Canada's Christopher Morales-Williams, centre, runs in a men's 400-meters heat at the 2024 Summer Olympics, on Aug. 4, in Saint-Denis, France.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
Many Canadians have not yet heard of Christopher Morales Williams. But they will soon.
He is a 20-year-old 400-metre specialist making his Olympic debut in Paris, a young sprinter who ran one of the world’s fastest times in that distance this year. Plus, he shares much in common with six-time Olympic medalist Andre De Grasse.
Morales Williams has worked with Tony Sharpe, the same coach who discovered De Grasse as a teenager, and Caryl Smith Gilbert, the same U.S. college coach De Grasse had. Both Canadian track athletes earned NCAA titles.
“They’re both super kind, super humble people who always have time for everyone; no bravado, no showmanship,” said Sharpe, the coach from Speed Academy, as he compared the two. “Similar elastic strength, so they’re not big, muscular power runners.”
The two Canadian Olympians, nearly 10 years apart in age, are similar but don’t know each other well. Just as De Grasse had turned heads with his big performances at the University of Southern California, Morales Williams had a monster season at the University of Georgia, where he won NCAA national championships in both the indoor and outdoor.
He ran 44.05 seconds in May at the Southeastern Conference Outdoor Track & Field Championships, a world-leading time until American Quincy Hall (43.80) and then Brit Matthew Hudson-Smith (43.74) bested it.
Morales Williams is already through his debut Olympic race, clocking a 44.96-second lap on Sunday to finish second in his first-round heat on the purple track inside Stade de France, advancing to Tuesday’s semi-final. But the young Canadian from Maple, Ont., isn’t putting any pressure on himself in Paris.
“I have nothing to lose, right? If I lose, I just go back to school and continue with my life,” he said.
Morales Williams turned pro just before the Olympics, signed a deal with Adidas and did some Diamond League races. But he plans to remain in Athens, Ga., to train at the University of Georgia and finish his degree in ecology.
He reasons his competitors in Paris have more pressure on them.
“These guys are like 30 years old, they’ve got cars and kids. I don’t even own a car. I don’t even have to pay for gas,” he said with a laugh. “What do I even need to worry about? Spending money on like pencils and notebooks and my scientific calculator?”
He was 15th fastest in the opening round heats, but says he came out slow to make sure he had enough fuel to finish the race. He knows he can be faster.
“The hardest part today was just getting the confidence to know that I actually belong here,” he said. “It was just a bit of a stress being in such a big level. It’s like you know, yeah, I’m just a kid from the NCAA.”
That 44.05 he ran in May turned heads. Compare that to the times at the Tokyo Olympics – only one competitor clocked a time faster than that in the men’s 400-metre final there in 2021, gold medalist Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas, who ran it in 43.85.
Morales Williams is enjoying his Olympic debut. He chatted with Grenada’s Kirani Jones after the race – the man who won his heat.
“I said I’m a big fan and he said likewise,” Morales recounted. “I don’t know. I guess they know who I am, right?”
Yes, they know him. And Canada is starting to learn about him, too.
When he was just 16 months old, Morales Williams lost his mother to lymphoma. He, his older sister and brother were raised by their father and their grandparents.
He became a young running phenom. In Grade 9, he eclipsed the Ontario Federation of School Athletic Associations record for the 400 in June of 2019, running it in 49.14.
“When you see a kid goes out and breaks an OFSAA record in Grade 9, you know he’s special, that just doesn’t happen,” Sharpe said. “OFSAA has been around for decades and many great athletes have run the 400 in Grade 9.”
That happened before the pandemic, so he didn’t have a track season at his school in Grades 10 or 11 because of school closures in Ontario. So Sharpe took Morales Williams to meets in the U.S. where races were continuing, his father paying some $200 in COVID tests every time they crossed the border.
Sharpe knew he was talented enough to land a scholarship to a U.S. college but many coaches were passing on the Canadian. But not Smith Gilbert, the woman who had led De Grasse at USC but by then was coaching at the University of Georgia.
“I remember Tony telling me, ‘I think I’ve got a 400 kid who is gonna be really good,’” De Grasse recalled. The Canadian Olympic medalist in the 100, 200 and 4x100-metre relay watched Morales Williams and was impressed at how fast he was running with form that could still use correcting.
“I’m like, okay. I see what I see what you see, Tony. He’s going to be good,” De Grasse added. “He’s doing all the right things, and I’m just excited to see how far he can take it.”
Morales Williams remembers De Grasse coming to visit the young athletes at Speed Academy and providing clothing for them, too. He and his brother got a photo taken with the Olympian.
Now he’s an Olympian just like De Grasse. Earlier this week, Morales Williams talked himself through his first race, correcting, pushing, not stressing, but digging deep to get himself qualified. He wanted to qualify directly with the best in the 400, not have to run an extra race in the repechage round.
“Nah, I’m not getting out this round. I don’t want to run that junky round tomorrow,” he said to himself.
Many of Morales Williams’s family members and supporters were in Paris watching. Some were inside Stade de France, while others, like Sharpe, watched that round on TV at Canada House in Paris but hope to be there in person for the semi-finals.
“He’s got another decade of incredible sprinting ahead of him,” Sharpe said. “So it’s quite exciting.”