4 x 100m American Relay: When Failure Becomes Chronic | Sports | DW

The rule of the old master was devastating. Sprint legend Carl Lewis tweeted that the US sprinter’s relay team “did everything wrong” during the preliminary round in Tokyo. “The delivery of the baton was wrong, the order of the athletes was wrong, and it was clear that there was no one in the lead.” The 60-year-old Lewis won a total of nine gold medals at the Olympics between 1984 and 1996, two of them in the 4x100m relay. “It was embarrassing and completely unacceptable for an American team to present a worse picture than that of the children of Al Ain University [Amateur-Leichtathletik-Verband der USA – Anm. d. Red.]I saw “The Great Carl” wrap up his rant.

Travon Brommel, Fred Curley, Ronnie Baker and Cravon Gillespie only finished sixth in their preliminary run in Tokyo with a time of 38.10sec and thus missed the final. Even the German sprinter’s relay was faster by 38.06 seconds and qualified for the finals by time.

The 4x100m relay was once considered an almost safe gold bank for the United States. In the ten Summer Games between 1964 and 2000, the American quartet was a seven-time Olympic champion, and in 1980 in Moscow they were not there due to a boycott of the Games.

For the fourth time in a row without a medal

Since the silver medal in Athens in 2004, the failure of American relay runners has become almost a tradition. In 2008 in Beijing, American boys – as they are now in Tokyo – failed in advance. In 2012 in London, the American quartet initially won the silver behind Jamaica, but had to return the medal three years later – because season member Tyson Gay was later convicted of doping with anabolic steroids. In 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, the first American runners ended up ranked bronze behind Jamaica and Japan, but were then disqualified: They passed the club outside the permitted area when they made the switch.

exercise too little

Sprinter Brommel, who holds the world’s best annual time over 100 metres with 9.77 seconds, started service after the relay went bankrupt in Tokyo. “To be honest, this is really a bachelor’s degree [amerikanische Abkürzung für Bullshit]’,” said the 26-year-old, who was surprisingly eliminated in the 100m semi-final.

The final runner Gillespie also found it “frustrating to come here and come home with nothing.” The 25-year-old was asked why the now chronically poor season in the United States. “I don’t want to piss anyone off, but we definitely need a little more practice,” Gillespie replied. The question was when did they start training. Gillespie evaded first, then meekly admitted: “Two days ago.”