Kerron Clement delivered another gold for the US on Thursday after the “awesome hour” of the night before and the women’s 4×100-meter relay team ran alone in a race that looked just like a practice session, just with one mighty difference: A place in the Olympic final was on the line.
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Slow motion TV replays clearly showed Brazilian Franciela Krasucki bumping Felix just before she attempted to hand over the baton to English Gardner.
In a last-ditch act to make the baton stick in Gardner’s hand, Felix desperately reached out but as she did so, the baton slipped out of her hand and fatally dropped to the track. The U.S. team had a dropped baton on the second change of the second semifinal, and video and photographic evidence confirmed a Brazilian sprinter impeded Felix. The U.S. women earned a rerun on Thursday night, needing to beat China’s time of 42.70. “One time a photographer was leaning over a lane to get a picture and a Saddle Brook kid tried to avoid him and went down”.
Video footage from the race shows Venancio getting really close to the US lane.
The Chinese launched an angry appeal before the re-run went ahead, describing the decision to let the U.S. run again as “unfair” after claiming it was the USA athletes’ own error that led to them dropping the baton.
Team USA made it through after a solo run on the track.
It’s been more of a problem with the United States than the Jamaicans over the years.
The USA women’s 4x100m relay team have successfully appealed to re-run after dropping the baton drop seeminhly cost them on day 13 of Rio 2016. “We are genuinely friends”, Rollins said.
“I just remembered them telling us that if there’s an appeal you have to make an effort”, she said.
Brazil was subsequently disqualified.
“We’re just going to regroup, get ourselves together and go out there and be able to compete in the final”, Gardner before a final decision had been made.
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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.
