For U.S., Relay Chances Slip Away
But Merritt Anchors A 400-Meter Sweep

By Amy Shipley
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 22, 2008

BEIJING, Aug. 21 -- If you measure the night at the Olympic track by medals, it was a great one for the United States. Fabulous, even. In three finals, the United States won six medals: one gold, three silvers and two bronze.

But if your calculation takes into consideration other factors, such as relay batons bouncing around the track and national pride, it was a far more humbling night Thursday at Beijing's National Stadium.

Egos began to shrink when Jamaica's Veronica Campbell-Brown beat Allyson Felix to the gold medal in the women's 200 meters, leaving Felix distraught and securing a Jamaican sweep of the golds in the 100 and 200 sprints.

Embarrassment seeped in when dropped relay sticks doomed both U.S. 4x100 relay teams in the first round, the fumbling fiascos ensuring that the United States would get no shot to fight back at Jamaica in Friday's relay finals.

"This Olympics is the Jamaican Olympics," said Kerron Stewart, who won the 200 bronze. "No disrespect to the Americans . . . [but] this is our time."

For fans of the U.S. team, the best place to take in results might have been at a desk reading them on paper, because in black and white, the night looked pretty good: Americans swept the 400 final for the second straight Summer Games, with LaShawn Merritt topping 2004 champion Jeremy Wariner with his finish in 43.75 seconds. Wariner was clocked in 44.74, and David Neville stole the bronze with a full-out dive over the line in 44.80.

In the 110 hurdles, David Payne of Hampton, Va., and Howard University graduate David Oliver claimed the silver and bronze, respectively, behind Cuban world record holder Dayron Robles, who won in 12.93.

"Me and David, we went out there and held up our end of the bargain," said Oliver, who finished .01 behind Payne in 13.18. "They only pass out three of these every four years. If you get one of them, you will always be remembered."

There were a few other things that will be hard to forget.

Such as seeing Darvis Patton trying unsuccessfully to plant a baton in the hand of the anchor leg Tyson Gay, who kept reaching and reaching and reaching as if hoping the worst hadn't happened. It had. The flubbed exchange ensured he would leave his first Olympics without a medal.

Though it had been raining earlier and the track was slick, Patton and Gay said, the stick wasn't wet or slippery.

"Things happen sometimes," Gay said. "It wasn't the weather. It wasn't anything like that. It was a little bad luck. I feel like I let the team down."

Said Patton: "Tyson is going to be humble and take the blame, but I am supposed to give him the baton. He didn't securely have it. I shouldn't have let it go."

In an almost eerie replay of the bobble minutes later, Lauryn Williams couldn't hold the handoff from Torri Edwards, who was so distraught she screamed, screamed again, and then covered her face with her hands. Williams, meantime, couldn't stand to walk off another track after a bungled handoff, as she participated in a previous one at the 2004 Olympics. So she seized the bouncing stick, grabbed it and charged to the finish, even though the United States had already been disqualified.

"I'm not exactly sure what happened," Williams said. "The stick had a mind of its own . . . The whole Games just hasn't gone well for Team USA in track and field, unfortunately."

Mechelle Lewis, a Fort Washington native and Oxon Hill High graduate, ran a clean second leg, getting the baton from Angela Williams.

"I don't know how the same pass, the same situation occurred" as in the men's relay, Lewis said. "It's a big, huge, unfortunate coincidence."

Before the relays took place, Felix choked up discussing her 200 race, describing herself as "pretty devastated." Felix, who had won the Olympic silver as an 18-year-old in Athens, added two gold medals at the world championships last summer and in 2005.

Perhaps the most painful part for American sprinters: watching the Jamaicans flaunt their dominance in the sprint events. Jamaican women swept the women's 100. Megastar Usain Bolt won the men's 100 and 200. Thursday, Campbell-Brown claimed the gold and Stewart the bronze. That makes seven medals for Jamaica, so far; the United States won four.

The Jamaicans say their hard training is finally paying off. Indeed, the Jamaicans have been in the mix in the sprint events for years, but these Olympics have changed the pecking order. In Summer Games from 1964 to 2004, Jamaicans won just four track and field gold medals.

Four-time Olympian Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie of the Bahamas, who finished seventh in the 200, speculated part of the explanation for Jamaica's rise was the downfall of many athletes -- mostly Americans -- caught up over the last five years in the ongoing crackdown by U.S. federal authorities on steroid use in sports.

"Obviously, everybody's surprised," Ferguson-McKenzie said. "They have totally dominated the sprints. . . . I think the playing field's been leveled a little bit. . . .[American] Marion Jones, she dominated the sport for so long. For so long, she stood in public and said she had never taken drugs and it came out that she did. . . . Now the field is fair. It wasn't just the U.S.A.; other countries were involved. But now the field is fair."