Background
Surin was born in Cap-Haïtien, Haïti, and moved to Canada with his family in 1975.
Surin was born in Cap-Haïtien, Haïti, and moved to Canada with his family in 1975.
In 2008 he was inducted into Canada"s Sports Hall of Fame as part of the 1996 Summer Olympics 4x100 relay team In the 100 metres, he has broken the 10-second barrier multiple times and holds a personal record of 9.84 seconds. He made his debut for Canada at the 1987 Pan-American Games, placing fifteenth in the long jump, a result he repeated at the 1988 Olympics.
After the Olympic Games in Seoul in 1988, manager Enrico Dionisi brought Surin to Siena and he was trained by the Italian coach Franco Barucci.
Barucci persuaded Surin away from his favoured long jump event, in favour of the 100 m. Barucci predicted he could run 10.10 seconds for the event.
However, in the 4 × 100 m relay final, the Canadian team beat United States by almost half a second, establishing itself the best relay team in the world. Surin also reached the semifinal of 100 m in the same competition.
His time matched Donovan Bailey"s Canadian record of 9.84.
At the time, this was the fastest losing time in a 100 m race. At the 2000 Summer Olympics, Surin, one of the gold medal favorites, had not fully recovered from a leg injury sustained at the Canadian championships earlier that summer, and was eliminated in the semifinals of the 100m after slowing down visibly in pain and walking the rest of the way through the finish line. His last major championship race was in the semifinals of the 100 m at the 2001 World Championships, where he injured himself again and was pushed off the track in a wheelchair.
In 2009, Surin became the new Canadian 50 meters record holder (40-45 age group) with a time of 6.15s at the McGill Open.
In 2009, a biography cowritten by Bruni Surin and Saïd Khalil entitled Bruny Surin, le lion tranquille was published by Éditions Libre Expression in Montreal. The book covers Bruny Surin recounting 17 years of his sports career.
In the book, Surin criticizes doping, describing it as a gangrene that ails athletics and all other sports.
At the 1991 World Championships, Surin was eighth in the 100 m, and at the 1992 Summer Olympics he was 4th in the 100m and reached the semifinals as a member of Canadian 4 × 100 m relay team