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The U.S. men's 4x100m relay team was disqualified at the Paris Olympic Games for passing the baton outside the takeover zone and Justin Gatlin has given insight on how the team can learn from Team Jamaica and bounce back to winning ways.
Justin Gatlin has questioned why the American men’s 4x100m relay team was changed as the athletes went to the final in the Paris Olympic Games.
The 2004 Olympic champion claimed that there was no synergy among the athletes and changing their line up in the final was one of the costly mistakes that cost them a medal and led to the disqualification.
In the first round, Christian Coleman ran the first leg with Fred Kerley, Lindsey Courtney, and Kyree King running the subsequent legs. In the final, Coleman remained in the first leg but Kenny Bednarek was introduced in the second leg with King running third and Kerley running the anchor leg.
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11:30 - 18.08.2024
Justin Gatlin explains why Kishane Thompson lost 100m Olympic title to Noah Lyles
The former Olympic champion opened up on what might have cost Kishane Thompson a win over Noah Lyles in the men's 100m race at the Paris Olympic Games.
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“To go back and look at what happened to Team USA…I can’t for the life of me understand why you didn’t do a kind of plug-and-play move. You already got the job done in the prelims and ran 37:47 which would have won the final with that quartet,” Gatlin lamented in his Ready Set Go podcast.
“Why didn’t you just either keep Lindsey on anchor or either move Kenny to anchor and just keep that synergy going all the way around the track? I didn’t understand why you would recreate the wheel, for whatever reason and feel like you had to put Fred on the end,” he added.
He explained that the athletes could have been assigned the same lanes they ran in the first round, singling out Kerley who ran the second leg impressively.
Gatlin noted that before he retired, they struggled to get a gold medal in the relay because of the Jamaicans. He explained that the Jamaican quintet of Usain Bolt, Yohan Blake, Nesta Carter, Asafa Powell and Michael Frater gave them a run for their money.
He added that the U.S. has great sprinters and they could borrow a leaf from the Jamaicans on how to run the relay and bounce back to winning ways.
“The handoffs were shaky through the prelims but the fact that you have to build consistency, so they got it done the first time and they just needed to go back and do it again. It kind of leaves me with the question of like why would you go out there and try a whole new quartet in a whole different order?” Gatlin noted.
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09:12 - 19.08.2024
'Tebogo had 30,000 but I had no bus waiting'– American sprint king slams USA for not celebrating its Olympians
The Olympic champion has expressed his disappointment at the lukewarm reception Team USA athletes received back home despite their successful outing in Paris.
“In my era, we were not successful in getting that medal in a couple of Olympics. In those Olympics, you had Team Jamaica. Not only are you running against a quartet that can run with you or better than you, but it’s a fact that brings anxiety to the table.”
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