U.S. girls shock Jamaica to win 4×100 relay; U.S. males flounder once more at world championships

EUGENE, Ore. — For the U.S. girls’s relay group, this was a shock.

For the boys — extra of the identical.

The ladies pulled a stunner over Jamaica within the 4×100 relay at world championships Saturday, whereas the favored males completed second after a sloppy baton alternate in what has been a ritual since earlier than anybody on this group was born.

Andre DeGrasse beat Marvin Bracy to the road by .07 seconds to raise Canada to the victory within the males’s race in 37.48 seconds.

Bracy fell behind within the anchor leg after twice reaching again and whiffing on the alternate from Elijah Corridor, who went tumbling to the bottom after he lastly acquired the stick into his teammate’s hand.

“Not being clear value us the race,” Bracy had tweeted earlier than he even made it by way of the interview space. “No excuses. We let y’all down my apologies.”

The U.S. girls felt nothing however love. A transparent underdog to a Jamaican group that had gained all however one of many six dash medals at this meet, the U.S. pulled the upset when Twanisha Terry held off 200 gold medalist Shericka Jackson for a .04-second victory.

She celebrated by doing her “dust bike dance,” hopping on one foot whereas revving the handlebars of her fake, superfast bike.

“I simply felt the gang go loopy,” Terry mentioned. “It was very electrifying.”

The American group, which additionally included Melissa Jefferson, Abby Steiner and Jenna Prandini, completed in 41.14.

Jamaica’s Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce stored her streak alive. She has gained gold or silver in each world relay she’s been part of, relationship to 2007. No person on Jamaica got here into the relay fascinated by second place this 12 months, although.

Jamaica’s lineup included all three sprinters from its 100-meter sweep final weekend and each members of the 1-2 end within the 200. Its destiny might need been sealed on a messy first move between Kemba Nelson and Elaine Thompson-Herah.

“I do not assume there’s any medal that’s designated only for Jamaica,” Fraser-Pryce mentioned. “We’ve got to go on the market and now we have to work like everyone else.”

The U.S. had taken all six medals within the males’s 100 and 200, however the relays proved, but once more, that pure pace isn’t all that issues in these races.

“You’ll be able to have the quickest runner, but when there is not any chemistry and there is not any belief, and the baton is not shifting by way of the alternate, you are not going to supply that quick of a time,” Terry defined.

Although the U.S. males will stroll away with a medal this time — that they had been shut out in six of the previous 13 worlds and three of the previous 4 Olympics — this cannot be framed as something however an unsatisfactory end result.

“You can come out of right here with nothing,” Bracy mentioned. “However we have to scrub it up. We have quite a lot of work to do to proceed to get higher.”

De Grasse, the Olympic champion at 200 meters, may barely stroll up his stairs 4 weeks in the past whereas recovering from COVID-19. He did not make it by way of the 100-meter heats final weekend and pulled out of the 200 altogether.

He gained the gold medal with a group that additionally included Aaron Brown, who completed seventh within the 200 and eighth within the 100; Jerome Blake, who did not make the ultimate in both; and Brendon Rodney, who was a part of Canada’s relay pool.

“As soon as I acquired the baton, I used to be like, ‘OK, I am neck and neck with the U.S. and now I’ve simply acquired to do what I can do,'” De Grasse mentioned. “It felt nice to spoil the social gathering for them.”

The usput out the identical lineup because it did the day earlier than for prelims, leaving a passel of medalists, and pace — Trayvon Bromell, Erriyon Knighton, Kenny Bednarek and the injured Fred Kerley — on the bench.

Corridor stayed on. His résumé: a fifth-place end within the 100 at nationals this 12 months but in addition an NCAA relay title in 2018 on the College of Houston, the place the legend Carl Lewis, who is a continuing critic of the U.S. relay course of, has been teaching for years.

“We tried to place collectively a group to have some sort of continuity and get the stick round,” Bracy mentioned. “We did a great job of it yesterday. We simply tried to come back out and do the identical factor immediately. It did not work out in our favor … and we took the ‘L.'”

One thought for the boys: Take a web page out of the e-book being written by the ladies’s relay coach, Mechelle Lewis Freeman.

Her group consisted of the eighth-place finisher within the 100 (Jefferson), the fifth-place finisher within the 200 (Steiner) and two others (Prandini and Terry) who did not make it out of their semis.

The preliminary move between Jefferson and Steiner may not have been amazingly easy, however neither was Jamaica’s.

Terry took the stick for the anchor leg with a couple of four-step lead over Jackson, who, two nights earlier, had run the second-fastest time ever within the 200 (21.45).

The Jamaican closed, and closed some extra, however when Terry leaned into the road, she had America’s first win at worlds on this race since 2017, when Fraser-Pryce was out after having her child.

The relay medals gave the U.S. 28 for the meet, simply three shy of setting a report for a world championships. Will probably be favored for medals within the males’s and ladies’s 4×400 and the ladies’s 800 with Olympic champion Athing Mu.

Different winners Saturday included Emmanuel Kipkurui Korir of Kenya within the males’s 800, Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia within the girls’s 5000, Anderson Peters of Grenada in males’s javelin and Pedro Pichardo of Portugal, who backed up his Olympic title with a world title within the males’s triple soar.

The night additionally featured a (ultimate?) curtain name for Allyson Felix, who was lured again to the worlds stage to run the prelims within the 4×400 girls’s race.

It units up Felix to win her 20th world championship medal, and her 14th gold after Sunday’s ultimate. The U.S. has gained the 4×400 at seven of the previous 9 worlds.