BY STEPHEN LANE
Stephen Lane is the author of Long Run to Glory, about the first women’s Olympic marathon. He is also the meet director of the Adrian Martinez Classic.
The U.S. men’s 4x100m relay team hasn’t won a medal of any color at the Olympics since 2004, and hasn’t won gold since 2000—an embarrassing state of affairs, given our depth of sprinting talent. But the problem isn’t talent, it’s an inability to get the baton around the track successfully. If death and taxes are the only certainties in life, a botched American relay exchange at the Olympics is in that ballpark: since 2008, the U.S. men have recorded three disqualifications, one failure to make the final due to bad handoffs—and had one 2nd place finish wiped out due to doping.
After the most recent debacle in Paris, where the team was disqualified for passing outside the zone on the first exchange (and wouldn’t have medaled anyway because the other exchanges weren’t much better), American sprint legend Carl Lewis said on X that it’s time to blow up the system.
He’s not wrong, but the most productive way to blow up the system would be to make one simple tweak: stop using our best sprinters in the relay. America’s top sprinters tend to focus on their individual events—and rightly so. Any American sprinter who qualifies for the Olympics in the 100m has a good chance of earning a medal, and probably believes, with some justification, that on the right day they could win gold. It’s perfectly natural that their preparation is geared toward the 100.
But USATF continues to throw our best athletes together and hope somehow the baton gets around the track. Instead, the U.S. should send what amounts to a B team in the relay: take the athletes who finish 4th-7th at the Olympic Trials, and make the relay their sole focus between the Trials and the Games.
How would this so-called B team fare? If their handoffs held up, surprisingly well. It’s worth slogging through a bit of statistical analysis to understand why, but the main takeaway is simple and unsurprising, and a little cliche: The teams that win medals in the relay are NOT the fastest teams, but the teams that execute the best handoffs. They are better than the sum of their individual parts. So here goes:
The goal of a relay team is to get the baton around the track as fast as possible. If we think in terms of how fast the baton is moving, and we convert times to velocities, it is somewhat easier to see that the fastest teams aren’t necessarily made up of the fastest individuals.
To win the 2024 Olympic gold, Team Canada averaged 10.67 meters per second over 400 meters, while South Africa’s silver-medal squad got the baton around the track at 10.65 m/s, and Britain averaged 10.64 m/s for bronze.
But among the medal winners, Team Canada actually had the slowest quartet of individuals. In their season’s best individual 100m races, Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendan Rodney, and Andre de Grasse averaged only 9.89 meters per second. South Africa’s Bayanda Walaza, Shaun Maswanganyi, Bradley Nkoana, Akani Simbine averaged 10.0 m/s in their individual season’s bests, and Britain’s quartet of Jeremiah Azu, Louie Hinchliffe, Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Zharnel Hughes averaged 9.99 m/s as individuals.
Team Canada, running as one unit, was 7.89% faster than its four individuals were on their own, while South Africa was 6.47% faster, and Britain 6.51% faster.
This year was no fluke. Over the last three Olympics, gold-medal winning teams ran 7.30% faster than their individual performances; silver medalists ran 6.88% faster; bronze medalists run 6.71% faster. And the fourth-place teams? On average, just a bit worse: 6.57% faster. Teamwork beats talent.
Which brings us back to the U.S: A relay team comprised of Christian Coleman (9.86 season’s best), Christian Miller (9.93), Courtney Lindsey (10.00), and Brandon Hicklin (9.94)—the 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th-place finishers at the Trials—would have run 37.03 if their handoffs were as good as the average gold medal squad from the past three Olympics. That time would have won every Olympic final this century except 2012, when Jamaica, anchored by Usain Bolt, set the current world record of 36.84. This year, if our so-called B team had only adequate handoffs—say, 6% faster than their individual times—they still would have won gold. (Teamwork beats talent, but it’s still nice to have an excess of talent on your side.)
Although it is somewhat obvious, it’s important to examine why relay teams can complete 400 meters so much faster than the sum total of four individual 100m races. The slowest part of any individual 100m race is the first part: getting out of the blocks and accelerating up to speed. In a relay, the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th runners all do the bulk of their acceleration before they receive the baton—at least that’s the idea: each runner should be as close to top speed as is practical when they get the stick, so they can run their entire leg as close to top speed as possible.
It’s easier said than done. Imagine accelerating up to full speed, adrenaline pumping, the roar of 80,000 fans in your ears, staring straight down the track amidst the chaos of seven other teams around you, and at the perfect moment, blindly putting your hand back and knowing the baton will land magically in your palm. Piece of cake, right? It’s not magic, it’s just work; good exchanges require a level of trust between athletes that takes time and practice to develop.
To see what happens when you don’t have that level of trust, watch the Team USA exchange between Kyree King and Fred Kerley in lane five. Fred Kerley, the U.S anchor, is an experienced relay runner—he anchored Texas A&M’s all-American relays in college. But in the above clip, he’s hardly even begun to accelerate when he gets the baton. Every other anchor leg is moving much faster as they come off the turn. Kerley is the fastest individual on the track, a two-time Olympic medalist and the 2022 World Champion, but he has no hope of catching the others because they are moving away at speed while he is still accelerating.
So even if the U.S. hadn’t disqualified by passing the baton out of the zone on the first exchange, they were out of the medals. Again, Kerley knows how to run a relay, but the fact that he doesn’t appear comfortable with the timing of his exchange tells us the American relay system isn’t working. We’re asking our top sprinters, who have enough to prepare for in their individual events, to perform miracles on the relay.
So here’s a crazy idea: Select the pool of relay athletes from the 100m and 200m finalists at the Trials, but require that athletes commit to a multiple-week relay camp and two pre-Olympic competitions. Give them time and adequate coaching to prepare for what is perhaps the most difficult event in track and field.
One assumes that athletes who failed to qualify individually for the Olympics would be thrilled to be a part of the relay, and willing to do what it takes to be on the team. And if the athletes who do qualify in their individual events want to be part of the relay, so much the better. But they must also commit to the relay camp and competitions. The American system requires that athletes earn their way on the team; let athletes earn a spot on the relay by devoting the time and practice to build the kind of trust it takes to be a successful team.
Of course, the relay offers no guarantees. even if Team USA spends weeks practicing, failure is a possibility. Over 7 Olympics this century, 27 men’s 4 x 100 teams have been disqualified—nearly four each Games. Unfortunately, under our current system, failure isn’t just a possibility for Team USA, it’s become all too likely. Better to send an actual team, and give them the time and resources to get the relay right.
