4x100 handoffs

No. There is tape placed on the track at the spot where the outgoing runner is supposed to start accelerating as the incoming runner reaches the tape. You can see the tape on the lane in the replays. And Coleman isn’t even close to it when Bednarek takes off. Inexcusable.

you place a piece of tape on the track. when incoming runner hits it, you go. marks are figured out in practice, and then you measure them out with a number of heel to toe steps.

No. There’s literally a mark on the track. When Coleman hits the mark, Kenny takes off.

Coleman was still maybe up to 10m away from the mark when Kenny took off, and thus ran out of the exchange zone.

Their handoffs get worse every time. There is no improvement that shows some form of progress or hope

This is an organization that's moving backwards

check this out OP

https://x.com/jgault13/status/1821976406982848581

Thanks for the quick responses.

was thinking should the tape be banned? altering the track surface by teams is allowed?!?!

You want to ban the tape so everyone sucks at exchanges as much as USA?

Lol. We ignore the tape so let's ban it for everyone

Leaving early has been the global obsession in recent years. Every level. I look for it and love it. The best ones are when it's so early the handoff can't even be attempted.

Okay, maybe not global. The Asian countries don't do it. Everyone else more than makes up for it.

The most dependable tendency is when the adjacent runner departs. That triggers an itchy go even if your guy isn't close.

That would actually make the races more interesting

Watching the US get DQ'd was plenty interesting for me.

USA team should write a book on innovative ways to fk up 4x100m relay. C'mon how can the USA team lose it in a new way every time

One team, one race, I can understand. Multiple teams over multiple Olympics, it's an organizational failure. To think that after every past failure, they said 'we will fix this', and they never do.

Coleman handed off to Kerley in the prelims.
But they decided to change every single handoff in the final by moving Kerley to anchor and adding Bednarek to the second leg.

They expected Lyles to run anchor, so I assume Bednarek was originally going to run third.
On the second leg, you grab the baton with your left hand. On the third leg, you grab the baton with your right hand.

I don’t think they practiced that finals order much.

So Bednarik ran his Silver medal 200 race the same day as the 4X100 prelim. He couldn’t get practice that day.
Then they put him on a different leg than he had been practicing because Lyles couldn’t run the final.

Bad luck.
Bad Olympic scheduling.
Not great preparation.

Hey OP, not sure if you researched this more, but if you haven't, it is now clear that Kenny started when the French runner (next lane over away from the rail, i.e. with more stagger) reached his (Kenny's) tape mark. For some reason Kenny was watching between his legs (most look over the shoulder), and the French and US uniforms were very similar; as soon as the French runner reaches the Coleman/Kenny tape mark, Kenny starts. Given the French runner's stagger, it was way too early.

You can find the video online. When you see the overhead view replay, it is clear that this is what happened. There's really nothing Coleman could have done to fix the situation.

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.

Yes, I agree completely. I wanted to explain to OP what happened. As for 'fault,' this kind of thing has happened too many times to assign the blame to only the runners.

It was bad

problem 1, speaking more broadly to our all star approach, if you've done tape for field or relays you know what often happens is marks for practice are one thing and meets are another. people run faster or slower on game day. the mark is often off. next meet you tweak it. up a half foot. back 3 inches. along similar lines, if you watched world feed of PV, mondo changes the standards for his 3rd try at the WR. but he's also done multiple reps at other heights plus knew how he fared his first 2 attempts on video. but if you only run world relays and this, and you grab all stars then this is the meet, and if you change names for the final you aren't optimizing a meet tested routine, where the marks have been tested, worse, you're back to scratch. and you don't get 3 jumps to adjust.

which, problem 2, tape is relative to a teammate and not a general concept. A may be faster than B or come in hotter. so if my marks are set to A and B is thrown in the final i can toss my A marks. ok, what are my marks with B. i don't have marks with B. world level you slap together something untested on the practice track or in HS/college maybe you sneak out on the track before the meet starts. and then hope that's what you do warmed up hours later.

problem 3, one poster was saying he might have seen the wrong lane, that's also all star teams. IMO if you do it often enough the kinks emerge and get fixed. don't watch that way. watch this way. if you barely ever try you learn on the track on meet day. when's the next meet to act on that learning? worlds next year? repetitions would also expose if certain guys just aren't relay material.

last, while i generally think the USATF botched the relays it bears noting that even if they had wanted to run the world relays unit, that had lyles, who had gotten sick and may have been unavailable. the mistake i see is rather than just swap lyles but keep the world relays unit, they made all sorts of changes. so it's both one thing they couldn't control and a bunch of changes they could have. at world relays bednarek was getting it from lindsey. that shouldn't have depended on lyles being well.

and if you look at the times, what won in nassau would have won here.