4x100 handoffs

More relay opportunities for elite runners can only help but in the above scenario 3/4 of the team will not be practicing or racing with each other.

The Santa Monica track team practiced together, raced in these types of meets and in championship meets together.

In addition to the early take off, it was compounded by Coleman running on the middle and near the outside of the lane. The 1st (and 3rd) runner needs to hug the inside of the lane allowing the 2nd (and 4th) runner to receive the baton in the left hand running on the outside (mostly straight, lane depending) part of the lane. By Coleman running the "extra distance" it makes the early take off even more pronounced.

When rewatching the video, these two mistakes occur. The other 2 U.S. exchanges looked fine (though, I'll admit Ive only watched them once)

The easy solution after Lyles went down with COVID was to keep the same team as the heats: Coleman-Kerley-King-Lindsey.

My gut tells me that Kenny B/his personal coach/agent wanted that $10000 ($50000/5) that World Athletics was paying out to the winning team. Also there are usually bonuses in contracts paid for relay medals, as well as a bump in future appearance fees to meets even if you medal in a relay, just like there's bonuses for starting the Olympic marathon...this is nothing new. The Santa Monica TC group pulled this off in the 80s and 90s.

Egos and too many people want a piece of the action in the relays.

Here is food for thought.

A relay should be a TEAM. In rowing, the US used to send a collegiate team of 8 guys from the same school who had rowed together etc. See book/movie The Boat based on the U Washington who repped the US in Berlin in 1936.

in track & field, why not have the top 6 NCAA 4x100 teams compete in the US Olympic Trials? Allow 2 other all-star teams to also compete for the right to rep the US. This year Auburn won in 38.03 at NCAAs and Canada won at the Olympics in 37.50. 38.03 would have been 7th. Better than a DQ. The all-star teams might actually practice handoffs if they had to earn their spots. I think having 4x100 trials would be super popular.

NCAA teams often have foreigners on their rosters so this idea wouldn't work.

Good point, let's add requirement that to be in the Trials all teams must be all be US citizens.

...and there's also a World Athletics/IOC rule that says you have to have all of your qualifiers in the 100 (assuming all have the WA individual standard) on your initial 4x1 relay roster (if I recall, they can be subbed out for anyone on your roster, but only after the start of the meet). I believe that rule was put in to cut down on the number of credentials/room nights issued.

I was on a fairly successful college 4×1 team, and it was a wreck. We won virtually off talent alone. Three of the four runners on the relay were at best disinterested in the relay, or straight up didn't want to be there "because it didn't fit their training plan" (which is what our first leg was constantly complaining about).

One of them was a football player who hadn't run on a relay for a few years. He kept wanting to switch which hand he was holding the baton with DURING his leg "because he didn't like holding a baton in that hand; he ran slower with it in the hand he didn't like". When his teammates told him not to do that, he scoffed at us. We had to get the head coach to talk to him, and he was STILL was dubious, like we were the idiots. I think he still sneakily did it sometimes during his leg. He was our second leg.

The only one who was TRULY excited to run the relay was the slowest guy in the relay. Obviously he knew it was his ticket to do something special. However, even HE still wouldn't take instructions on the BEST way to hand off properly. He thought HE knew best...despite being the slowest guy of the group. He always tried to wait to hand the baton off to me until later in the zone, once I "got up to speed" (i.e. was about to run away from him). I was over half a second faster than him over 100 meters, but in his mind it was smarter to keep the baton in his hands a TINY bit longer (thus shorten my relay leg length) so I could "get up to speed". One time, he waited to long....and I ran away from him with no baton in hand. He was our third leg.

After some drama and a couple botched handoffs in meets, one of the coaches came up to me (me being the anchor and far and away the fastest guy of the team) and said, "listen, if you want to drop out of the relay just to focus on your own races as this is your last year, we'd understand. You've paid your dues. This relay could potentially win a title, but you're likely to win two individually anyway and we may not even be able to get the stick to you." I was tempted, but I figured it would be pretty dramatic in all the worst ways for the best guy on the team to simply leave the relay. So I said I'd prefer to stay on the relay.and just take our chances with the handoffs. No skin off my nose, really, anyway.

In the end, we won a title with that team, but of the nine races with that relay we ran that year, we DQ'd two of them, (once between leg two and leg three, and once from leg three to me) and had legitimately BOTCHED handoffs in another three. Those were the first five meets of the year. After that, we started to run some faster times, but the handoffs were still always a worry. In the last meet to win the title, I used to have it on video and again between leg two and three, they almost ran out of the zone again. Nobody ever talked about it, but I've seen it and it musta been CLOSE. Leg three went early and two had to REACH to get it to him.

The only thing that all made it work was the forced practice and failures, and even that didn't fully solve it with the poor egos, bad understanding of the concepts, and poor cohesion of the group overall. But we were so much faster than our peers, it didn't end up mattering. And it was STILL a question to the very end.

The real kicker? I think all those reps through the season put extra strain on my notoriously bad hammy. The relay with three guys who didn't even care about it won the title, and then I blew my hammy 30 meters into the 100 final and never ran fast again. Couldn't even get in the blocks for the 200 final, of course. While the guy who complained that the 4×1 practice didn't fit his training plan then got to bring up the rear of that 100 final and say he finally beat me in a 100. I still walked through the finish line in under 60 seconds, officially.

I hate that relay. But anyway, practice is the key. Even the idiots who don't play well together can pull it off with practice. Which will almost never happen with our top national guys, frankly.

It takes some IQ, some mechanical/spatial ability to execute 4 x 100m handoffs. Not rocket science, but neither is it simple. If you have four guys with IQ's in the 75-85 range, guys who are very fast and aggressive, with high testosterone, low patience, low spatial abilities, an inability to learn from coaching and training, then the result will be botched handoffs and no medals. These are the same people who aggressively tail you in traffic, not allowing space and not understanding the dangers of that kind of driving.

I don't know about the IQs of these runners but a couple of them have already won gold medals in the 4x100. Bednarek on the other hand hasn't had experience. His screwing up is more a result of poor coaching than testosterone, patience, or low spatial abilities. And if he has demonstrated those things he should not have been placed on the relay.

As a poster previously stated, they should have kept the team that qualified.

Highly unlikely NCAA teams include all US athletes

Isn't that already a requirement for every event? How can you qualify for the US Olympic team if you are not a US citizen?

Although the Chinese team doesn't have a single sprinter that can medal, their 4X100 team is pretty good and their handoffs are very precise. Perhaps the US can learn a few things from how the Chinese perfect their handoffs.