In a twist to a marquee event, Allyson Felix and her teammates on the USA women’s 4×100-meter relay team get a second shot to make the final, after successfully arguing that other runners made them drop their baton at the Summer Olympics Thursday.
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The U.S. women’s 4x100m relay team – from left, Morolake Akinosun, Allyson Felix, Tianna Bartoletta and English Gardner – will get to rerun their race after an obstruction was called on Brazil’s team, one lane over. The motion to protest the USA rerun was denied, as was China’s protest of disqualifying the Brazilian team for making contact with Felix prior to the second exchange.
To reach the final, the USA relay team will need to beat the time of 42.70 seconds that was run by China’s team.
Their only goal was to beat China’s eighth-place time of 42.70 seconds, and that was no problem for a team that had two members – Bartoletta and Felix – who were on the team that set the world record (40.82 seconds) at the London Games in 2012. Felix stumbled and tried to throw the baton to Gardner and it fell to the track.
“I just felt contacted”, Felix told NBC after the race. In all likelihood, the appeal will be successful.
“When a foreign object comes in front of you, it’s going to mess up the momentum and the handover”.
Disaster averted, the four-person team could breathe a sigh of relief – but remained upset by the moment, a worst-case-scenario nightmare that keeps all relay runners on their toes before and during competition.
“It was just kind of an unfortunate situation, because I wouldn’t want to bump anyone out of a slot, but at the same time, we were impeded [with]”, she said.
“Honestly”, Gardner said, “I feel like it was just a glorified practice”.
“First thing I did is told the young guys, ‘We got this, ‘” veteran Tyson Gay said after running the men’s third leg. Rather than wallow, Felix made sure the United States of America finished the race, because the appeal would have weaker merit if the team had failed to continue.
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The U.S. women were in control of the heat until Felix appeared to trip as she entered the exchange zone. She picked the baton up and told Gardner to keep running-even though they finished 10 seconds after the other teams in the heat, the fact that the U.S. logged a finishing time allowed them to protest, and have the opportunity for a re-run.
