Eugene, OR. – For the US women’s relay team, this was a shock.
For men – more than the same.
The women took home a stunning victory over Jamaica in the 4×100 relay race at the world championships on Saturday, while the men’s favorites finished second after exchanging dirty batons in what has been a ritual since before anyone on this team was born.
Andre Degrasse beat Marvin Brassey by 0.07sec to lead Canada to victory in the men’s race in 37.48sec.
Brassie fell behind in the anchor’s leg after turning back twice and inhaled in exchange from Elijah Hall, who fell to the ground after putting the stick in his teammate’s hand at the end.
Brassey wrote on Twitter before hitting the interview area: “No cleanliness is costing us the race. No excuses. We let you all down my apologies.”
American women have only felt love. The United States was clearly targeted for the Jamaican team that won all but one of the six sprint medals in this encounter, as Tanisha Terry beat 200 gold medalist Sherica Jackson with a victory in 0.04 seconds.
She celebrated by doing a “dirt bike dance,” jumping on one foot as she revs into the handlebars of her super-fast imaginary bike.
“I just felt like the crowd was going crazy,” Terry said. “It was very electrifying.”
The American team, which also included Melissa Jefferson, Abby Steiner and Gina Brandini, finished at 41.14.
Shelley-Ann Fraser-Price of Jamaica has kept her streak alive. She’s won gold or silver in every world relay she’s been a part of, dating back to 2007. However, no one in Jamaica has entered the relay considering second place this year.
The Jamaica squad included all three runners from the 100m sweep last weekend and both members finished 1-2 in the 200. Her fate may have been sealed in a chaotic first pass between Kimba Nelson and Elaine Thompson-Herrah.
“I don’t think there’s a medal just for Jamaica,” said Fraser-Price. “We have to go there and we have to work like everyone else.”
The United States took all six medals in the men’s 100 and 200 races.
Relays proved, once again, that net speed isn’t all that matters in these races.
“You can have the fastest sprinter, but if there’s no harmony and no confidence, and the stick doesn’t move during the exchange, you won’t produce that fast time,” Terry explained.
Although the American men will come out with a medal this time around – they have been disqualified in six of the last 13 worlds and three of the last four Olympics – this cannot be framed as anything but an unsatisfactory result.
“You can get out of here with nothing,” Brassey said. “But we have to clean it up. We have a lot of work to keep getting better at.”
De Grasse, the 200-meter Olympic champion, could barely climb his stairs four weeks ago while recovering from Covid-19. He failed to pass the 100m heats last weekend and withdrew from the 200m race altogether.
He won the gold with a team that also included Aaron Brown, who finished seventh in the 200 and 8 in 100, Jerome Blake, who did not make the final in either, and Brendon Rodney, who was part of the Canadian relay group. .
“Once I got the stick, I was like, ‘Okay, I’m neck and neck with the US and now I have to do what I can do,'” de Grasse said. “Party them.”
The US put together the same lineup as they did during the day before the competitions, thus leaving a handful of speed and medalists – Trayvon Brommel, Erion Knighton, Kenny Bednarek and injured Fred Curley – on the bench.
The hall remained. His biography: He placed fifth in the Nationals 100 this year, but also took home the NCAA relay title in 2018 at the University of Houston, where legend, Carl Lewis, is also a frequent critic of the American relay operation. training for years.
Brassey said, “We tried to put together a team to have some kind of continuity and get over the problem. We did a good job yesterday. We just tried to go out and do the same today. It didn’t work out for us… and we took the ‘L’.”
Think one for guys: Take a page out of the book written by Michelle Louis Freeman, women’s relay coach.
Her team consisted of the eighth in the 100 (Jefferson), the fifth in the 200 (Steiner) and two more (Brandini and Terry) who never made it out of the semi-finals.
The initial pass between Jefferson and Steiner may not have been surprisingly smooth, but neither was the pass from Jamaica.
Terry took the baton for the anchor leg, about four steps ahead of Jackson, who two nights earlier had the second-fastest time ever in the 200 (21.45).
Jamaica closed its doors and closed some more, but as Terry bowed to the streak, she claimed America’s first worlds win in that race since 2017, when Fraser-Price was out after giving birth to her child.
She gave the United States 28 relay medals for the match, just three after setting a world championship record. She will be favored for medals in the men’s and women’s 4×400 and women’s 800 races with Olympic champion Athing Mu.
Other winners on Saturday included Kenya’s Emmanuel Kipkoroi Kurier in the men’s 800, Godaf Tsegae of Ethiopia in the women’s 5000, Anderson Peters of Grenada in the men’s javelin, and Portugal’s Pedro Picardo, who cemented his Olympic title with his world title in the men’s triathlon. jump.
The evening also saw a curtain call (one last?) for Alison Felix, who was lured back to the world stage to run the races in the Women’s 4×400 Race.
It set Felix to win her 20th World Championships medal, and her 14th gold after Sunday’s final. The United States has won the 4×400 in seven of the past nine worlds.
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