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This was not what Team USA meant when they said this year’s track team would be history-making.
For the first time in Olympic history, male American runners have failed to win a single gold medal. This comes two years after the US came away from the 2019 World Championships in Doha with 14 golds, which hinted toward similar Olympic success.
Now, the men’s team — that was favored to win multiple events — has fallen short. Trayvon Bromell, who ran the fastest 100m time this year, did not advance into the final; world champion Donavan Brazier, who won the 800m race in Doha, did not even qualify for the Summer Games — in the Olympics, the U.S. came in last in 800m.
World champion Noah Lyles won the bronze in the 200m. Grant Holloway and Rai Benjamin — who were favored to win the 110m and 400m hurdles, respectively — both will leave Tokyo with silver medals in their events.
The performance of the U.S. team has been noticed by American track legends. On Thursday, when the men’s 4×100 relay came sixth in its heat — the first time in history Americans have not advanced into the finals – Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson slammed the leadership of the track team.
Lewis referred to to the relay as a “clown show” in an interview with USA Today, and said the mistakes made by athletes were completely avoidable.
“The USA team did everything wrong in the men’s relay,” Lewis tweeted. “The passing system is wrong, athletes running the wrong legs, and it was clear that there was no leadership. It was a total embarrassment, and completely unacceptable for a USA team to look worse than the AAU kids I saw.”
Johnson referred to the race as “embarrassing and ridiculous.”
The thrown-together nature of the American relay teams, the short time period between the Olympic trials and the Games and the decision to cancel a pre-Olympic training camp due to COVID-19 concerns may have contributed to these performances.
“We haven’t been here that long, we got here on short notice,” 400m runner Michael Cherry said after his fourth-place finish on Thursday. “Every other team had training camp, but that’s no excuse. We are still expected to come out here and execute how we are supposed to. it’s just not happening right now.”
Cherry believes the young age of the American team in a sport where veterans traditionally dominate is also one of the reasons why the U.S. is not picking up many medals.
“We have a very young team,” he said, adding, “We’re going to dominate soon. Just right now, we have to grow up and adjust.”
Still, Craven Gillespie, one of the runners on the 4×100 relay team, was disappointed by the United States’ performance.
“We have so many people, we’re so deep, that we can switch and do these things,” he said. “But at the end of the day it’s unacceptable and we have to do better.”
Some Olympians believe that the medal deficit is overblown and Americans are too expectant because of strong showings in London and Rio. Matthew Centrowitz, who was a 2016 gold medalist that was eliminated before the 1500m finals this year, said, “Before 2012, no one was winning and I wouldn’t even say a lot have been winning. I don’t know what the expectation was. I know we had more medals in 2016, but that’s just the way it goes sometimes.”
“I think maybe you guys just took it for granted all those years,” he added.
The last hope for a gold medal for the men’s track team is the 4x400m relay. The Americans won their heat and will compete on Saturday in the final, the last race in Tokyo. The U.S. men’s team has won this race 17 times in 24 Olympics.
A squad of Trevor Stewart, Randolph Ross, Bryce Deadmon and Vernon Norwood hopes to do the same and prevent a complete gold-medal shutout.
On the women’s side, the U.S. has picked up two gold medals from 400m hurdler Sydney McLaughlin and 800m track star Athing Mu.
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