The men’s 4×100 switch at this Saturday’s Diamond League trail meet in London may turn into a doctor if Canada fielded its A team and each member was two weeks sharper than they were when they last performed as a device.
It’s a rare meet on the circuit that features men’s and women’s switch tribes, and even without comments from heavyweights U. S. and Jamaica we may depend on a bruising competitors. Japan may join the Netherlands and France in line, as will Japan. In the people’s competition, Great Britain intends to field two groups.
The next time we saw Canada in motion, they outclassed all those teams. Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse combined to win silver at the World Relays in May, running 37.89 seconds, and If that musician is good and performing up to their ability, they’re a gold threat in any world last.
But reaching the podium next month in Paris is n’t just a matter of best-case-scenario peak performance. It’s even a question of breadth, and staff Canada needs to find solutions.
A skeptic may see a problem for Athletics Canada’s signal manager, Glenroy Gilbert. An idealist sees an opportunity. Which U.S. field in Paris will have more natural rate than Team Canada, but in the circuit consistency is king and queen. The race on Saturday also offers a chance to learn important information about which group of runners might do best under high pressure, and it could help Canada regain its position on the podium in Paris.
Next summer at the world finals in Budapest, a lack of detail hamstrung Canada’s possibilities at a circuit prize.
De Grasse was well known for surviving a mediocre year before he entered the kingdoms. He qualified for the last in the 200 metres, commonly considered his best function, but without a post 20-second posting to his funds that time, he was a longshot. Then came the scheduling conflict: the 200 meter final and relay prelims were scheduled for the same session. De Grasse, normally a lights-out anchor runner, opted out of the relay to focus on his individual race. De Grasse and the relay team were unable to win a medal in the 200 meter race because they did not make it to the final.
But here’s the thing about last summer…
It’s last summer.
Talent and depth
Right now, as far as we know, the entire squad is healthy. De Grasse has also stated in detail that he intends to travel to Paris.
As for depth?
On paper, Canada has more in 2024.
( 10.04 ), ( 10.03 ) and ( 10.01 ) have all threatened the 10-second barrier this season, flashing the footspeed Team Canada lacked last year. Since the 200-meter final, which Brown, Rodney, and De Grasse hope will achieve, is once more scheduled for the same session as the relay prelims, any or all of them might need to use those wheels in Paris. From here it looks like another scheduling puzzle to solve, but a breakthrough from Adjibi, Asemota or Murray could simplify Gilbert’s decision.
So this Saturday’s Diamond League event grows in importance, given how infrequently national relay teams face off in high-stakes races.
Any track nerd can monitor week-by-week results, take notes on where the fastest people live, and make crude calculations about which nation might make the best relay team, but individual race results are the only thing that matters. If raw speed alone determined relay results, we would n’t even need to run races. We would just take the U. S., where three sprinters broke 9.9 seconds at Olympic Trials, and Jamaica, where 9.82 settled for silver because, and flip a coin.
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Heads, they win. Tails, everyone else loses.
The 4×100 is fast and frantic, and working the baton around the track without a fumble or exchange zone violation is essential.
Team USA can tell you. Sometimes their men’s relays would fail spectacularly; look at the multi-person pileup that cost them a. Other times, more common errors have cost them hardware, such as the illegal exchange that resulted in their being DQ’d in Rio in 2016.
And at the world level, flawless exchanges separate finalists from lane-fillers, and medal-winners from also-rans.
Again, ask American men’s relay teams how that goes. Before a slight hiccup with the changeover between Eli Hall and anchorman Marvin Bracy-Williams, they had a three-game winning streak at the 2022 world championships in Eugene, Oregon. Against lesser competition it likely would n’t have mattered. Although it was a few steps off the national record, Bracy Williams hustled down the home stretch and crossed the finish line in 37.55 seconds, which is still respectable for a podium in the world.
The Eugene lineup that won gold is the same one that won silver at World Relays in May of this year. We know they’re capable of clean exchanges at big races, whether they’re leading, trailing, or in a dead heat. As for the second unit, Saturday’s Diamond League event offers a chance to see how well the youngsters – Adjibi is 23, Murray, 24, and Asemota, 27 – mesh with the incumbents, and whether the newcomers can convert world-class linear speed into high-level relay success.
It’s a high-speed dress rehearsal that generates more information than training sessions ever could. We wo n’t just see who can go stride-for-stride with the U. K. and Japan, but who can receive and hand off the baton with equal ease, and do it in a stadium full of screaming fans. At a practice track, you can simulate those stakes and that atmosphere, but you ca n’t replicate them. But if they can execute in London, it’s a clue that they can do it in Paris, too.
As a group, Canada still has the speed and skill to reach the Olympic podium, actually getting there is a test of the program’s depth.
And how deep this summer are they?
Maybe we’ll see on Saturday.