Prelims have gone.
USA and Jam put up huge qualifying times, obviously wanting to get good lane draw, USA ahead by only .01
Canada was a very solid automatic qualifier, 2nd in their heat in a decent time, which was somewhat surprising to me.
Netherlands had to run a NR to qualify slowest, but still an automatic qualifier, 3rd in their heat.
Japan is in the same boat as Canada, good automatic qualifier, 2nd in their heat, only .02 from Canada.
France sucked, they got in on time, in basically the same time as the Aussies got in.
T&T of course in, automatic 3rd in their heat.
GBR DQ'd, too bad for Gemili, they would have been in a dogfight for bronze.
In the final, Jam is just inside the USA, lane 6 to lane 7. IMHO that might suck for the USA, as Jam will have them in their sights. I don't know how the lane draw works, is 7th supposed to be the best lane?
Canada is just inside Jam, in lane 5, which will be good for them, I think, and Japan will be just inside them, in lane 4.
Australia in 2 and France in 3, those lanes might suck.
T&T in 9, with Netherlands inside them in 8. WHY is T&T on the outside, when they qualified faster than did Netherlands?
I think that Jam will smoke the USA on 3rd leg, and that the effect of the turn will exaggerate the extent to which the USA is getting blown-away, which will make the USA anchor grip that much harder, and the Jam anchor fly away that much more quickly.
USA team set a NR, using Demps and Patton. I absolutely love Demps on the relay. Some other poster was earlier advocating for Mitchell, but both Demps and Patton were superior choices IMO (Gallagher:
http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4703902
)
The proof is in the NR.
Of course, the USA team will need to go faster in the final, assuming Jam doesn't drop the baton.