The greatest concern of ALL relay team’s at any level is “to get the baton around.” The idea the baton will be exchanged before the zone seldom an issue. Hell athletes are probably not even aware of the line that indicates the beginning of the zone but you can be certain they know where the zone ends.
I don’t believe Doc was wrong for putting his hand back as all he did is do what he’s suppose to do when the assigned verbal cue is given. Shawn, on the otherhand, should have ran behind DP until they were safely in the zone. But again their one and only concern was to “get the batton around.”
The other interesting drama is Britain. from the one side, they’d like to be farther out for a better bend but on the other, they might sneak into a big lead without the first 3 Jamaicans seeing it.
There is no way that this can be laid on Crawford. For exchanges to work the incoming runner can only concentrate on the exchanges as he is moving at top speed. It’s outgoing runner’s task to know where in the zone he is, especially in the front of the zone when his head is down and he is accelerating. The outgoing guy has “eyes” due to his lower velocity and this is on Patton once again. The concept is universal.
As for Crawford slowing until they are in zone, this sounds good in concept, but in reality it rarely works, especially at this level. The downsweep/push pass leaves little room for error as the target bounces and this becomes more of an issue as the outgoing runner accelerates. The downseep/push pass takes up more of the lane as this technique requires a very unnatural articulation of the arm. The pass must be completed behind the outgoing athlete, reducing the window of exchange. When you “wait” for the outgoing athlete to get going, more often than not, he gets away. Patton presents a lousy target too, so this is even worse in his case. This is not in any way on Crawford.
Contrast this with France, who had a similar issue on their second exchange. The incoming runner had the room to run up on the outgoing guy and let him get going. The upsweep exchange allows for multiple points of change. It doesn’t need to occur behind the outgoing runner. The articulations are natural and two athletes can share a lane/zone more comfortably.
If anything this fiasco is another Brooks Johnson disaster. He may be gone, but he is the one who enforced this silliness. US coaches need to open their eyes and look around.
The down-sweep pass, or more correctly the push pass was designed to prevent the risks associated with the up-sweep pass, shown in 1968 when the Polish team was winning he women’s 4x100 but, on third to forth, they ran out of room on the stick and dropped it. The Polish coach, later our coach, Gerard Mach, made the switch to the push pass then and there.
As for more opportunities, the up-sweep 's benefit is keeping the arm action in rhythm the whole time, so a miss might require a whole cycle for another try, meaning less chances and not more and looses on free distance. There is absolutely no doubt that the up-sweep requires far more practice time to perfect and is much better suited to teams who know their personnel far in advance and not those relying on trials to sort out the team, like the USA and Jamaica.
The other issue with the up-sweep is training considerations. Since relay training camps are required more often, the possibility of individualized training is diminished and therefor injury risk increased.
Disaster for the US women as well! I think the 2nd girl was in too far in the lane and stepped on Muna’s foot but I couldn’t really tell what happened. If it was the foot, it might have caused Muna to yank her hamstring.
I understand the evolution of relay passing. The push is a modified downsweep. The elbow articulates in two directions so I don’t recognize the push as being significantly different, at least from the standpoint of the incoming runner.
Mach advocated a relatively low, straight arm for the outgoing athlete. Effectively he was simply reversing the hand position of the outgoing runner and changing the elbow articulation of the incoming runner. This, in turn, created an extremely “hard” target. The natural position of the hand when grabbing an object is facing downward. Anatomically it’s a very basic concept that is overlooked. Additionally the low are position of the outgoing runner presents a poor target for the incoming runner. There is no differentiation between the hand and wrist. Finally as stated in the previous post, the exchange window is now reduced and cannot take place anywhere but behind the outgoing runner.
US teams, whether they are collegiate or National have attempted to mitigate some of these issues by forcing the outgoing runner to raise his exchange arm to an unnaturally high position. This does give a better target, but it causes a series of other issues. The target window is reduced even further and the acceleration pattern of the outgoing runner is disrupted, often severely (ie: Patton).
The upsweep does have the issue of baton management (how’s that for a euphemism ). Interesting so did the US yesterday so I don’t think that the downsweep/push completely eliminates this issue. As for practice time required I am not at all sure that I would agree. What I would say is that since most nations have switched to the downsweep/push there have been far more drops and other fumbles.
Free distance is a false construct. It was created as a means of justifying the downsweep/push. The quest for this has ignored the primary goal of baton speed, which is after all the prime objective.
I haven’t been up to speed on the happenings here but the USA relay organizers/participants are morons!
You would think that the “experienced veteran” Doc would know… put it this way Doc, your start sucks and you just ran 10.3 and Crawford ran 19.7 into a headwind…so your ‘go’ mark needs to be moved out. For pete’s sake! F-ing adolescents can pass a baton around the track!
I can understand why the Jamaicans ran in lane 7 (same time with Canada, but they are the WR holders, whatever), but why France was in lane 1? I’ve beat the subject to death, I know…
Lanes are assigned by the places they got in the semifinals.
They way they seed:
Fastest winner
2nd fastest winner. etc.
…
Fastest no. 2
2nd fastest no. 2. etc.
The 4 highest seeds then draw for lanes 3-6 and the rest for 1, 2, 7 and 8.
It’s therefore much more important to win your heat than to get a fast time.
So, France could be given any of lanes 1, 2, 7, 8 but they were just unlucky and got the worst lane despite having the 5th time from the semis? Is this decided by a draw then?
At this point the only solution that I can see is for Doug Logan to step in, exert his authority and appoint a relay coach for the men and another for the women. At Nationals this person would select whoever he or she wants, dictate when camps and competitions would be and use whatever technique he or she wants. If the team drops the baton at the next competition he/she would be fired and replaced. If the team ran poorly he/she would have one more year to put it together or be fired.
While Jamaica’s men would be very tough to beat, there would be no shame in running fast and finishing behind them. A well coached USA women’s team could have run away from Jamaica who exchanged poorly.
The agents can be damned on this issue. A group of 10.10 guys passing well can run mid-37’s. It takes athletes who care.
Anyway guys, the USA shouldn’t even need a relay coach to medal. Track is these guys’ entire lives. If they can’t get a baton even around the track in prelims that is freaking sad. I can take a bunch of 18 year olds from a summer track meet, throw them together and they can get the stick around.
). Interesting so did the US yesterday so I don’t think that the downsweep/push completely eliminates this issue. As for practice time required I am not at all sure that I would agree. What I would say is that since most nations have switched to the downsweep/push there have been far more drops and other fumbles.