USA 4x400 struggles

Subbing Benjamin in for Wilson alone shaves off 3 seconds off of what Wilson just ran. Then if Hall is good to go they will be untouchable.

If Botswana is within touching distance on the last leg handing off to Tebogo - USA will be in shock when Rai gets run down.

Tebogo may looked good just now but you are selling Benjamin WAY short.

Rai split 43.3 at last Olympics with no one around him, and he’s faster now. This isn’t an Angelo Taylor situation.

He sat around the village for almost 3 weeks with no race on the horizon until the about 36 hours ago. Of course he wasn’t ready. Also not really his fault, they should have run him on the mixed relay prelim and that should have been it.!

Weird.

This kid ran @ 44.2 last time he raced.

What happened? Did he go out way too fast?

The kid got his experience and the US is moving on. I'm sure he's learned a lot and will be ready to crush it in LA.

Tebogo ran the first leg in the heats. I don't think you take your 100/200 guy out of the blocks. This race won't be close once you have a 44.x opening leg for usa instead of a 47.x. Why is tebogo running anchor in your scenario?

He earned his spot. Had an off day (been a long year for him and a long wait and uncertain time in Paris) but the team got through and they will sub him out. Next time on this stage the young man will do just fine

You just fluctuate more when you're his age, you've been running all year, and you're five thousand miles away at your first major champs. He'll gets some rest and then get back to a normal rhythm.

August is late for a high schooler. Even the NCAA athletes tend to struggle at the Olympics because of how long the season is. I’m also curious as to how his training went over the summer. He’s not a pro.

He will have his moment and maybe even be the next big U.S. sprinter, but that time is not yet.

I split 47+ back in the day, and I'm just some random guy.

He seemed done with by 250-300. Depending on what was going on with him physically, even running 47.2 might have been a gutsy performance. It's always worse when you see someone just give up, which it doesn't appear he did.

Not weird. He's a kid with next to zero experience. Everyone wanted him to run (expect maybe the relay team). It's done. Now he can watch his replacement try to get him a medal in the finals.

Yeah, he looked ragged a little past 200m, but his first 200 wasn't really fast.

It looked like a bad warm up, extreme nerves or he was sick.

You can't lose that much fitness that quickly.

At least he got stadium warm event experience. I'm impressed that so many runners perform well with such a change in their warm up ritual.

I feel like for relay he earned his consideration, not his spot. being 16 no experience, his long season other things should be taken into consideration. He stopped running 5 steps before Norwood like he was finishing a race with a big lead.

He earned his spot.

6th at the Trials and 44.2 in his last race.

You have to get experience at some point. Now he has gotten experience.

The team made it through. They have 3 good guys to swap in for the final. It's all working out.

Oh man, I just looked at results and was shocked. Checked splits....oof!

I feel bad for the kid. Glad our guys were able to overcome that, but that means they all had to run pretty damn hard.

Rai and Hall will definitely help.

Lot of respect for Norwood showing his experience and putting the team back in the race. I'll give Wilson the slack since the team was still able to qualify and he earned his spot leading up to this. I see Wilson and Deadmon being replaced. Rai is in for sure, Hall it depends if he recovers from the 400. I believe I saw somewhere that he tweaked something the last 100m. We shall see if they decide if Norman should be on the relay. It would be goated for Kerley or Bednarek to be placed on the relay. I think Hall will leadoff just to shove it to Noah. So my expected relay at this point is Hall > Norwood > Bailey > Benjamin.