By Mitch Phillips
PARIS (Reuters) -Canada won the men’s Olympic 4x100m relay for the second time on Friday after hot favourites the United States messed up a changeover yet again and were disqualified.
Andre de Grasse ran a superb last leg to bring the Tokyo silver medallists home in 37.50 seconds for a second gold in the event following their 1996 success.
Akani Simbine, the nearly man of the individual 100 metres, also ran a terrific last leg to get South Africa silver in an African record 37.57, as did Zharnel Hughes to earn Britain bronze in 37.61.
Canada, running in the outside lane, were led off well by Aaron Brown. Jerome Blake and Brendon Rodney kept them in contention with slick changeovers regularly honed under respected coach Glenroy Gilbert who was a member of the victorious 1996 squad.
However, once all the last-leg runners had the baton in hand, it was Japan leading from Italy, who had used Tokyo 100m champion Lamont Marcell Jacobs on the second leg.
De Grasse, the Tokyo gold medallist over 200, Simbine, who has an incredible six fourth or fifth place finishes in individual global 100s, and Hughes, all tore past them, with Canada doing just enough to win the race.
DE GRASSE DELIGHT
"It feels pretty amazing," De Grasse told reporters. "To be out with these guys, my brothers, I’ve been with them since the beginning of time and it feels good to bring it to fruition."
"The individuals didn’t go our way but when we come together we’re a real strong team. You can never count us out, we feel great," Brown said.
Crossing the line way behind was individual bronze medallist Fred Kerley, who was involved in the botched changeover that saw them fail to make the final at the last Olympics.
He was not the guilty party this time, however, as the damage was done much earlier.
Christian Coleman gave the U.S. a great start but ended up virtually colliding with Kenny Bednarek, the 200m silver medallist, at the first handover.
"It just didn’t happen," said Coleman, the familiar U.S. lament over the years as they repeatedly pay the price for not prioritising the event as other nations do.
"We practised a lot. Me and Kenny have been on the team a few times, and we felt really confident going out there. It’s part of the sport," Coleman added.
"We wanted to do it, we wanted to bring it home, we knew we had the speed to do it but this is a risk-reward type of thing."
The U.S. failure was the latest in a long series in an event they have won 15 times - 13 more than any other nation - but not since 2000, when they have only one silver medal from 2004 to show for their efforts.
Since 1995, in the Olympics and World Championships, the U.S. have now had 11 dropped batons, disqualifications or bans, leading former American sprinting great Carl Lewis to let rip once again.
"It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable," said Lewis, who won two Olympic and three world championship 4x100m golds.
"It is clear that EVERYONE at USATF is more concerned with relationships than winning. No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom."
Hughes and third-leg runner Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake were in the British team that finished second in Tokyo, but were later stripped of the medal due to a doping offence committed by teammate CJ Ujah.
(Reporting by Mitch Phillips, editing by Ed Osmond)
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