After another disastrous run in the highly-watched men’s 4x100m relay, USA track and field legend Carl Lewis is calling for changes.
Team USA was disqualified after a botched handoff making Paris the fifth consecutive Olympics the U.S. men have not won a medal in the coveted 4x100m race.
“It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at @usatf is more concerned with relationships than winning. No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom,” Lewis posted on X.
Noah Lyles was initially supposed to be a part of the relay team, but withdrew after being diagnosed with Covid. Lyles said he was confident in the team’s ability to win gold.
Lewis was “disgusted” and “absolutely furious” after the race, reported NBC Olympics’ Lewis Johnson who said the bigger issue is the system, not the performance of the athletes.
“Carl is furious and he’s angry about multiple things,” reported Johnson. “First of all, he’s angry about a system that he says is not set up to help the athletes from the United States moves forward and do well. He said if Noah Lyles was out sick with Covid, they should have just replaced the anchor leg and nothing else. But the fact they reordered the entire relay had him worried, and in the end had him upset.
American Christian Coleman collided with teammate Kenny Bednarek on the first exchange of the baton, causing the U.S. to fall behind the pack.
The bad exchange left the Americans with simply too much ground to make up, as the quartet of Coleman, Bednarek, Kyree King and Fred Kerley combined to cross the finish line seventh.
Shortly after the race, the Americans were then disqualified for an illegal pass on the first exchange.
“That was a disaster,” NBC Olympics’ commentator said.
NBC New York reached out to USA Track and Field for a comment in response to Lewis’ social media post. They declined to comment.
“It just didn’t happen,” Coleman said. “Maybe we could have put in some more work. I just think in the moment it didn’t happen.”
Canada won gold with a time of 37.50 seconds, with South Africa (37.57) and Great Britain (37.61) rounding out the Olympic podium.
Team USA was looking for its first medal in the event since a second-place finish at the 2004 Athens Games. The U.S. hasn’t won gold since the 2000 Sydney Games.
The results in Paris were reminiscent of past mistakes by the USA in this event, including at the Tokyo Olympics when the team was eliminated in the first round after a sixth place finish. The team also had a dropped baton at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and an illegal handoff at the 2016 Rio Olympics, according to NBC Sports.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
