said. "Because before that I was running club track. And club track is like, you start in October, you finish in July or early August and that's it.

"Most of the time during club track, I would only train three days a week, two days a week. The rest of the time I'm spending on a film set or doing model shoots, so I never really took it very serious."

Blake's move to Florida in 2020 to work with famed coach Dennis Mitchell turned things around.

"Moving to Florida really gave me an experience," Blake said. "Going training with Dennis Mitchell and understand that there's a different level of training and understanding that it's going to take more than just two days a week training.

"And now, I'm in a place where I'm very happy, and I understand the type of work we need to do to get to where I need to get. I call it … slow cooking. It's been good."

Much of Blake's time in the limelight until this year has come from his contributions to the Canadian men's 4x100 relay team that won world championship gold in 2022 and Olympic gold in 2024 alongside Andre De Grasse, Aaron Brown and Brendon Rodney. He joined the quartet in 2019, with the other three having been together since 2015.

Blake says a change of environment and good health have helped him put together the season he has had. He's currently in his second season training with coaches Ryan Freckleton, Ryan Thomas and Rana Reider in Florida.

"As an athlete, you need to be in an environment where you're wanted, seen, understood, right? For instance, my previous coach was a tremendous coach. ... But in a sense, it wasn't the right environment for me," he said.

"Sprinting is one of those things where you start relearning smaller details, your body doesn't move the same, you don't recruit the same muscles as you used to with the previous coach, you don't do things the same way anymore. So, for me, it took a while for that to click and then now, I'm finding it's working for me."

Winning a national title was "a bit of a hump" to get over for Blake. He says he's learned to be patient and not rush his races, adding "wanting to win can sometimes mess with you."

Blake has qualified for the 100 and 200 at the Sept. 13-21 World Athletics Championships in Tokyo. He isn't placing any pressure on himself when visualizing that moment in time.

"The aim is to make the finals. And once you're in the finals, then you go from there," he said. "It's not to put pressure on myself to go out there and say, I have to do anything. But for me, it's just one run at a time, one race at a time, and just take it from there.

"I'm not going to allow the fact that I've run nine seconds and 19 seconds force me to think that I must do anything because that's not how sports work. It's one of those things where anything can happen in a day."

But that's not to say he doesn't think there's room to grow.

"After the race, re-watching the tape and just seeing there's so much more room there to go faster because I made so many mistakes [at nationals]," he said.