also, personally i don't see the 4x1 as like the 4x4 in terms of demands. the team that won ran the same exact people as the prelim and ran a faster time in the final. it is possible that atop the lyles issue the coach who flubbed mixed was like i am not getting caught with the same tired team two heats straight again. but i think running open heats and relay legs of a quarter is different than a 4x1. 4x4 is a more exhausting race and usually a visual handoff. they might break on a tape mark but it's more like they start side shuffling hand up. so it's less risky to swap and swapping people can actually be a smart response to accumulated work. but 4x1 it's a more technical handoff and getting tired is like tenths' difference.
There used to be a classic thread on this topic, but apparently it was deleted--no idea why. I can't hope to recreate the language of the original, but it's certainly time--now that it's February and some teams are already wo...
last thought but we seem to be operating on a self-refuting premise, at least at 4x1 distance. the idea seems to be that our best chance of winning is rotating bodies to keep the stars fresh for the final. but this isn't college, variable units don't get several meet reps a season. and the sheer accumulated pile of data should be screaming the opposite. that whatever theoretical freshness benefit is outweighed by the constant concrete DQs.
i am a practical person. drop the impractical failed idea. it's time for a committed team and if we swap someone for an issue it's one person, surgical, not like it's the first scrimmage of the season and we do a shift change sub.
it may be being lumped with 4x4 but that's a slower, visual handoff. i am looking at you and the baton. i can adjust my speed watching you. i can see things and stop. i can see the baton to grab it. so that calls for get me the fastest 4 guys you can find, as their speed isn't likely making a DQ. and there is less risk to saying A expended a lot yesterday so B will run that leg today. to me 4x2 is done by 4x1 rules but 4x4 isn't.
last last point, but i win heat 1, tie the WL, win my heat by half a second, and the winner heat 2 would have been 8th in my heat. i know canada way outperformed their heat but we don't know that making personnel decisions. on paper my competition was the teams from my own semi.
Agreed: and also arguably a result of B running second leg instead of the one he’d practiced (third) — he was literally “caught on the wrong foot!” His mistake? Yes. His fault? Not entirely — some (most) responsibility lies IMHO with the coaches. Once it was clear Lyles would not be running anchor, they should have replaced him on anchor, rather than shuffle the entire order.
Correct.
Rather than simply subbing in a new anchor for Lyles, US coaches idiotically changed multiple legs around: Heats: Coleman, Kerley, King, Lindsey
Original plan for finals: Coleman, Kerley, Bednarek, Lyles (This would have kept the Coleman-Kerley exchange, and simply subbed in Bednarek-Lyles for King-Lindsey. Smart plan, since Bednarek and Lyles both had the 200 final the day of the 4x100 heats.)
Adjusted plan following Lyles scratch:
Coleman, Bednarek, King, Kerley (Completely changing all three exchanges from heats!)
With Lyles out, Kerley and/or the coaches may have wanted him on anchor rather than the back stretch. Terrible call.
last last last, it's like we're anticipating full squad makeovers and trying to keep up, when in reality gold and silver made no changes and bronze and 4th changed one leg each. the order of finish suggests the opposite incentive.
Agreed: and also arguably a result of B running second leg instead of the one he’d practiced (third) — he was literally “caught on the wrong foot!” His mistake? Yes. His fault? Not entirely — some (most) responsibility lies IMHO with the coaches. Once it was clear Lyles would not be running anchor, they should have replaced him on anchor, rather than shuffle the entire order.
Correct.
Rather than simply subbing in a new anchor for Lyles, US coaches idiotically changed multiple legs around: Heats: Coleman, Kerley, King, Lindsey
Original plan for finals: Coleman, Kerley, Bednarek, Lyles (This would have kept the Coleman-Kerley exchange, and simply subbed in Bednarek-Lyles for King-Lindsey. Smart plan, since Bednarek and Lyles both had the 200 final the day of the 4x100 heats.)
Adjusted plan following Lyles scratch:
Coleman, Bednarek, King, Kerley (Completely changing all three exchanges from heats!)
With Lyles out, Kerley and/or the coaches may have wanted him on anchor rather than the back stretch. Terrible call.
this is all well and good except i read your convo as implicitly saying if nothing else do the bednarek sub when it's one that put us on the plane home. because, to me, if lyles goes out sick, and heat 2 is way slower, and to make some subbing final plan work post-lyles i start wanting to move furniture all around the living room........i run my starters out again.
and as i was saying on the other post, the urge to fidget and sub feels familiar -- though i'd like to see analytics on how often does it work for us or others -- but i start asking what's prompting this. jamaica with seville perhaps in reserve -- who didn't do that well in the open 100 -- is done in the heats. GB and RSA are running college kids, fast ones, but college kids, and one finalist apiece. it's not like we won our heat but bolt-era jamaica won theirs a half second faster so it's do something or accept no better than silver.
nah what i am looking at it's like we have some idea in our head the sheer talent is like our winning bug spray except the can has rarely worked, is rusting, and seems better at dripping harmful chemicals on ourselves. if talent alone sufficed this would be like the 4x100 free in swimming with a brief bolt interlude. it obviously doesn't.
nah what i am looking at it's like we have some idea in our head the sheer talent is like our winning bug spray except the can has rarely worked, is rusting, and seems better at dripping harmful chemicals on ourselves. if talent alone sufficed this would be like the 4x100 free in swimming with a brief bolt interlude. it obviously doesn't.
