Carl Lewis blasts Team USA for ‘unacceptable’ 4x100m relay
Carl Lewis blasted Team USA for its awful performance in the men’s 4x100m relay at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo on Thursday.
The men’s relay team finished sixth in its heat with a time of 38.10 and failed to qualify for the final.
They made some serious blunders, including a botched baton pass between Fred Kerley and Ronnie Baker.
@USOlympic The Men’s 4X100 relay team is OUT of the Finals and again this year they looked TERRIBLE!!! pic.twitter.com/8PSv65R9Eu
— Charles G. Conner (@CharConner) August 5, 2021
Lewis, who won nine gold medals including two in the 4x100m relay, ripped the team over its terrible performance. He criticized their passing system and the order of the relay team. He called the performance a “total embarrassment” and “completely unacceptable.”
The USA team did everything wrong in the men's relay. The passing system is wrong, athletes running the wrong legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was a total embarrassment, and completely unacceptable for a USA team to look worse than the AAU kids I saw .
— Carl Lewis (@Carl_Lewis) August 5, 2021
Lewis is right. Nothing about that performance was acceptable.
Trayvon Bromell, Kerley, Baker and Cravon Gillespie are all excellent sprinters in the 100m, but they need to put it together for a cleaner relay.
This is the first time since 2008 that the US will not make the final. They had baton pass issues in 2008 and 2016 as well. According to the AP, this is the 10th time since 1995 that the men have botched a relay at a world championships or Olympics.
