Clown Show: Carl Lewis Eviscerates US Men’s 4x100m Team After Tokyo Flop | Tokyo Olympics 2020

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The first time American sprinter Ronnie Baker tried to take over, he ended up with a handful of Fred Kerley’s jersey. The second time, Baker missed. On the third try, Kerley was side by side with Baker, practically using both hands to ram the stick into the palms of his teammates.

Names may change, but the results of the US Olympic 4x100m relay team remain just as brutal.

The exchange between Kerley and Baker destroyed the Americans in qualifying on Thursday, leading to a sixth place that left them out of the final and extended a quarter-century of misery for the country which brings the track team to the top. deeper at the Games.

We just haven’t done the job today. That’s it, said Kerley, who ran the second stage.

The outrage spread quickly, as it always does when it happens.

Team USA got it all wrong in the men’s relay, sprinter great Carl Lewis wrote on Twitter. The passing system is bad, the athletes are running on bad legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was utter and utterly unacceptable embarrassment for an American team to look worse than the AAU kids I’ve seen.

Lewis explained his instant judgment in an interview with USA Today, describing sixth place as a clown show.

It was about a football coach taking a team to the Super Bowl and losing 99-0 because they were completely ill-prepared, Lewis told the newspaper.

This is unacceptable. It’s so disheartening to see this because its people live. We were just playing games with people’s lives. This is why I am so upset. It is totally preventable. And America sets there rooting for America and then they have this clown show. I can not stand it anymore. It is just unacceptable. It is not difficult to take over.

The United States team has it all wrong in the men’s relay. The passing system is bad, the athletes are running on bad legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was utter and utterly unacceptable embarrassment for an American team to look worse than the AAU kids I’ve seen.

– Carl Lewis (@Carl_Lewis) August 5, 2021

The American men will not win a medal they counted on in what turns out to be a tough Olympic track competition. (Shot putter Ryan Crousers took home the gold medal around the same time the relay debacle was the men’s first victory over the seven-day competition.) angle.

The American men haven’t won the 4×100 at the Olympics since 2000 and haven’t reached the finish line in the final since winning a silver medal in 2012. But they did make it in because of a doping ban against Tyson Gay.

It was the first time the United States failed to reach the final since 2008, when Gay was embroiled in a failed trade. The United States reached the final in 2016, but got a DQd for another bad run in the medal race.

Trying to time perfectly with a few workouts is a bit difficult, but it is what it is, Baker said.

Indeed, the team haven’t practiced much, but it’s no different from any other country. All have had their training time restricted due to the coronavirus pandemic, both in Tokyo and in the year before it.

It didn’t seem to have an impact on China, Canada or Italy, who finished 1-2-3 in a qualifying round that most teams use more as training than a tough race.

It also didn’t have an impact on the American Women, a team led by Teahna Daniels and Javianne Oliver, who also competed in the individual sprints and estimated they had completed around five workouts with their teammates.

Cravon Gillepie of the United States reacts after the men’s 4x100m qualifying race on Thursday. Photograph: Petr David Josek / AP

When me and J were doing the 100 I know the rest of the ladies were really doing it with transfers and stuff, Daniels said. We trusted what they were doing and we kind of got closer to each other for that.

The men did not freeze. They often don’t.

This is the 10th time since 1995 that they have given a relay at the World Championships or the Olympic Games, either because of a disqualification, an abandoned stick, a doping violation or a faulty exchange, which led to the last result.

They had reason to believe that things were changing.

Usain Bolt once suggested that the Americans have a tendency to panic, especially knowing what might be needed to beat him and his Jamaican teammates on the line.

But with Bolt out of the mix and with Christian Coleman and Noah Lyles in the lineup, the United States secured a world championship victory in Qatar in 2019. The victory was sparked by a team reunion called by Coleman after a trembling stroke. qualification. They were on the same page, and after the finale Lyles shouted We broke the curse! We have broken the curse!

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Thank you for your opinion.

But Coleman is not at the Tokyo Olympics due to a ban involving failed doping tests.

And Lyles won a bronze in the 200m on Wednesday night, so he had a morning free.

Now he also has the rest of the week.

Honestly, I’m a little mad, not at these guys, they did what they could do, Trayvon Bromell, who ran the first leg, told NBC after the race. I did what I can do. I can really speak for myself in a way. Like I said these guys did their job, I did what I could. In the first leg, it’s really BS for real, to be honest with you.

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