Men AND Women BOTH DISASTER IN THE 4 X 100 relay

[boonedoggle]

I knew about this earlier today, but I couldn't believe it. Both teams dropped the baton in the first qualifier.

[SmokeyJoe]

Wow... thought we owned this event. Guess not!

[Kaisersozei]

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How in the hell does this happen? In the freakin' Olympics, no less. When I read this yesterday, I couldn't help but think about my high school track days. Among other events, I ran the 440 (yes, the 440--we used yards back then) and the mile relay. The cardinal sin on our track team was dropping that baton. Even people that DIDN'T run the event knew that. If there is one thing we trained over and over and over again, it was to hang on to that damn piece of aluminum. If anyone ever dropped it at any time, even on the way out to practice, it meant running laps. Timed, grueling laps, too. Nails on a chalkboard? That's nothing compared to the horrible "PING" sound of aluminum hitting asphalt, and just the memory of it still makes me cringe. We practiced hand-off after hand-off. We all walked around school with that damn baton. It became part of your body.

To drop it during a meet? No way. And we were just a bunch of dumb high school kids, not even world class athletes like these nimrods.

I can't believe it, it's unforgiveable.

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[boonedoggle]

Originally Posted by Kaisersozei

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How in the hell does this happen? In the freakin' Olympics, no less. When I read this yesterday, I couldn't help but think about my high school track days. Among other events, I ran the 440 (yes, the 440--we used yards back then) and the mile relay. The cardinal sin on our track team was dropping that baton. Even people that DIDN'T run the event knew that. If there is one thing we trained over and over and over again, it was to hang on to that damn piece of aluminum. If anyone ever dropped it at any time, even on the way out to practice, it meant running laps. Timed, grueling laps, too. Nails on a chalkboard? That's nothing compared to the horrible "PING" sound of aluminum hitting asphalt, and just the memory of it still makes me cringe. We practiced hand-off after hand-off. We all walked around school with that damn baton. It became part of your body.

To drop it during a meet? No way. And we were just a bunch of dumb high school kids, not even world class athletes like these nimrods.

I can't believe it, it's unforgiveable.

</>

yeah, and the announcers kept making excuses for them like "they haven't had much time to practice together". That's such BS. Transfer of the baton is day one stuff. ughhhgg