At
age seven, Bruny Surin, born, Cap-Haitien, Haiti, 1967, came to Canada
,joining both his mother and father who had preceded him and his sister
to Montreal by one year. His first track and field events were the long
and triple jumps but he switched to sprinting, 1989, the same year he won
the first of six Canadian Championships in the 100 metres. A member of
the 4x100m relay team which won a Gold Medal at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics,
Bruny is a four-time World Champion (two outdoor – 4x100m Relay, two indoor
– 60m), a Commonwealth Champion, and one of the World’s fastest humans
throughout the 1990s in both the 100 metres as well as the 50/60 metres.
Bruny enjoyed the finest outdoor season of his career, 1999. At the World
Championships, Seville, Spain, he clocked 9.84 seconds in the 100m, equalling
Donovan Bailey’s 1996 world record time for that event which, in the same
race, was broken by U.S. sprinter Maurice Greene who won the Gold Medal
in 9.79 seconds. Bruny’s Silver Medal time was the third fastest 100 metres
in history. Bruny’s wife, Bianelle Legros-Surin, is his manager. Together
they have two daughters and reside as a family in a Montreal suburb where
he is coached by Michel Portmann, Professor of Kinanthropology, University
of Quebec. In this view, Bruny Surin, at the World Championships, Seville,
Spain, 1999, demonstrates his strength in a 100-metre quarter final. [Photo,
courtesy Peter J. Thompson]