US sprinting icon rips 'embarrassing' relay farce

A dilatory speech near the American 4x100m relay squad successful an all-too-familiar spot astatine the Olympics contiguous — retired of medal contention.

And this time, not adjacent racing for one.

The squad of Trayvon Bromell, Fred Kerley, Ronnie Baker and Cravon Gillespie failed to marque the last aft finishing sixth successful their qualifying heat, extending a quarter-century of misery for the state that brings the deepest way squad to the Games.

The botched relay show prompted American sprinting fable Michael Johnson, a four-time Olympic golden medallist, to instrumentality to Twitter to blast the team.

"This isn't rocket science," Johnson wrote.

"Trying to get 2 radical moving afloat velocity to speech a baton wrong a 20m portion requires practice! Especially erstwhile you haven't won this lawsuit since Sydney 2000 owed to drops and portion violations! Embarrassing and ridiculous."

OLYMPICS BLOG: UPDATES, LATEST NEWS | TOKYO GAMES EVENT CENTRE: SCHEDULE, RESULTS, MEDAL TALLY

The United States haven't won the Olympic 4x100m since 2000 and haven't made it cleanly to the decorativeness enactment successful a last since taking a metallic medal successful 2012. But they gave that 1 backmost due to the fact that of a doping prohibition against Tyson Gay.

Cravon Gillespie reacts aft his US relay squad miss the final. (Getty)

This marked the archetypal clip the US had failed to marque the last since 2008, erstwhile Gay was progressive successful a bumbled exchange. The US got disqualified for different atrocious walk successful the medal contention successful 2016.

This time, the sprinters made it astir the track, but it was ugly.

Finishing the 2nd leg, Kerley repeatedly misconnected with Baker, to the constituent that they were practically broadside by broadside and hardly moving by the clip they exchanged the stick.

Baker made up immoderate crushed connected a fast-disappearing tract and Gillespie tried to adjacent connected the anchor leg, but China, Canada and Italy finished 1-2-3 and the remainder of the tract pulled away, arsenic well.

This marks the 10th clip since 1995 that the men person botched a relay astatine a satellite championships oregon Olympics.

The women made it done with a no-drama vigor of their ain and volition contention for the medal tomorrow.

Michael Johnson celebrates winning the men's 200m last astatine the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. (Getty)

For a regular dose of the champion of the breaking quality and exclusive contented from Wide World of Sports, subscribe to our newsletter by clicking here!