Kentucky’s Abby Steiner and U.S. women pull off upset for 4x100 relay gold at Worlds

The difference between four jubilant American women and four deflated American men could be explained by one place on the podium and an 11.5-inch aluminum cylinder. American women had won no short sprinting medals before Saturday night at the track and field world championships, and American men had won them all. Stationed around the Hayward Field track, though, one quartet felt the weight of cursed history and sensed an epic opportunity.

“With any relay, men or women, when you come together as a team, it’s all about chemistry and being able to move that baton,” Twanisha Terry said Saturday night, a gold medal hanging around her neck. “You can have the fastest runners. But if there’s no chemistry and there’s no trust, no baton moved through the exchange, you’re not going to produce that fast of a time.”

Facing a Jamaican 4-by-100 relay team stacked with the three fastest women on Earth, the United States’ foursome of Melissa Jefferson, former University of Kentucky star Abby Steiner, Jenna Prandini and Terry deployed three smooth handoffs to pull a massive upset. Minutes later, one balky exchange and one fatally sloppy handoff turned an expected gold medal into silver for the American men, who after winning every medal in the 100 and 200 meters settled for second in the 4-by-100 relay.

The U.S. men’s 4-by-100 team did not add another debacle to its star-crossed history. But it did add a disappointment, a silver medal after it had spent the past week piling up victories in sprints. The United States ran without 100 meters champion Fred Kerley, who tweaked his hamstring during a 200 meters heat. But Christian Coleman (a volunteer assistant coach at Kentucky), Noah Lyles, Elijah Thompson-Hall and Marvin Bracy-Williams still expected to win.

“It’s bittersweet,” said Bracy-Williams, the 100 meters silver medalist. “At the end of the day, we still got a medal. We could come out of here with nothing. But we got to clean it up. We got a lot of work to do, man, to continue to get better and win. When you sweep the [100 and 200], you expect to come out here and perform better.”

The U.S. women had provided an example. Jamaica sent out the royal trio of Elaine Thompson-Herah, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce and Shericka Jackson. They swept the podium in Tokyo last summer and here this week in the 100 meters. If not for Florence Griffith Joyner, Fraser-Pryce and Jackson would be the fastest women ever in the 100 and 200. Thompson-Herah won three gold medals in Tokyo.

“They have amazing women on their team,” Prandini said. “In order to beat them, we knew we had to have great handoffs.”

And the U.S. women knew they would. They had spent four days together at a relay camp in Texas and another four days here practicing between individual races.

“Everyone has their opinions of who they think was going to win,” Prandini said. “We were confident we could do it.”

Steiner might have made the difference. A burgeoning star and relay expert at Kentucky, Steiner won two gold medals at the NCAA championships in June — in the 200 and 4-by-400 relay — to go with a bronze in the 100 and a silver in the 4-by-100 relay.

Steiner, the U.S. champion in the 200 meters, took the baton from Jefferson, the U.S. champ in the 100 meters, for the second leg with a slight lead. Steiner ran against Thompson-Herah. She finished her 100 meters in a 9.86 seconds to Thompson-Herah’s 10.10.

“I love the chase. I wanted to show up for these ladies so badly,” Steiner said. “So I was going to do whatever it took to run the heck out of my leg.”

Steiner might not be done. Given her experience and the inability of star Athing Mu to run the 4-by-400 relay before competing in the 800 meters Sunday night, Steiner was to be considered to run another relay leg Sunday night.

Saturday night, Steiner handed the baton to Prandini, who sprinted Fraser-Pryce to a draw. Terry took the final handoff with a lead. She never looked to her to right, two lanes over, where Jackson was shrinking the distance. Terry held her off, her trademark braids bouncing behind her in two ponytails.

“I knew once we got the stick in the lead, no one was going to run me down,” Terry said. “It was going to be a fight to the finish, but I wasn’t going to get ran down.”

