Ladies FirstThe U.S. Women brought home what the men couldn't—a gold in the 4x100 relayby Tim Layden
THE FOUR Canadian sprinters watched from a distance, absorbing the madness. No sooner had Carl Lewis landed magnificently in soft sand last Monday night, winning his ninth Olympic gold medal, than the clamor began to add him to the U.S. 4¥100-meter relay so that he might ceremoniously win a 10th. The issue defied reason and became one of those raucous debates that careers outside sense and wisdom. Strident voices spoke, grating like iron rakes along dry concrete. The spirit of competition was lost in the clamor.
Lost until last night at Olympic Stadium, that is, when the four Canadian sprinters delivered a stinging reminder that assumption is a dangerous implement to wield in support of any cause. Lewis did not run the relay, but Canada suggested forcefully that it would not have made a difference if he had. Adding a gold medal to the world championship they won last year in Göteborg, Sweden, the Canadians won in 37.69 seconds, the sixth-fastest time in history. It was the first time in 15 Olympic competitions that the U.S. has lost an Olympic 4¥100 in which it participated.
Torrence (center) reached for the baton from Inger Miller, then looked forward to her first gold medal of these Games.
photograph by
"We made it clear that it didn't matter who ran against us," said Donovan Bailey, the 100-meter gold medalist and world-record holder, who anchored the Canadian team. "All we heard all week was that Carl was going to win his 10th gold medal, and that brought us together even more. There wasn't another gold medal available to Carl."
The intrigue that had been set in motion by Lewis himself and sent rolling downhill by all forms of media was resolved at a 4 p.m. meeting yesterday among coaches Erv Hunt and Charlie Greene, Lewis and the six other eligible relay members. The meeting became necessary after Leroy Burrell told coaches that he could not compete because of an Achilles tendon injury. "We all talked and made a decision," said U.S. anchor and captain Dennis Mitchell. Tim Harden, the 1995 NCAA 100-meter champion, who had no international relay experience, was named to replace Burrell. Harden would run second, after Jon Drummond and ahead of Mike Marsh and Mitchell.
The choice of Harden dispelled several conspiracy theories, most notably that one of Lewis's Santa Monica Track Club teammates, either Burrell or Marsh, would accept money from Lewis to step aside.
The start was delayed for several minutes as members of the Ghana team refused to leave the track after being disqualified for using an ineligible runner. At the gun, Drummond was briefly left but got to the first pass .01 of a second ahead of Canada's Robert Esmie. Drummond, however, made a safe, time-consuming pass to Harden, while Esmie and Glenroy Gilbert used a slick exchange to take the lead. Esmie knew. He shot his right fist into the air after the handoff.
Mitchell (right) was no match for Bailey, the 100 champ, who had a big lead even before the exchange.
photograph by
Gilbert ripped up the backstretch, running a 9.02 and torching Harden by .34 as Harden fiddled with the baton, trying to get his hand to the end to give Marsh more metal to grab. That adjustment cost precious fractions. Canada was clearly in front, with Bailey waiting. "Once I got the baton from Robert and then passed it to Bruny [Surin], I knew the relay was over," said Gilbert.
Surin, the 100-meter silver medalist at last year's world championships, extended the lead over Marsh on the turn, and Bailey ran away from Mitchell, throwing his right arm into the air 15 meters short of the finish. "I want to apologize to my teammates for that," Bailey said. "I think we could have had the world record [37.40]."
Clearly, substituting Lewis for Harden would have helped. "There's not a relay team in the world that Carl wouldn't help," said Lewis's manager, Joe Douglas. But it is a great leap of faith to suggest that Lewis, who hasn't run a fast 100 since May, would have reversed last night's result. Bailey jogged through the finish; there was plenty more in his tank. And the hottest sprinter in the world was not surprised by Lewis's absence. "Carl is a better businessman than that," Bailey said. "It wouldn't be a great investment to get out there and embarrass himself."
In the end, it seems folly to have underestimated the Canadians. "To be perfectly blunt, we got barbecued," said Marsh. Harden's leg may have been the weakest, but there was still plenty of blame to pass around: Drummond didn't open enough of a lead on Esmie, Marsh didn't overtake Surin, Mitchell was left in Bailey's slipstream.
Yet blame is the damning solution. The Canadians were brilliant, making light of the controversy that had left them invisible. "Anytime there's chaos in a relay camp, those relays are never, ever, ever successful," said Bailey. The Canadians have been together more than a year, passing, building, growing. And sometimes a win is just a win.
It was for Algeria's Noureddine Morceli, who has been the best middle-distance runner in the world dating back to 1990 but was sabotaged by a Kenyan trap at the 1992 Barcelona Games. He at last won his gold in the 1,500. Burundi's Venuste Niyongabo, who moved up from the 1,500 to escape Morceli, took the 5,000. And the other three U.S. relays won gold medals without controversy.
Gwen Torrence, whose stride has been affected for six weeks by a painful thigh injury, anchored the U.S. women's 4¥100 to a gold medal. In May she seemed likely to win three gold medals, yet this was her first, and she exuded immeasurable joy as she pointed an index finger at the clouds and stuck her tongue out in glee. And Derek Mills shot the U.S. into a commanding lead in the men's 4¥400 before Anthuan Maybank held off Great Britain's Roger Black for the gold.
But best of all was Jearl Miles, anchoring the U.S. women's 4¥400 relay. Given a small lead by Kim Graham, she tore down the backstretch. As Miles turned for home, however, Nigeria's Falilat Ogunkoya began to close. Miles veered toward the outside, and Ogunkoya slipped to the rail. In the final meters, both runners stiffened with pain, barely able to drive toward the line.
Morceli stayed out of trouble in
the 1,500, but Morocco's Hicham
El Guerrouj was not as fortunate.
photograph by
Before the race, as Miles was warming up at a track three blocks from the stadium, other athletes cheered Canada's defeat of the U.S. in the men's 4¥100 relay. "I said, O.K., you don't have to cheer," said Miles. As she approached the finish line, however, she was enveloped by a crushing roar from every corner of the stadium. She threw her torso across the line, preserving gold.
"If I had been anywhere else in the world, I think I might have gotten caught," Miles said. "I didn't want to let them down." And here we returned to the spirit of competition, so absent in a week of clamor.
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