Canada's track team has bright future after exceeding expectations in Rio

Canada's Andre De Grasse, left to right, Brendon Rodney and Aaron Brown watch the scoreboard following the men's 4x100-metre relay final at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on Friday, August 19, 2016. (Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press)

RIO DE JANEIRO -- Peter Eriksson was worried when the sun went down on Day 1 of the Olympic track and field competition.

The team had arrived in Rio shouldering big expectations after a historic eight-medal performance at last summer's world championships.

The Athletics Canada head coach is a big believer in momentum, so the aim was to hit the ground running in Rio.

But just two of the 12 athletes who competed on Day 1 made it past the first round, and world heptathlon silver medallist Brianne Theisen-Eaton didn't have a great day.

"I remember coming back to the village and thinking 'Ugh, this is not what I wanted,"' said Eriksson, the head coach of Athletics Canada. "I talked to John Atkinson (Swimming Canada's high performance director), about 'How did it start out for you?'

"He said 'We didn't have a great day but it just picked up, so don't give up.' That was his advice, and we never gave up. But if you don't start out well, the ship sinks. I was worried, big time."

The track and field team would go on to win six medals, its best finish in a non-boycotted Olympics since 1932, where Canada captured nine medals.

Derek Drouin's bronze in high jump four years ago in London was Canada's only track and field medal. The team won two medals in 2008 in Beijing. Before that: zero in 2004 in Athens, and zero in 2000 in Sydney.

In fact, other than the 1984 Los Angeles Games, which numerous countries boycotted, Canada hasn't won more than three medals going all the way back to 1936.

Theisen-Eaton got the ball rolling with bronze in the heptathlon. Sprint phenom Andre De Grasse raced to three -- becoming the first Canadian track athlete to win three medals since 1932. Drouin captured gold, Damian Warner won bronze in the decathlon, and the men's 4x100 raced to bronze.

Melissa Bishop also finished fourth in the women's 800 metres, breaking her own Canadian record. Her result was one of four Canadian fourth-place finishes and one of five national records broken.

This young and talented team competes with a quiet sense of confidence that sprouted, said Eriksson, out of the London Olympics.

"They felt that they under-performed at the Games in London," he said. "Their mindset the whole time since has been about performance."

That confidence grew with good performances at both the 2013 and 2015 world championships, and last summer's Pan American Games in Toronto.

"Last year a lot of people didn't expect us to come out with eight championship medals at the worlds," De Grasse said. "We just want to go out and prove to the world that we can compete with the best. Everyone always talks about the U.S., the Jamaicans, they're always winning all the medals and we just want to be a part of that conversation."

Still, Eriksson said the team in Rio exceeded expectations "big-time."

"Because our (goal) has always been two to three medals, and even though we did well at the worlds last year, we can't change it to say 'Well, we did eight, now we're going to do eight again,' it doesn't work that way because this a much tougher environment," Eriksson said. "So we'll always take two to three, nothing more, nothing less."

Anything past two or three was "icing on he cake," he said, but should help immensely when Athletics Canada meets with funding partners such as Own The Podium and B210 to talk funding for the future.

Eriksson pointed out that while De Grasse was the talk of the track in Rio, there were other excellent performances that went under the radar, but bode well for the future.

Mobolade Ajomale, who's just 20, ran the anchor leg of the 4x100 relay in the heats, in place of De Grasse, and the team recorded the second fastest time in Canadian history. De Grasse replaced him for the final, and the team broke Canada's 20-year-old record.

"There is a lot of those youngsters that you don't see much of, but they're here and they're performing quite well," Eriksson said.

He also mentioned Johnathan Cabral, who was an unexpected finalist in the 110-metre hurdles, finishing sixth.

"Fantastic performance, so that's good for the future," Eriksson said.

Canada should only lose a handful of athletes to retirement, so the future looks bright.

Who does he expect to make up the backbone of Canada's team in 2020 in Tokyo?

"I would like to see Melissa Bishop continue, Damian Warner, and of course Andre . . . Aaron Brown," he said. "There are quite a few of those athletes who are up there that will continue."