American legend turns on runners after relay curse continues in shock scenes at Olympics

Nine-time Olympic champion Carl Lewis has called for USA's track and field system to be 'blown up' after the men's 4x100m relay team - who were heavily favoured to take out gold at the Paris Olympics - were disqualified. The US men's team extended their incredible relay drought to 20 years without a medal on Friday in Paris, after they were disqualified for an illegal pass.

Christian Coleman botched the first baton handover, crashing into teammate Kenny Bednarek while making the exchange between the first and second legs, disrupting the timing of the pass and forcing the exchange outside the legal zone. It continues the sprint powerhouse's dismal Olympic run, with the 2004 Athens Games being the last time the US men's team medalled.

And Friday's botched handoff was far from a one-off occurrence for the American track team. There was an error in the pass in the heats of the 2021 Tokyo Games, while the US were also disqualified at the 2016 Rio Games. And US track and field legend Lewis has declared enough is enough after yet another failure, taking to X to voice his anger at the repeated inexplicable errors.

"It is time to blow up the system," said Lewis. "This continues to be completely unacceptable. It is clear that EVERYONE at @usatf (the US track and field federation) is more concerned with relationships than winning. No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom."

In Friday night's final, Canada clinched the top spot on the podium, with Andre De Grasse pulling away from his opposition in the final 100m. It was a bright spot on what has been an underwhelming Olympic campaign for Canada. It also marked the first medal at the Paris Games for De Grasse, his seventh overall. South Africa finished second and Team GB third.

Missing Covid-hit 100m champion Noah Lyles, the US initially crossed the line in seventh in 37.89, but were later disqualified. And following the race Coleman and Bednarek admitted that they probably should have done more work on the changeovers in preparation.

"Obviously we all are going to be hard on ourselves," Coleman said. "Track and field is an individual sport so we do our own thing in sprinting. So when we come together as a team, that's the fun part of it.

"Obviously, it's a little disappointing, especially for America, because we wanted to do it, we wanted to bring it home, we knew we had the speed to do it... Maybe we could have put in some more work, it just didn't happen. We practised a lot. Me and Kenny have been awesome teammates a few times over the years. We felt really confident. It just didn't happen.

"We're our own biggest critic. We're disappointed because we know we had the speed to do it. It's part of the sport that you come into it with the risk-reward."

Bednarek added: "At the end of the day we knew what we could do, we came out here with a mindset of no risk, no reward. It didn't happen, it is what it is."

Sha'Carri Richardson lifts women's 4x100 team to relay gold

Unlike the US men's 4x100m team, the women's handovers were excellent as they motored over the top of Britain and Germany to take gold. Olympic silver medallist and reigning world champion Sha'Carri Richardson was enormous as she took America from third to first in the final hundred metres, in an incredible anchor leg on Friday night.

The US team was stacked with talent, consisting of Richardson, 200m individual gold medallist Gabby Thomas, 100m bronze medallist Melissa Jefferson and Twanisha Terry. But the US had to dig deep to win gold in 41.78 seconds.

"The moment that I would describe is realising that when we won as USA ladies, it was a phenomenal feeling for all of us," said Richardson. It was the first Olympic gold for the 24-year-old Richardson, who missed the 2020 Tokyo Games after testing positive for marijuana and being hit with a one-month ban.

with AAP