The US women’s 4x100m pulled off the upset. The US men’s 4x100m were upset.
The penultimate day of the athletics world championships produced surprises in the final two races on Saturday night’s schedule.
Melissa Jefferson, Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and TeeTee Terry stunned a Jamaican women’s quartet that included Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Shericka Jackson and Elaine Thompson-Herah, who swept the individual 100m medals. The USA won by four hundredths in 41.14 seconds.
Jefferson had the best split of the starting runners, then Steiner edged Thompson-Herah by .24, enough for Prandini and Terry to hold off Fraser-Pryce and Jackson’s charge.
“[If] there’s no chemistry, there’s no confidence to be able to swing the baton through the exchanges, then you’re not really going to produce what you think you can produce just because you have the three or four fastest women,” Terry said. “Our chemistry was so good that we didn’t even have to do much when we warmed up.”
Twenty minutes later, Christian Coleman, Noah Lyles, Elijah Hall and Marvin Bracy-Williams delivered silver instead of the expected gold. Canada, which won the men’s 4x100m at the last world championship held in the United States at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, edged out the Americans by seven-hundredths with Andre De Grasse anchoring.
The U.S. had an underhanded pass from Coleman to Lyles and even more from Hall to Bracy-Williams at anchor.
The United States was without Fred Kerley, who won the 100-meter individual medley last Saturday as part of an American medal sweep, then was injured in a quad in the 200-meter semifinals.
The United States is the greatest sprinting nation in history, although it has swept the 4x100m golds at just one world championship (Olympic or World) in the past 29 years (22 meets).
“A lot of people see it [silver] as a loss, but to be honest with the struggles we’ve been having over the years, it’s good to have the pole, to run a fast time,” said Lyles, who was in the 2019 4x100m to win the lone men’s of the U.S. gold since 2007.
The world championships conclude on Sunday with nine finals, including the women’s 800m (Athing Mu) and 100m hurdles (Keni Harrison), pole vault (Mondo Duplantis) and the men’s decathlon and 4x400m relay final.
TRACK WORLDS: Broadcast schedule | results | List of USA | Key events
Earlier Saturday, Allyson Felix made a surprise comeback to help the U.S. women’s 4x400m relay qualify for Sunday’s final. Felix, who thought last week’s 4x400m medley would be his last major race before retirement, was summoned from Los Angeles (while eating hot wings and drinking a root beer float) to return to Eugene for the women’s 4×400 m heats.
Felix, who was sixth at nationals in the 400m individual medley, had the fastest time of the four American women in the heat, but said she doesn’t expect to be asked to make the final four. Expect 400m hurdles gold and bronze medalists Sydney McLaughlin and Dalilah Muhammad to be replaced. Felix would still be in line for a record 20th running world championship medal, as preliminary runners also receive medals.
Gudaf Tsegay gave Ethiopia a test in the women’s 5,000m, 10,000m and marathon at the world championships, taking the 5,000m five days after winning silver in the 1,500m and being replaced in the country’s 5,000m line-up. He overtook Olympic gold medalist Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands coming into the final curve. Hassan finished sixth, one place behind world record holder Letesenbet Gidey of Ethiopia. On Her Turf has more on the women’s 5000m here.
Kenya’s Emmanuel Korir followed up his Tokyo Olympic gold with a world title in the 800m Korir overtook Canada’s Marco Arop in the home stretch. Algerian Djamel Sedjati also passed Arop for silver. No Americans made it to the finals.
Like Korir, Portugal’s triple jumper Pedro Pablo Pichardo added a world title to his Olympic gold. No Americans won a medal in the event for the first time since 2009.
Grenada javelin thrower Anderson Peters, who started throwing stones at mango trees as a child, repeated as world champion.
Olympic decathlon champion Damian Warner of Canada stopped with a left leg injury in the 400m, the fifth and final event of the first of two days of competition. Warner was leading the overall. Puerto Rico’s Ayden Owens-Delerme, Michigan’s NCAA champion, took the lead over the final five events Sunday.
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