Sprint legend unloads on US track system after bungled men’s relay

The greatest US sprinter of all time, Carl Lewis, has called for the country’s track system to be “blown up” after a bungled men’s 4x100m relay at the Olympics.

The US team was disqualified on Friday night, Paris time, in the sprint relay, prompting Lewis to call for an overhaul of the American system.

The team ran without 100m Olympic champion Noah Lyles after he won bronze in the 200m despite having COVID and complaining of sickness.

The baton handover between Chris Coleman and Kenneth Bednarek was fumbled and ended up happening outside the legal zone.

“It is time to blow up the system,” Lewis wrote on social media.

“This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at [USA Track & Field] is more concerned with relationships than winning.

Chris Coleman (right) struggles to hand the baton to US teammate Kenneth Bednarek.Credit: AP

“No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom.”

By the time Fred Kerley took the baton for the anchor lap, the US were in seventh place. They ended up being disqualified for the illegal pass.

“It just didn’t happen,” Coleman said. “Maybe we could have put in some more work. I just think, in the moment, it didn’t happen.”

The men’s team has now gone 20 years without an Olympic medal in the event.

Instead, Andre De Grasse put a bright mark on his otherwise disappointing Olympics by anchoring Canada to gold in a time of 37.50 seconds.

It was De Grasse’s first medal in Paris and the Canadians’ first in the one-lap relay since Donovan Bailey anchored them in 1996. South Africa finished second and Britain third.

“We’ve been together since 2021, or 2019, even,” De Grasse said. “We all train in Florida. We always practise for this moment. We know what we’re capable of.”

In a previous interview last week with the Associated Press, Lewis suggested experts in the US should develop a relay manual and send it to every high school coach in the country.

“The issue has always been politics, has always been drama, has always been deception,” Lewis said. “If they can eliminate those things, there’s no question they have the fastest team in the world.”

Most of the problems over the years – and this week – have been towards the front. On Thursday, in qualifying, Coleman handed to Kerley with his right hand while grabbing Kerley’s arm with his left – an awkward exchange that didn’t prove costly.

This one did. The only US podium finish during its dry spell was a silver in 2012 that was later stripped due to doping.

“At the end of the day, we knew what we could do,” said Kyree King, who ran the third leg. “We came out here, and we had the mindset of no risk, no reward, so we went out there and went big. It didn’t happen.”

Sha’Carri Richardson anchors the US to gold in the women’s 100m relay.Credit: AP

However, there was redemption for US superstar Sha’Carri Richardson, who powered the Americans to victory in the women’s 4x100m relay for her first Olympic gold.

“I was very comfortable with these ladies,” Richardson said of a foursome that includes her training partners, 100m bronze medallist Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry, and 200m champion Gabby Thomas.

Richardson received the baton from Thomas in third place.

By the halfway point of her leg, Richardson had overcome runners from Britain and Germany. She glanced to her right – and backwards — and gave a look of “you’re not catching me”, then took eight more steps.

On the ninth one, Richardson slammed her left foot on the ground over the finish line and let out a yell.

A bad pass between Thomas and Terry in qualifying, which could have ruined their Olympics, became nothing but a distant memory. And Richardson, a few days later than some expected, is an Olympic champion.

The Americans won in 41.78 seconds, for a .07-second win over Britain, who struggled with two baton changes in the rain.

“I just remember trusting Gabby and knowing that she’s going to put this thing in my hand no matter what,” Richardson said, “and to leave my best on the track.”

With AP

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