“I didn’t have anything left,” Wariner said.
He’s part of the long litany of 2007 world champions from the United States who did not follow up those performances with Olympic gold: Tyson Gay (100, 200), Allyson Felix (200), Bernard Lagat (1,500), Kerron Clement (400 hurdles), Brad Walker (pole vault), Reese Hoffa (shot put). Lolo Jones and Sanya Richards are among the other Americans who didn’t grab gold they and others forecast.
In other disappointing news for the Americans, Gay and Darvis Patton fumbled the handoff and dropped the baton in a 400-meter relay preliminary heat.
Gay never did get to even compete in a final at the Beijing Olympics, much less win a medal, let alone gold.
“I feel like I let my teammates down,” Gay said. “It’s kind of the way it’s been happening for me this Olympics.”
You’re hardly alone, Tyson.
Usain Bolt and the rest of the Jamaican team keeps running circles around everyone, adding yet another gold when Veronica Campbell-Brown won her second consecutive Olympic 200-meter title.
The United States, meanwhile, keeps falling short of expectations. For the first time in Summer Games history, the U.S. will leave an Olympics 0-for-6 in the sprint races: the men’s and women’s 100s, 200s and 400 relays.
“It doesn’t seem like it’s our meet,” said Felix, runner-up to Campbell-Brown in 2004 and this time.
The sprint shutout was assured when, less than a half-hour after the Patton-to-Gay gaffe - and at the same curve in the track - U.S. women’s relay anchor Lauryn Williams couldn’t get her hand around the baton Torri Edwards was trying to pass along.
An all-around dismal display, prompting new USA Track & Field CEO Doug Logan to promise “a comprehensive review” of the way the federation does things - including, he pointed out, “the way we select, train and coach our relays.”
It didn’t go unnoticed that Gay didn’t participate in the team’s pre-Olympics training camp in China. Gay said he and Patton practiced exchanges in Beijing and didn’t miss a one.
Relay preliminaries are supposed to be perfunctory for the United States: gimmes, like the layup line before an NBA game, batting practice at a major league ballpark. Setting aside the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics, you have to go back to 1948 for the last time the U.S. women failed to reach the 400 relay final; 1912 and 1988 were the only previous times it happened to the men.
“Heartbreaking,” Edwards said.
And Jamaica? The Caribbean island of about 2.8 million people, roughly the population of Chicago, is the first country to sweep the four individual sprint gold medals at an Olympics since the United States did it in 1988.
“This Olympics is the Jamaican Olympics, no disrespect to the Americans,” said Kerron Stewart, who earned a silver in the 100 Sunday, then a bronze in the 200. “Dominating like we are, it’s no surprise. I know it’s been crazy, because we’ve been on the podium a lot.”
The only nation that has gone 6-for-6 in Olympic sprint races was the United States at the 1984 Los Angeles Games boycotted by the Soviet Union.
That sort of perfection appears to be a distinct possibility for the Jamaicans, led by Bolt - who won the 100 and 200, both in world-record time - and Asafa Powell in the men’s relay, and the trio of 100 medalists plus Campbell-Brown in the women’s.
“They brought their ‘A’ game. I don’t know where we left ours. It’s packed somewhere in my suitcase. I forgot to dig it out. We’ve got to go find it, though,” said Williams, whose faulty exchange with Marion Jones cost the U.S. a relay medal at the 2004 Olympics. “This is not the Team USA we know. We’re a much better team than this, flat out.”
The United States finished Thursday with 20 medals, but only four gold - trailing Jamaica and Russia in that column. The United States led the track and field gold count at each of the past six Summer Games.
Not all was lost on this night for the country that dominated last year’s world championships, a showing that led U.S. head women’s coach Jeanette Bolden to predict a couple of months ago this squad would go down as the strongest ever.
Can’t be any stronger than sweeping an event’s three medals, which is what the Stars and Stripes did in the men’s 400 Thursday, something Felix termed “a bit uplifting after a pretty tough night.”
But even when things go well here, they don’t go according to plan.
There is a chance for more U.S. medals in the decathlon, which reached the halfway point Thursday with 2004 silver medalist Bryan Clay in first place and Trey Hardee in third. And the American haul Thursday did include David Payne’s silver and David Oliver’s bronze in the 110-meter hurdles, which world record-holder Dayron Robles of Cuba won comfortably.
