Rai Benjamin said he had a late night out before the 4x400: "I was pretty much done, you know, so I had a pretty late night if you can imagine."

Was yelling the same thing during the race. Stick to the outside of lane 1 in the turns and then move just into lane 2 on the back/home stretch. Sure, you run a bit farther but aren't running through the deep puddles.

Meanwhile, Botswana has declared a national holiday to celebrate the win and in the US not a single article has been written talking about this debacle.

I'm STUNNED this story isn't getting more play. If this was any other country in the world, it would be front page news.

"**Insert name of country** anchor partied the night before coughing up lead on 4 x 400."

When Rai mentioned a late night, I was stunned and asked a follow up by what did he mean by that. I pobably should have asked even more followups but no one else seemed to understand the implications of what he was saying or care about it. And when I asked it, Norwood acted like my comment was unfair, "Come on man" you can hear him say as i ask it.

If I could do it over again, I'd be even more direct. "When did you find out the US was still running? How did you find out? Was USATF / the coaches not in contact with you?"

Since we aren't a sprint focused site, I probably just should do my job and not care what they think about me. That's why I didn't initially write the article "US track star Rai Benjamin partied late Saturday night before coughing up lead in 4 x 400." I figured someone else would write it. I wouldn't have to take the heat for writing it. They haven't. Maybe I'll do it today.

For whatever reason that it happened, it's a major screwup - period. Who deserves the blame is open to interpretation but there is no doubt this is a major screwup.

I really don't think this is a big deal at all, and it probably didn't affect him. The 400m champ ran a 44.14 split and should be at least .26s better than a 400m hurdle champ most of the time (non Sydney division). The weather conditions were absolutely a factor.

Open image

Compared to the Paris splits:

Botswana
44.3
43.4
43.8
43.03

USA
44.5
43.3
43.5
43.13

Source assuming I can do math:

worldathletics.org

FINAL | 4x400 Metres Relay | Results | Paris 24 | Olympic Games

The XXXIII Olympic Games, Outdoor | FINAL | 4x400 Metres Relay | Results

Open link

My goodness, man. The dude already had to deal with the DQ emotional roller coaster. The race was a 8:20pm, so he had plenty of time to recover. We've got people like speedskater Eric Heiden partying hard and late after winning 4 golds and watching hockey, oversleeping, and with little pre-race prep, winning a 10,000m gold and setting a WR in the process. I'd leave the guy alone.

Kebinatshipi wasn't at his best either. The 400m champ should have the fastest split in the race most of the time or at least be close to it, but Kebinatshipi wasn't. He split 44.14 while South Africa's Nene ran 43.93 and van Niekerk ran 43.26.

Benjamin himself said his late night had an impact on him; I think we should believe him. He needed to run 44.32 for his team to win, and he probably would have done better than that if he was rested and prepared to race.

Write the article. You or JG follow up with Rai [ i thought Letsrun had a good relationship with him in the past]. Try to follow up with norwood and the relay coach too and some of the other teammates.

Find out the exact timeline and exactly what was told Rai regarding the usa runoff and the possibility that he was running the finals.

1. Before the DQ, was it always certain he would be running the finals? Or was he never explicitly told that?

2. After the DQ and protests, was he alerted that there was still a chance their protest would be upheld and that therefore they still might make the finals?

3. After the protest was upheld and the runoff was scheduled for the next morning, was he told that he should be ready for the finals because USA could very likely win that runoff.?? [ He did allude to the fact that he knew that USA was going to get to participate in a runoff]

Get on it!

Also kind of sad that their B team barely ran slower than their A team in the finals. And the B team had to run two races in twelve hours, and was running a one on one without really needing to go all out to get the victory. Granted it was raining during the finals.

McKiver ran a faster anchor leg in the runoff than did Rai in the Finals.

They had to run in a puddle in lane 1 though, B team was not affected by that

Yeah this is the kind of excuse bs I hate. We don’t have any stud 400m guys other than Patterson. Rai is supposed to be the other but “i was partying late”. IF that’s true then tell the coach so they can replace your dead @$$. We might be down right now but we have a ton of guys that can run 44. Lame excuse.

Friday night: Rai wins gold in the hurdles

Friday night: Rai says in post-race interview that he will run 4x400 (duh)

Saturday night: US messes up relay

Saturday night: Rai understands that US is out of the final, and goes out

Saturday late night: US gets the call that there will be a run-off. Even then, it would have already been 11 pm, so he could have been out for a few hours already

Sunday morning: ah sh*t

So the real story of that relay wasn't Rais hungover 44.4...but Van Niekerks 43.26! Miles faster than every other athlete.

He was clear in the interview that he found out the morning of the race. not sure why you think it's ambiguous.

Seems clear this isn't on him and is instead on USATF for not letting him know before he had that late night.

That makes sense- it is consistent with the athlete admitting to being out late because the athlete thinks it wasn’t his own fault. It’s like he was saying, “I wasn’t at my best but it’s because I didn’t know I would have to run”

i fixed the blurb on the homepage because i think it implied Rai was out partying because the US didn't care about this.

The most obvious explanation is he was out partying because he didn't know the US was running. So I would ultimately put the blame on the coaching staff.

Rai is in Tokyo all week. This is the end of his season. He's waiting for 4x4. The US bombs out in round 1. He's like "Ok that's it. Let's go out on town." Goes out on town, I don't think it's that crazy he wouldn't know that the US then appealed and got into the run-off.

I noticed WVN as well. The former champ and current WR looked good and was absolutely rolling. One can only wonder if he would have gone sub-43 barring injury.

.....

It won't affect him any but Rai Benjamin lost major points with me for announcing that he had a late night out. He had his Gold 🥇 medal and was the star of the last few 4 x 400m; therefore, he should have felt obligated to help the others by being PROPERLY PREPARED.

Do they not use esimms?

Well Rai just couldn't resist the allure of sashimi...understandable