New conventional relay wisdom
IT USED to be conventional wisdom that your fastest sprinter would anchor the 4x100m relay. Just in case anything went wrong, the convention stipulated that big anchor legs from the likes of Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis, Bob Hayes, Merlene Ottey, Evelyn Ashford, and Veronica Campbell-Brown would be there to repair the damage. It made perfect sense.
The times are a-changing. The recent adjustment in the passing zone from 20m to 30m has profoundly affected the race and the impact is seen especially on the second leg. In the old days, those 30m were divided into 10m for acceleration and then a 20m passing zone. Now, great runners can take the baton a little earlier and do even more for their teams by carrying it late into the exchange zone for the third leg.
Four-time 100m champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce did the business for Jamaica in that position at the recent IAAF World Championships. The old wisdom would have placed her on anchor, but she and the Jamaican team coaches got the line-up of Natalliah
Whyte, Fraser-Pryce, Jonielle Smith, and Shericka Jackson perfectly right. The runner-up British team put 200m champion Dina AsherSmith on the second leg as well.
Similarly, when Edwin Allen High School stormed to 43.62 seconds at this year’s Penn Relays, the team’s number-one sprinter, Kevona Davis, ran the second leg.
Big teams can be more flexible. The USA men’s team used 100m winner Christian Coleman on the lead off leg, where he could employ his bullet start and skill in running the curve. Calabar’s sensational dream team always had Christopher Taylor on the back straight. The incomparable Usain Bolt ran the third leg when Jamaica crossed the line first at the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 World Championships. Tyson Gay steamed the top curve after his sterling sprint double at the 2007 Worlds.
That leg protected his anchor man from an Asafa Powell rampage that took Jamaica from fifth to second in just 8.8 seconds.
NEW EXCHANGE ZONE RULES
So the flexibility has always been there, but the new exchangezone rules have cranked things up a notch. The Jamaican coaches in Doha, Qatar, used the new flexibility, with Fraser-Pryce and top men’s sprinter Yohan Blake both blazing the backstretch. Short on practice races, the men were bumped from the final despite an effort that would have advanced in every other World Championship.
Italy and Jamaica occupied ‘fastest loser’ spots after fourthand fifth-place finishes and times of 38.11 and 38.15 seconds, respectively, in the first semi-final. What happened in the second semi-final was magic. For the first time in the history of track and field, six teams broke 38 seconds in one race. Incredibly, Canada missed the final even though André DeGrasse anchored his team across the line in 37.91!
South Africa won with a national record 37.65 seconds, with Japan, China, France, and Holland following with times of 37.78, 37.79, 37.88 and 37.91 seconds, respectively. Just like Jamaica, none of these five teams had any men who won medals in the individual finals. It’s a brave new world.
In the final, Coleman, 100m runner-up Justin Gatlin, Pan-Am Games 100m winner Mike Rodgers and 200m champion Noah Lyles zoomed home in 37.10 seconds, the third-fastest time ever. It was impressive.
Incidentally, Great Britain secured the silver with a national record of 37.36 seconds, with European 100m champion Zharnel Hughes on the backstretch.
To match those teams, Jamaica needs to practise and race together more, but given the new convention, the fastest man doesn’t always need to anchor.