The biggest mistake in all of this is thinking that you can shuffle around your 4x1 relay legs from heat to heat without consequences. USA has failed to realize that any gains that you get from fresh legs are totally offset by risk in the exchange zones with runners that aren’t familiar with each other.
The same team needs to practice and race together. Experience and familiarity matter in this event. The one exception may be at anchor, which should be the easiest substitution to make, but still may not be worth it.
also, personally i don't see the 4x1 as like the 4x4 in terms of demands. the team that won ran the same exact people as the prelim and ran a faster time in the final. it is possible that atop the lyles issue the coach who flubbed mixed was like i am not getting caught with the same tired team two heats straight again. but i think running open heats and relay legs of a quarter is different than a 4x1. 4x4 is a more exhausting race and usually a visual handoff. they might break on a tape mark but it's more like they start side shuffling hand up. so it's less risky to swap and swapping people can actually be a smart response to accumulated work. but 4x1 it's a more technical handoff and getting tired is like tenths' difference.
no. this is all obvious stuff. it all only had to do with the egos of the athletes and coaches letting the inmates run asylum. everybody full well realizes that the 4x1 is 100000x more technical and 1/100 as demanding as the 4x4
none of this has anything to do with team USA wanting fresh legs, and that was not their thinking.
Kerley was inserted into the 4th leg because he has a huge ego, and when Lyles was removed from that prime spot, quite simply, Fred was going to have it because he thinks he's the man and he deserves it. the athletes operate purely on ego and the coaches just don't have the authority to check them and make the common sense decisions.
honestly, the original thought up finals of Coleman to Kerley to kenny to lyles was probably going to be a disaster anyway. Kerley absolutely NEVER takes a good handoff. always leaves late or just doesn't go out hard. and bednarek's mistake was leaving far before coleman got to the tape. there is no reason for that to happen even if you haven't taken a single handoff from the person ever.
i almost find it hard to believe these guys ever even take full or near full speed handoffs in practice. i think guys who are really good with handoffs could decently get off semi-safe, semi fast handoffs even with a complete changed lineup. these guys are all 98% the same speed as the next guy, so the adjustments shouldn't be that harsh from one guy to the next. but quite simply, these guys are not putting in the work, so they can't make it happen.
the lineups shouldn't be changing like they did, but the problems run much much deeper, imo.
I'd argue that our corps of sprinters (and sprint coaches), often include the most IQ challenged members of the Olympic and Worlds rosters.
This results in people not even knowing where to line up (Irby, Little), and others that are highly capable of f@%&#*g up every aspect of an exchange imaginable.
We aren't allowed to "discus" this however, so delete this post mods.
I'd argue that our corps of sprinters (and sprint coaches), often include the most IQ challenged members of the Olympic and Worlds rosters.
This results in people not even knowing where to line up (Irby, Little), and others that are highly capable of f@%&#*g up every aspect of an exchange imaginable.
We aren't allowed to "discus" this however, so delete this post mods.
part of the reason for running SML second, was so we could run the entire race free of traffic, but i also wondered if part of it was because we knew we could count on her to line up in the correct place, cut in well, etc. after all the problems we had in that area previously. 2nd leg is obviously the easiest place to screw up, with the stagger etc.
Point of reference - the USA relay coaches have forgotten that the goal is to get the baton around the track as fast as possible. As Carl Lewis said it is time to blow up the way the US manages and runs the relay teams. I do not know of any HS or college coach that would have tinkered with the mens 4 x 100 between prelims and finals the idiotic way the US relay coaches did. Lastly, running a leg of a prelim should not diminish a sprinter's performance in a 200 meter final the same day (barring injury.) Run the same legs as the prelims!
I'd argue that our corps of sprinters (and sprint coaches), often include the most IQ challenged members of the Olympic and Worlds rosters.
This results in people not even knowing where to line up (Irby, Little), and others that are highly capable of f@%&#*g up every aspect of an exchange imaginable.
We aren't allowed to "discus" this however, so delete this post mods.
I've been a relay coach on a couple of non-Olympic multisport games. One year I had a very talented athlete on our relay squad who clearly had a pretty low IQ. Being vague, this athlete later found international success in 4x100m. While this athlete had more difficulty than the others in both remember and following instructions, with practice they got it and in the races they performed well. When I watched this athlete race internationally, they usually executed the exchanges well.
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