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This was not what Staff USA meant once they mentioned this 12 months’s monitor crew can be history-making.
For the primary time in Olympic historical past, male American runners have did not win a single gold medal. This comes two years after the US got here away from the 2019 World Championships in Doha with 14 golds, which hinted towards related Olympic success.
Now, the lads’s crew — that was favored to win a number of occasions — has fallen quick. Trayvon Bromell, who ran the quickest 100m time this 12 months, didn’t advance into the ultimate; world champion Donavan Brazier, who received the 800m race in Doha, didn’t even qualify for the Summer season Video games — within the Olympics, the U.S. got here in final in 800m.
World champion Noah Lyles received the bronze within the 200m. Grant Holloway and Rai Benjamin — who had been favored to win the 110m and 400m hurdles, respectively — each will go away Tokyo with silver medals of their occasions.
The efficiency of the U.S. crew has been observed by American monitor legends. On Thursday, when the lads’s 4×100 relay got here sixth in its warmth — the primary time in historical past People haven’t superior into the finals – Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson slammed the management of the monitor crew.
Lewis referred to to the relay as a “clown show” in an interview with USA At present, and mentioned the errors made by athletes had been fully avoidable.
“The USA crew did all the things mistaken within the males’s relay,” Lewis tweeted. “The passing system is mistaken, athletes working the mistaken legs, and it was clear that there was no management. It was a complete embarrassment, and fully unacceptable for a USA crew to look worse than the AAU children I noticed.”
Johnson referred to the race as “embarrassing and ridiculous.”
The thrown-together nature of the American relay teams, the quick time interval between the Olympic trials and the Video games and the choice to cancel a pre-Olympic coaching camp as a result of COVID-19 issues might have contributed to those performances.
“We haven’t been right here that lengthy, we received right here on quick discover,” 400m runner Michael Cherry mentioned after his fourth-place end on Thursday. “Each different crew had coaching camp, however that’s no excuse. We’re nonetheless anticipated to come back out right here and execute how we’re alleged to. it’s simply not taking place proper now.”
Cherry believes the younger age of the American crew in a sport the place veterans historically dominate can also be one of many explanation why the U.S. will not be choosing up many medals.
“We have now a really younger crew,” he mentioned, including, “We’re going to dominate quickly. Good now, we now have to develop up and modify.”
Nonetheless, Craven Gillespie, one of many runners on the 4×100 relay crew, was dissatisfied by america’ efficiency.
“We have now so many individuals, we’re so deep, that we are able to swap and do this stuff,” he mentioned. “However on the finish of the day it’s unacceptable and we now have to do higher.”
Some Olympians imagine that the medal deficit is overblown and People are too expectant due to sturdy showings in London and Rio. Matthew Centrowitz, who was a 2016 gold medalist that was eradicated earlier than the 1500m finals this 12 months, mentioned, “Earlier than 2012, nobody was profitable and I wouldn’t even say so much have been profitable. I don’t know what the expectation was. I do know we had extra medals in 2016, however that’s simply the way in which it goes generally.”
“I feel perhaps you guys simply took it without any consideration all these years,” he added.
The final hope for a gold medal for the lads’s monitor crew is the 4x400m relay. The People received their warmth and can compete on Saturday within the remaining, the final race in Tokyo. The U.S. males’s crew has received this race 17 occasions in 24 Olympics.
A squad of Trevor Stewart, Randolph Ross, Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood hopes to do the identical and stop a whole gold-medal shutout.
On the ladies’s aspect, the U.S. has picked up two gold medals from 400m hurdler Sydney McLaughlin and 800m track star Athing Mu.
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