PARIS – Hey, at least they didn’t drop the baton.
The United States men actually got it around the track at Stade de France on Friday without stumbling, bumbling, fumbling it in the men’s 4×100 relay.
But get it around legally? Thought you said just don’t drop it.
The great joke is that life’s certainties include death, taxes and the U.S. men botching the 4×100 relay at the Olympics, the one event that should be a quadrennial lock given their embarrassment of sprinting riches.
Instead, it’s just embarrassment.
It’s always something. This time, it was the first exchange between Christian Coleman and Kenny Bednarek, when Bednarek took off early, stuck his hand back, got nothing, slowed to almost a stop, stuck his hand back and realized Coleman had passed him on the left, took the baton from a stand-still and chased after a field that was disappearing over the horizon.
The final two exchanges were decent, but the damage was done. The Americans finished seventh, then were disqualified once meet officials reviewed film of the race and noticed Coleman and Bednarek were in Lithuania when the exchange zone was in France.
“Me and Kenny have been on the team a few times,” Coleman said, “and we felt really confident going out there. It just didn’t happen this time. It’s part of the sport.”
No, it’s their part of the sport.
The last time they won gold in the 4×100? Sydney in 2000.
The last time they medaled? A silver in Athens in 2004 after a poor exchange allowed Great Britain to sweep past them for an improbable gold.
Beijing in 2008: Dropped the baton.
London in 2012: Finished second but later were stripped of the silver medal when Tyson Gay ran afoul of doping authorities.
Rio de Janeiro in 2016: Finished third and started their bronze-medal victory lap, only to learn they had been DQed because the first exchange was outside the zone.
Tokyo in 2021: Ronnie Baker reached back for the exchange between the second and third legs … and grabbed a fistful of Fred Kerley’s jersey. He reached back a second time and got air. He reached back a third time, and Kerley was even with him. They finished sixth in the prelims and didn’t qualify for the final.
“We just didn’t get the job done today, that’s all,” Kerley said in Tokyo.
“It is what it is,” Baker said.
Paris in 2024: Wash, rinse, repeat.
When pressed for answers, Kerley shot back at media: “Y’all say the same (expletive) over and over.”
An interesting choice of words, coming from a guy who said the EXACT SAME THING, word for word, on Friday as he did in Tokyo three years ago: “We didn’t get the job done.”
And Kyree King, who ran the third leg, parroted Baker’s words from Tokyo: “It is what it is.”
Kerley added: “I don’t think we’re disappointed. I think we’ve just got to learn from this and keep on going.”
Well, that’s sort of the problem, isn’t it? They’re not disappointed, and they don’t learn.
On the micro level, USA Track & Field doesn’t take relays seriously — nor do its athletes — with mandatory camps to perfect exchange fundamentals followed by races to test them under pressure, instead allowing agents to run the sport in the best interest of their individual clients.
On the macro level, that’s just our nation, our ethos, our DNA. We’re all about ourselves, me, me, me, even within a team culture. The U.S. men’s basketball team staged a historic comeback Thursday, down 17 against Serbia, to advance to the gold medal game, and Jason Tatum’s mother ranted on social media about why he didn’t play.
“If you find out what’s going on,” she tweeted, “please let me know—unacceptable and makes NO SENSE.”
Or take last year’s World Championships, on the rare occasion that the U.S. men actually had legal handoffs and finished first in the 4×100. Noah Lyles, who also won the individual 100 and 200, ran the anchor leg and crossed the line holding up three fingers to signify his third world title. Even in a team event, it was still all about him.
Friday’s 4×100 relay shouldn’t have been much of a race. All four members of the projected U.S. team had run 9.8s this season; Canada, which ended up winning, fielded a team with season bests of 9.98, 10.10, 10.15 and 10.23.
But then came the obligatory pre-race turmoil. After being heavily favored in the 200 and finishing third, Lyles claimed he had tested positive for COVID two days earlier and was sapped of energy. Except why, then, did he jump around 50 yards down the track when he was introduced, flailing his arms, screaming, expending precious energy?
And if he was so spent afterward that he had to be carted off the track in a wheeled medical chair, why did he magically recover to conduct an interview with NBC (at the risk of spreading COVID to dozens of other athletes in the interview area)?
Lyles ultimately withdrew from the 4×100, leaving the team to insert King and reshuffle the lineup.
King never got the baton because Coleman and Bednarek, who had run relays together before, suddenly couldn’t synchronize their internal clocks to the same time zone. One was in Paris, the other in Tokyo.
After the relay fiasco three years ago, U.S. sprint legend Carl Lewis tweeted: “The USA team did everything wrong in the men’s relay. The passing system is wrong, athletes running the wrong legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was a total embarrassment, and completely unacceptable for a USA team to look worse than the AAU kids I saw.”
Friday, like clockwork, came another post from Lewis, this one even angrier:
“It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at (USA Track & Field) is more concerned with relationships than winning. No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom.”
It won’t happen, of course. It’s the same (expletive) over and over. It is what it is.
Maybe, though, we can get Jason Tatum some playing time.
Originally Published: