Edmonton 2001: Exciting Men's Relays!!!

[Historian]

2001 IAAF World Championships, Edmonton:
Exciting 4x100-meter Performances!

After reading Karl’s prediction (in another thread below) that Jamaica will win the men’s 4x100-meter relay this summer in Berlin, it got me thinking about the risky business of predicting 4x100-meter relays.

Then, my mind turned to thinking about the many men’s 4x100-meter relay events that I’ve watched. After some twenty minutes or so of thinking about this, I reached the tentative conclusion that perhaps the single most memorable set of quarter-final heats, semi-final heats, and final were the two days in early August 2001 at the IAAF World Championships in Edmonton, Canada! I cannot recall, at this moment, ever seeing so many teams that either exchanged batons outside of the twenty-meter zone or else flung their batons away in horrid exchanges!

Think I’m joking about the comedy at the 2001 IAAF World Championships? The biggest comedy of all, of course, came courtesy of Jamaica’s relay team members Dwight Thomas (second leg) and Christopher Williams (curve) which resulted in Jamaica placing dead last in their quarter-final heat (40.05 seconds!!!). Anyway, this post is not about Jamaica’s bizarre performance that afternoon, although Thomas and Williams must surely have provided comic relief to millions of people around the world.

Just check out the following teams, which were either disqualified or else did not finish their race (teams are listed alphabetically here):

Quarter-Final and Semi-Finals Heats

Cuba (DNF)
France (DQ)
Germany (DQ)
Great Britain (DNF)
Liberia (DNF)
Thailand (DQ)
United States of America (DQ and then reinstated)
Venezuela (DQ)

Finals
Brazil (DNF)
USA (DQ)

No wonder South Africa (gold in 38.47), Trinidad (silver in 38.58) and Australia (bronze in 38.83) were the three teams to ascend the podium!!!