We definately had the team to win and would have won if there wouldnt have been a college rookie there in the finals. the pressure to do well for your country is so much more than for your school. All the other handoffs were fine except the 1to2 handoff. I just believe that the little practice they had would have produced better results if you put the guys in there who know how to get it done even with just a few days to work on handoffs. but anyway my point was to say that we can whine and complain and even brag, but at the end of the day the results are the results you have to live with. as with Mo I believe that if he and some of the other athletes in our sport would understand that it doesnt matter how much you talk off the track what are you gonna do on it. when have you ever heard anything like this in womens track? Well there was one between Inger Miller and Marion Jones in the 2000 olympics but Marion Jones said one thing and it was over she said, and I am paraphrasing.(Inger beat me once when I was a high school freshman and she was a senior, we have raced plenty of times since and that was the only time she beat me). After that Inger shut up and Marion had no reason to say anything else.
i’m not going to say whether carl lewis should or shouldn’t but all i’ll say is EXPEREIENCE!
big word and it counts a great deal,also hes a reliable anchor man who always delivers…
As far as Lewis’ inclusion on the 4x1 in Atlanta is concerned, MJ said early and often that if it was his decision, he’d have gone with Mitchell 3rd and Lewis 4th. His exact words were “I think I’d have to stick with the proven formula.”
Peace
JB
My thing is this, and I told myself I wouldn’t engage in this anymore, but here I go. First, I don’t think because MJ said it, it is right. I also agree, there is much pressure in doing something for your country, but i believe in order to get to the level of making an olympic team, you have to be able to handle a lot of pressure and approach every meet the same. I do believe the average world class sprinter approaches meets thinking there is not much i can do today to make results different, the work has been put in, I have to just race now. Yes Carl had experience, but he also took last in the olympic trials, i don’t think the four who were on there may have been the best four, but i have to say, the guys who made that decision were chosen to make the decision that they did, and they are professionals at that. I do believe if these experts really thought Carl were the best for the job, then Carl would have been running last. When would you guys say it would have to end, i mean if Carl ran an olympic trials qualifying time next year, does that mean he should be on the relay because he is within 2 tenths of the fourth fastest guy and he has EXPERIENCE, i don’t know, it had to end sometime, his reign as well as Dennis Mitchell’s. Really, how far does Carl have to go in the Olympic trials for us to say, he is still worthy of being on the relay team, and when can we say, ok, that is enough. Please, i don’t want people to start saying I am disrespecting what Carl has done in the sport, i can respect Carl and think he didn’t deserve to be on the relay team concurrently. Furthermore, as i said before, this is an infinite argument, the results are what they are, let us be happy with what we did in 2000 and soon in 2004.