Canadians play minor roles while Bolt and Blake the stars of 200-metre preliminaries at London Olympics

You would hate to say the Canadians played minor roles, but let's be honest here. The stars of the show during Tuesday's 200-metre preliminaries at the London Olympic Games were Usain Bolt and Yokan Blake.

If the 200 metres were a movie the two Jamaicans would have top billing. The names Aaron Brown, Jared Connaughton and Tremaine Harris wouldn't appear until the final credits.

Bolt, who repeated as the 100-metre Olympic champion Sunday night, and Blake easily advanced to Wednesday night's semifinals. Brown of Toronto and Connaughton of Charlottetown, P.E.I., were also among the 24 runners who made the cut.

Brown, 20, was timed in 20.55 seconds to equal his personal best. The 27-year-old Connaughton was clocked in 20.72. Harris, 20, of Toronto didn't advance. He ran a time of 20.70 seconds in his heat but finished fifth.

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Bolt, the defending 200-metre champion and world record holder, was clocked in a leisurely 20.39. Blake, who took silver in the 100 metres, was 20.38. Ecuador's Alex Quinonez, timed in 20.28, Jamaica's Warren Weir in 20.29, and France's Christian Lemaître in 20.34 where all faster than the 100-metre medallists.

"I was taking it as easy as possible,'' Bolt told Reuters. "I'm looking forward to tomorrow.''

Blake also barely broke a sweat.

"I'm feeling good,'' he said. "I've trained for this.

"The track is fast. Usain is really fast. But I'm in great shape. Anything is possible."

The Canadians know things are going to get much harder before Thursday's final.

"It's going to be tough,'' Connaughton told Postmedia. "It'll probably take 20.20 to make it, so it's a lot to ask for.

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"I'm in good shape. Hopefully things pan out. I wish I had continued through the line and won [the heat], because it sets me up better for the next round. I did the same thing almost identically in Beijing. I shut it down and got nipped at the end. But getting through was the objective."

Brown, seen as a rising Canadian star, admitted some nerves performing before a near-capacity crowd at the Olympic Stadium.

"Man, I've been at world youth, I've been at world juniors, I've been at Pan-Ams (but) nothing compares to this,'' he said. "You can put them all together you still won't get what you get here at the Olympics,.

"It's something else. I wasn't prepared for that. It's crazy."

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