Terry had carried the baton over the line in 41.14 seconds, 0.07 seconds ahead of Jackson. Once the result was made official on the video board, Terry hopped on one leg and flicked her wrists as if revving a dirt bike.

“Honestly, I knew a lot of people didn’t believe in us to get the gold medal,” Terry said.

The American men faced doubts, owing not to their talent but their history. Even without Kerley, they were the heavy favorite. Despite usually taking the track with the fastest team, the United States had crafted a slapstick history of disappointment in the 4-by-100 relay. Since 1988, American men had won 12 medals at the Olympics and world championships in the 4-by-100 relay but been disqualified 11 times. In Tokyo, the United States crossed the line, but a clumsy handoff between Kerley and Ronnie Baker resulted in a sixth-place finish in the qualifying heat.

Again, the United States did not drop the baton, but they did not handle it well, either. Coleman and Lyles, both members of the 2019 world champion relay squad, exchanged with a slight bobble, but not a mistake that doomed them.

The real problem came on the final handoff, with 100 meters to go. Hall-Thompson zoomed around the final turn with a slight lead and stuck out the baton to Bracy-Williams. On his first attempt to grab it, Bracy-Williams missed. He reached again and twisted his upper body backward, which provided Canadian anchor Andre De Grasse the daylight he needed to storm ahead for gold.

“I really got to look at the film,” Hall-Thompson said. “When I get back and get settled, I’ll check it out. I really don’t even know what happened.”

Their silver medal fit somewhere in between triumph and disaster. It also added to a redemptive performance for U.S. men in sprints. In Tokyo, U.S. men failed to win an individual sprinting Olympic gold for the first time despite spending at least part of 2021 as the favorite in many events. At the world championships, they have traded underachievement for dominance.

American men swept every medal in the 100 and 200, won gold in the 400, gold and silver in the 100 hurdles and silver and bronze in the 400 hurdles. If U.S. male sprinters were their own country, they would lead the world total medals, and only Ethiopia would tie them in golds.

“We are just scooping up medals left and right,” Lyles said. “We’re basically sweeping up dust into a dustbin, and what we’re coming up with is medals.”

Ethiopian female distance runners have matched American male sprinters in dominance. Red, yellow and green flags have been unfurled at a rapid pace, including the one a man tried to run onto the track at the conclusion of the women’s 5,000 before being dragged away by security. Gudaf Tsegay won in 14:46.29, adding to her 1,500 silver, and countrywoman Dawit Seyaum took bronze. Ethiopia finished Saturday night second on the medal table with 10 medals and four golds, seven of them won by women, all of them in distances 1,500 meters or longer.

Nobody in American history has won more track and field medals than the runner summoned Saturday night out of brief retirement. Allyson Felix said goodbye to her sport on the first night of the world championships, walking away after a running a leg for the bronze medal U.S. 4-by-400 mixed relay team. She flew home to Los Angeles and attended the ESPYs. She “absolutely” felt at peace, she said.

Early last week, Felix went to Hot Wings Cafe in Los Angeles and ordered the favorite cheat meal she craved — hot wings and a root beer float. In the middle of her meal, her coach, Bob Kersee, called and asked if she could run a leg in the preliminary round of the women’s 4-by-400 relay.

“I hopped on a plane, and here we are,” Felix said. “I’ve been doing it for so long that it just kind of snaps. Bobby gave me a couple more workouts at home, and you can just snap right back into it. It had only been a few days.”

Felix took the baton from Talitha Diggs, a runner 17 years younger than her, and ran the second leg. The United States won its heat easily in 3:23.38 and created memories for three U.S. sprinters. “It’s been awesome to go from idol to competitor to teammate now,” said Kaylin Whitney, who ran the third leg.

Felix will stick around for Sunday’s final even though she does not plan on running in it. Then again, she presumed she was retired once before. “What do I know?” she said. If four teammates make the podium as the heavy favorite to win gold, Felix will win her 20th world championship medal. She could celebrate with another plate of hot wings.

“I only got a few of them,” Felix said. “I’ll finish that meal now.”