I wish people would stick to words over abbreviations when the thing abbreviated isn't a commonality.... I thought there was some pizzagate type made up story-story about pedophilia that I had missed, ffs....
The US took what was a bit of a fallow year in the pool and turned it into near complete domination on the track. The caribbean nations haven't been as competitive in the sprints this year and that is helping us out tremendously. And we've shown up in the middle distances on the men's side in ways we haven't in a while.
Was a bad start by the 2nd leg and overran the handoff zone. Wouldn't say schoolboy as it's incredibly difficult to judge when at race speed, but it's not an error you should be making in the Olympics.
But the handoff has always been the bugbear of the various US teams. You lose the 4X100m for 3 reasons: not fast enough, bad handoff, exchange outside the zone. An exchange outside the zone is a bad handoff anyway. It’s not unusual for the US to have 2 or 3 sprinters in the 100/200m finals and the word is that the relay is really only an add-on for these sprinters. “When I’ve finished my 100m reps I’ll spend 30 minutes on the relay with fill-in runners”. Apparently it’s not entirely unusual for the second or third time ever for two runners to execute a handover to be in the semi-final. Hence the handoff problems.
Hence the gold for a Canadian team running in the least favoured outside lane and who individually are not the fastest quartet around but they are fast combined with seamless hand offs of the baton , the key.
Yeah, you saw the same thing in the women’s 4X100m. The Germans took bronze and didn’t have a single runner in the 100m final and only 1 runner in all of the 3 semifinals.
The curse of Wellington continues for the All Blacks, losing 30-38 to an inspired Argentina. They’re humans after all! I know …
Well, if the aliens ever show up with intergalactic melty-phasors - good luck communicating with them like that. Peds ...... jeez
Carl Lewis took to Twitter to roast the coaching. From not focusing on the relays and expecting people to just be able to do it. To throwing runners in and out of lineups in the heats. To the coach changing the lineup of runners from one race to the next - as happened in the 4x100 semi to final. I'd always get pulled into the 4x400 relay and it was certainly easier than the 4x100 and required a lot less practice. Just the spatial aspect of starting/stopping in unnatural areas of the track in the 4x100 requires discipline and training, never mind the physical aspect of handoff timing and matching running speeds.
I’ve always thought there should be an athlete (or athletes if you want to split it into male and female) of the games. Not necessarily based on who wins the most golds or medals, but equally not based on some NBC drama of the week as to who overcame what life destroying obstacles to compete. The WC has a player of the tournament, often the winning captain, but again it is not reserved for the Golden Boot winner as a matter of course. I could see Usain Bolt winning it, because there was a lot more to him than just winning sprint golds. Going back a generation or so Ed Moses would have been a good shout. It would need to be more than a winner, a personality. No idea who the judging committee would be.