Triple Trouble?

Jamaican Usain Bolt accomplished a major feat by winning the 100-meter dash, the 200-meter race, and the 4x100-meter relay in the Rio Games.  See, these were the third consecutive times he won each of those races in the Olympics, which is why the press is calling this feat the triple-triple. But that symmetrical record may be in jeopardy; it suddenly turns out that a fellow Jamaican on the gold-medal-winning 4x100 tram in Beijing in 2008 may have been on steroids at the time.  If it turns out to be true, Bolt, who was not on steroids and never has been, could lose that relay medal from 2008?

And this is only coming out now?  Sure took long enough . . . and the timing couldn't be more suspect.  I certainly hope it isn't true.

Incidentally, something similar happened to Michael Johnson in 2000 at the Sydney Olympics.  The esteemed American sprinter ran on the U.S. men's 4x400-meter relay team and helped the team win the gold medal. Then it came out that there was doping involved.  As far as I can make out, Johnson was the only one on that team who wasn't on steroids.  Needless to say, the team was disqualified, and Johnson had to suffer the indignity of being embarrassed because of the cheating of others.

And speaking of the 4x400, both the American men's and women's teams  - the women's team featuring Allyson Felix - won.  Felix now has six Olympic gold medals, more than any American woman in track and field history.  Congratulations also to Matthew Centrowitz for winning the men's 1500-meter race.

Keeping (and Losing) Track

As exciting as it was to see Ashton Eaton win the decathlon at the Olympics for the second time in a row, Usain Bolt's follow-up victories in the men's 200-meter race and the 4x100-meter relay, winning three gold medals in the Rio Olympics and nine overall, were amazing.  The man from D'yer Mak'er is now one of the most successful Olympic track  stars of all time.  He's retiring after this.  Pity.

Meanwhile, in the women's 4x100-meter relay, the U.S. team won a stunning gold-medal victory in the outer lane after having to do a do-over to qualify when a Brazilian runner interfered with Allyson Felix (the U.S. women had to run by themselves against the clock in the do-over).  The team - Felix, Tianna Bartoletta (who, before she got married, was Tianna Madison, the name you might remember her by), English Gardner (speaking of names, the most memorable name since Krystal Ball), and  Tori Bowie - poured it on in the final and won in stunning fashion.

Their male counterparts, incidentally, lost just as stunningly.  They were never going to win over a Jamaican (a D'yer Mak'in?) team anchored by Usian Bolt, but they were able to do well enough to settle for bronze.  Then the roof caved in; it turned out that leadoff runner Mike Rodgers handed the baton off to Justin Gatlin outside the space allotted on the track, causing them to be disqualified.  This is the second consecutive Olympiad in which the American men's 4x100-meter relay team has been disqualified from the event final and the ninth time overall it's had a disqualification or baton screw-up in World Championships or Olympic competition since 1995. (The team didn't make the final at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing because they dropped the baton in . . . a qualifier.)

Girls rule, boys drool?  In the 4x100-meter track relay race, the boys don't just drool, they slobber like St. Bernards.  Last night on the PBS NewsHour, Christine Brennan, noting that the American women win a sizable majority of gold medals - 61 percent - for Team USA, said that, because of Title IX (you know what that is, I won't repeat it), we should get used to that.  But that 61-39 ratio is not just the result of more American women winning.  It's also the result of more American men . . . losing.  Because American men aren't losing to women in the Olympics, of course.  Indeed, some of these guys are defeating themselves.  

While I'm here, I need to drool a bit about my typos from my previous post about Allyson Felix and other track competitors.  I referred to 40-meter and 300-meter races;  they were, respectively, 400-meter and 3000-meter races, the 90 percent reductions the results of missing zeroes.  The original errors were corrected.