LEWIS
BLASTS THE COACHES FOR AMERICAN RELAY LOSSES
August 29, 2004
by William C. Rhoden
ATHENS,
Aug. 28 - A day after watching the United States
women be disqualified in the 4x100-meter relay, and
hours after watching the men finish second in their
4x100 relay, the three-time Olympian Carl Lewis
criticized the coaches and the leadership of USA
Track and Field.
"The total organization needs to be restructured,"
he said. "They need to be decertified and start
over. If it doesn't happen, the sport is going to
continue to decline. They can sit up there and prop
it up like it's improving and we're doing all this,
but the cracks are showing fast."
Lewis criticized the order of the runners in the
men's relay and the composition of the women's
relay. "If you look at it, Gatlin had the best start
in the 100, and the best turn in the 200; he should
have led off," Lewis said,
referring to Justin Gatlin, the 100-meter gold medal
winner.
"Maurice should have run second, Coby Miller third,
and the strongest finisher of all of them was
Crawford, he should have anchored,'' Lewis said,
referring to Shawn Crawford. "The
order was wrong. And that's flat out the coaching,
and it goes right back to the same thing, the
leadership."
The sprint coordinator for the United States men and
women is Brooks Johnson.
"It's the same thing on the women's side," Lewis
said. "It was a mistake. Allyson Felix should have
been on that team. The two girls that got medals in
the sprints should have been on that team. Period.
End of discussion."
In a telephone interview on Saturday night, Felix,
who won the silver in the 200, said she wanted to
run the relay. "I was very much available," she
said. "I was disappointed, but I'll be patient. My
time will come."
Lewis said Marion Jones should not have been on the
relay team because she had to compete in the long
jump just before the race.
Lauryn Williams accepted the blame for the botched
handoff in the relay.
"They gave Lauryn the fall because Lauryn was
young," Lewis said. "But Marion made the mistake.
It's not a matter of dogging Marion out, but knowing
the middle legs takes time. Time to get used to
knowing that even though you're coming on them, you
have to keep running hard. It was strictly the
coaches' problems on both relays.
"USA Track and Field pays the relay coach over
$100,000 that they have not announced to have this
relay team set up, and we didn't win one gold medal.
That's a problem."
George Williams, the head track coach for the United
States, said he understood why Lewis was angry at
the relay results.
"He's not as angry as me," Williams said. "I don't
think the guys were truthful with me, don't think
they were really ready to go. They weren't injured,
they were just tired."
The United States track and field team has won more
gold medals in Athens than it did in Sydney or
Atlanta. But Lewis said: "We did not win a single
medal above 400 meters. Makes no sense."
(reprinted from the New York Times)
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