Relays composition

[Charlie_Francis]

@AthleticsCoach

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 down-sweep/push pass leaves little room for error as the target bounces and this becomes more of an issue as the outgoing runner accelerates. The down-seep/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 up-sweep 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.