TOKYO — It typically serves as a crowning achievement, a final opportunity to increase and celebrate an Olympic gold-medal haul.
Not this year. Not for this U.S. men’s track team.
As the Tokyo Games move toward their conclusion, Saturday’s 1,600-meter relay is shaping up as the last best chance for U.S. runners to avoid a gold-medal shutout.
Winning any Olympic medal, of course, should be valued and celebrated. Incredible effort and sacrifice are required to make it to this global stage. These are, after all, the world’s greatest athletes.
“An Olympic medal is an Olympic medal,” Michael Cherry said after he finished fourth in the 400-meters final. “You want gold, but if you can come out with anything that’s great.”
But for the U.S. men’s team, there is no running from the fact that it has won zero gold medals in running events.
Ryan Crouser’s second consecutive gold medal in the shot put gave the U.S. men a grand total of one. Katie Nageotte’s gold medal in the pole vault increased the U.S. women’s total to four.
On Thursday, the men lost an opportunity when the 400-meter relay team failed to advance to the final.
Trayvon Bromell, Fred Kerley, Ronnie Baker and Cravon Gillespie did not fall prey to mishaps that caused the demise of previous teams.
They did not drop the baton. They were not disqualified for a lane violation.
They finished sixth. In their heat.
Olympic legend Carl Lewis won two of his nine gold medals running on 400-meter relay teams. After Thursday’s race ended, he burst from the starting blocks with criticism on social media.
“The USA team did everything wrong in the men’s relay,” Lewis wrote on Twitter. “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.”
Gillespie also described the result as unacceptable.
“There’s a lot on your shoulders when we go out there and wear this uniform because you’re expected to meet that expectation,” he said. “You’re expected to get gold and things like that, and so when you go out there and you don’t even make the final it’s like, man, it’s crazy.”
