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."

Amateur communication to go with yesterday's mishaps. USA didn't really deserve gold for this, even if the ability was there.

Yeah, it's disappointing to hear him say that. Sounds like a terrible lapse in communication. How could he not know there was a chance he'd be running in the final?

Note: The news about the runoff came out at around 10:45 pm Tokyo time.

I'd love for someone to interview the relay coach to get an explanation about what communications he gave to the relay team members.

There is literally no way he did not think there was a chance he was running unless they specifically told him that. He said he was in 45 hurdle shape and he's run the anchor for the past few years successfully - what did he expect?

Exactly. Seemingly selfish and unprofessional on his part.

Rai Benjamin said in his interview after the 400 hurdles that he was going to run the 4x400. So he admitted that he knew was going to run the relay. But for some reason he decided "Screw it, I'm going out on the town anyway." Very unprofessional.

I really like rai, and he'll be relieved to know I'll forgive him, but he was so wrong and unprofessional here. unless he really somehow went off grid, no phone; and didn't know about the runoff.

I'm shocked he admitted to this so flippantly

He won a gold medal. He can party all he wants to.

He probably thought it would come off as a valid, cool sounding excuse for losing, Mr. Party and all. But it doesn’t come off thet way. He’s a dope.

This is 100% on the relays coach. At 10:45PM he needs to contact every athlete in the pool and let them know what's going to happen.

Who's the relays coach???

I think he expected the US not to be in the final

Botswana sends USA home devastated 🤣

give it a rest with devastated

Nah, Botswana's team was just better. Consider the fact that they did win gold and bronze in the 400 singles and that the US' best man got 7th. Of course this discounts Rai who didn't participate in the 400. But moreover, three of Botswana's final four had ran the 400 relay heats the day before the final (none of the Americans did). This fatigue more than outweighs that Rai "had a late night out".

Rai ran a mid-44 split. He was in better shape than that. Regardless of his responsibility or not, Rai's poor leg cost the US an otherwise 5-7 meter win over Botswana.

How on earth di any coach or Ri not think that he would be at the least a candidate to run in the 4 x 4 final? Whether they had made the final originally, or were waiting on the results of the appeal/protest, why was he not always considered as a possibility, and as such still preparing? Make ZERO sense to me...

Whatever, he's an adult. If he wants to party after winning a gold medal, let him.

My HS team staged a mini-intervention about my partying when I was their 7th man.

The American team had failed to advance and lost rounds of appeals until late that evening when they were finally given a runoff against Kenya for a lane one position yesterday morning.