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TOKYO — The U.S. males’s monitor crew arrived on the Tokyo Olympics with lofty expectations and swagger to spare. That they had gold-medal favorites in not less than 5 occasions. Reigning world champions in two. And a believable purpose of sweeping gold within the short-distance occasions for the primary time since 2004.
“Shoot, why not sweep all of them?” Noah Lyles stated on the Olympic trials in June. “Why not go prime three in every one? I do not assume it is loopy.”
These expectations set a excessive bar for the U.S. crew in Tokyo.
And in the end, it was a bar they didn’t come near clearing.
Within the 10 particular person males’s monitor occasions on the Tokyo Video games, 9 nations got here away with not less than one gold – and the U.S., for the primary time in fashionable Olympic historical past, was not amongst them. The Individuals earned only one relay gold, in the 4×400 on the last night of competition. They are going to return dwelling with 4 silvers, and two bronzes. However particular person gold eluded them.
Rai Benjamin, who won silver in the 400-meter hurdles, chalked the crew’s efficiency as much as inexperience.
“Our crew is younger, and lots of people do not perceive that,” Benjamin stated. “They’re simply used to seeing USA going out and profitable gold. However they do not perceive that we’re in a transition interval.”
It is simple to explain the boys’s exhibiting on the monitor as a flop, and in some methods, it definitely was.
The U.S. had produced the 2 quickest occasions on the planet this 12 months within the 400 meters and did not medal. Trayvon Bromell, who entered because the heavy favourite within the males’s 100-meter sprint, didn’t even qualify for the ultimate. Nor did the men’s 4×100 relay, whose members had run six of the eight quickest occasions in 2021 previous to the Olympics.
But it is also honest to wonder if the expectations coming into the Video games, which have been largely based mostly on the 2019 world championships, may need been set too excessive.
The U.S. males gained 9 medals on the monitor at these championships in Doha, Qatar, together with six golds. However two of the golds got here in relays. And two of the person world champions have been absent in Tokyo; Christian Coleman is serving a suspension for whereabouts violations, and Donavan Brazier did not make the crew.
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Within the remaining two occasions, the 200-meter sprint and 110 hurdles, the U.S. did not win gold however got here agonizingly shut. Kenny Bednarek was seven-hundredths of a second away from gold within the former, and Grant Holloway fell just .06 seconds shy within the latter. Elsewhere, within the 400 hurdles, Benjamin broke the earlier world report by greater than half a second however needed to accept silver as a result of Norway’s Karsten Warholm did the identical.
“As athletes, all of us put stress on ourselves,” Benjamin stated. “Nobody comes right here with the intention of dropping. All of us wish to win. That is what we’re right here for.”
In different circumstances, fractions of a second in the end left an American off the rostrum altogether. Devon Allen was .04 seconds from a bronze medal within the 110 hurdles. Michael Cherry completed .02 out of third place within the 400.
Cherry advised that the U.S. males will take the Tokyo Video games as a studying expertise, noting that a lot of its gold-medal threats have been competing of their first Olympics. Holloway and 400-meter favourite Michael Norman are 23. Benjamin and Lyles are 24.
“It takes time to be nice,” Benjamin stated. “Usain Bolt did not exit to the Olympics and win gold his first Video games. However everybody’s used to seeing Usain Bolt and placing him on this gentle, that each time he steps onto the monitor, he will win gold. So I believe folks have to know that we’re getting there.”
With seven medals in monitor occasions, the U.S. males completed largely consistent with their performances in Rio in 2016 and in London in 2012, the place they gained eight and 7 medals, respectively. It’s significantly remniscient of London, one other Video games by which the American males earned only one gold medal.
The U.S. girls, in distinction, gained 10 medals in monitor occasions in Tokyo, together with three golds.
“Being on the USA crew, it is like ‘gold-gold-gold,’ ” stated Cravon Gillespie, the anchor on the boys’s 4×100 relay crew. “However on the finish of the day, you need to exit right here and you need to carry out. You’ll be able to’t simply count on them handy you a medal.”
Contributing: The Related Press
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on Twitter @Tom_Schad.
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