By OMAR HAFEZ -- SLAM! Sports
 If 1999 was a sign of things to come, then 2000 could very well be Bruny Surin's year.
 
 The Canadian sprint sensation from Montreal, Quebec finally proved to the world once and for all, that he is a force to be reckoned with.
 
 "I don't want to get too excited, but I'm expecting really great things to happen this summer," Surin told the Toronto Sun.
 
 It would be fitting though, almost a story book ending, if Surin could cap his great career with gold.

Canada's Bruny Surin, seen here running to a silver medal in the 100 metres at the 1995 World Championships in Goteburg, Sweden

 
 The track God's know he has earned it. After dipping below the 10 second mark in the 100 metre dash, Surin tied Donovan Bailey's national record (which was also a world record for almost four years) of 9.84 seconds. That time was good enough to win him the silver medal at the 1999 World Championships in Sevilla, Spain. The only man to ever run faster is two-time world champion American Maurice Greene, who holds the world record of 9.79 seconds.
 
 Before last year, it was a battle for almost a decade. Not on the track, but off of it.
 
 Surin emerged as an elite sprinter shortly after the Ben Johnson scandal in 1988. That year, Johnson was stripped of his gold medal at the Seoul Olympics after testing positive for anabolic steriods.
 
 Following that, the world and especially Canada, raised their eyebrows as to question the credibility of the sport. Surin was constantly enduring the critics off the orange oval. Although he was not posting world record times, he was consistently around the 10-second-flat mark.
 
 He made the 100 metre final at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona and finished a very impressive fourth. The following winter in Toronto, he won his first of two World Indoor 60 metre titles.
 
 1995 would be a pivotal year. It would put Canada back on the map in world class sprinting. New found rival and fellow countryman, Donovan Bailey burst onto the scene. Bailey won the 100 metre at the World Championships in Goteburg, Sweden while Surin place second. A bigger victory came a week later when Canada's 4x100 metre relay team brought home the gold, sending a message out the United States and the world that Canada was back for good.
 
 One year later at the Atlanta Olympics, Surin failed to make the 100 metre final, a final where four runners went under 10 seconds, and Donovan Bailey led them all setting a world record of 9.84 seconds. Surin did, however, bounce back to run a tremendous third leg in the one-lap relay as Canada drilled the United States on their home turf, and narrowly missed the world record of 37.40 seconds.
 
 In hindsight, Surin moved out of Ben Johnson's shadow and right into another: Donovan Bailey's. Until last summer. Having already run under 9.90 (9.89 in Montreal in 1998), Surin was ready to for another breakthrough. And he delivered, only losing to Maurice Greene (9.80) in a close finish.
 
 But you would never hear any gloating from Surin, who is a native of Haiti.
 
 "That's not me," says Surin, "I don't like being too flashy."
 
 It seems only fitting that at the peak of his career come the biggest Games of his life. After all of his struggles and his successes, now it seems, it is Surin's time, and his time only, to shine.