Bahamas was too damn Close!!

[Historian]

We won the gold medal in the women’s 4x100-meter relay, and that’s the important thing. Of course, after watching our ultra-safe run, and also the way in which Debbie Ferguson-Mckenzie kept pace with Kerron, if the USA women had made it to the finals, it might have been a much different story! Remember that a USA team of Lauryn Williams, Allyson Felix, Muna Lee and Carmelita Jeter had run 41.58, the eighth fastest time in history, just a couple of weeks ago in Germany.

Our 42.06 seconds yesterday was nothing in comparison, and while a respectable time, certainly not an impressive one. In fact, it doesn’t even come near the 41.73 seconds ran by the quartet of Lawrence, Simpson, Bailey and Campbell-Brown in Athens five years ago!

But what make me realize how unimpressive our performance was is seeing how well the in-transition Bahamas team ran behind us to snatch the silver (42.29 seconds). Do you realize that this team was comprised of a mixture of a 19-year-old athlete, two “old” women, and a 400-meter sprinter running on a sprint relay team? To be specific:

Sheniqua Ferguson, a 19-year-old talent with a 100-meter personal best time of 11.38 and a 200-meter personal best of 22.85;

Chandra Sturrup, a woman who will be 38 years old in less than a month from now (her PB, set back in 2005, is 10.84, I believe);

Christine Amertil, a 30-year-old 400-meter runner who had never before medaled in an outdoor global meet, although she had made the 400-meter finals in Athens in 2004.

Debbie Ferguson, a 33-year-old woman who surely was the most overworked of all the athletes at the Berlin IAAF World Championships?! Debbie ran eight grueling rounds in the 100 and 200-meter races, and also ran in the semi-finals of the relay before returning to anchor her team! (I hope her government gives her special recognition for carrying such a heavy load.)

Yet our highly rated 4x100-meter team, which boasted two women with the two fastest times this season, and also boasted four women who had each made the finals of either the 100 or 200-meter races, could only manage 41.02 seconds with a fast-closing make-shift Bahamian team behind us?

I guess safe baton exchange was the name of the game!

In the case of the men, while we got an IAAF World Championships record, all I can say is look out for the USA and the Trinis in 2011. As in 2008, the curve running did not make an impact on me!

[Mosiah]

It's the relays! No guarantee the Americans could reproduce that time. On the other hand, they could have bettered it! But too many variables to say one thing or the other.

[Islandman]

Given the situation with the US out and the chaos in the team selection and final running order, ultra-safe baton changes was clearly the way to go.

Any other approach would have been irresponsible.

[Gamma]

i want to think adjustments would have been made...i agree though....i certanly would have made it more intersting.

what you do not point out is that our team contained 100m gold and silver, (potentially 200m silver) and ailenn bailey 100 m finalist...we were no walkover either!!!!

[Gamma]

yup!

[Hortical]

Running close means nothing, and a win is a win!

[Gamma]

i know if the shoe was on the other foot dem would tel us seh "almost neva kill a bird"

[Karl]

We won the gold medal in the women’s 4x100-meter relay, and that’s the important thing. Of course, after watching our ultra-safe run, and also the way in which Debbie Ferguson-Mckenzie kept pace with Kerron, if the USA women had made it to the finals, it might have been a much different story! Remember that a USA team of Lauryn Williams, Allyson Felix, Muna Lee and Carmelita Jeter had run 41.58, the eighth fastest time in history, just a couple of weeks ago in Germany.

Our 42.06 seconds yesterday was nothing in comparison, and while a respectable time, certainly not an impressive one. In fact, it doesn’t even come near the 41.73 seconds ran by the quartet of Lawrence, Simpson, Bailey and Campbell-Brown in Athens five years ago!

But what make me realize how unimpressive our performance was is seeing how well the in-transition Bahamas team ran behind us to snatch the silver (42.29 seconds). Do you realize that this team was comprised of a mixture of a 19-year-old athlete, two “old” women, and a 400-meter sprinter running on a sprint relay team? To be specific:

Sheniqua Ferguson, a 19-year-old talent with a 100-meter personal best time of 11.38 and a 200-meter personal best of 22.85;

Chandra Sturrup, a woman who will be 38 years old in less than a month from now (her PB, set back in 2005, is 10.84, I believe);

Christine Amertil, a 30-year-old 400-meter runner who had never before medaled in an outdoor global meet, although she had made the 400-meter finals in Athens in 2004.

Debbie Ferguson, a 33-year-old woman who surely was the most overworked of all the athletes at the Berlin IAAF World Championships?! Debbie ran eight grueling rounds in the 100 and 200-meter races, and also ran in the semi-finals of the relay before returning to anchor her team! (I hope her government gives her special recognition for carrying such a heavy load.)

Yet our highly rated 4x100-meter team, which boasted two women with the two fastest times this season, and also boasted four women who had each made the finals of either the 100 or 200-meter races, could only manage 41.02 seconds with a fast-closing make-shift Bahamian team behind us?

I guess safe baton exchange was the name of the game!

In the case of the men, while we got an IAAF World Championships record, all I can say is look out for the USA and the Trinis in 2011. As in 2008, the curve running did not make an impact on me!

Good chat!

Yet our highly rated 4x100-meter team, which boasted two women with the two fastest times this season, and also boasted four women who had each made the finals of either the 100 or 200-meter races, could only manage 41.02 seconds with a fast-closing make-shift Bahamian team behind us?

42.06!

...and remember our team in the heats...same runners ran 41.88

[Historian]

So, was the Bahamas "Irresponsible"?

Given the situation with the US out and the chaos in the team selection and final running order, ultra-safe baton changes was clearly the way to go.

Any other approach would have been irresponsible.

Now you make me really anxious to see what the Bahamas’ exchanges were like!!!

Safe exchanges by the Jamaicans or not, the fact is that the Bahamas had a basically weak team compared with Jamaica (Sturrup and Ferguson-McKenzie were the only real strengths). Is it that they had wild, crazy exchanges why they ran up so close to us? I refuse to believe that Sheniqua Ferguson outran Simone Facey!

I really wish now that I could see their exchanges up close.

And remember, except for Chandra Sturrup on the second leg and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie on anchor, this is a team that has NEVER run together before and so never passed before (except at their pre-championships camp in Germany)! Sheniqua, for example, did not run on their team at the Penn Relays!

[Gamma]

historian yuh a gwa'an lik seh excellent baton change cannot and have not made a difference..didn't france win the 4 x 100 once without even a 100m finalist?

[Islandman]

I don't know what the Bahamas exhanges were like, but I do know that from all accounts our ladies were involved in an emotional cass-cass less than 2 hours before the finals.

Add to that your most senior member deciding to pull out, and in the back of thier minds the memory of what happened the year before when they were "sure things" after the US went down, and I will GLADLY take the gold medal any which way without ANY criticism of the perfomance on the track.

Can you imagine what would have happened if they had screwed up after VCB pulled out? We would have 20 threads this morning cussing them and the coaches.

[Gamma]

amen mi bredda!

[Historian]

Boss, do you follow relays closely?

Running close means nothing, and a win is a win!

Hortical, trust me when I say that I know a great deal about the history of women’s 4x100-meter relays. And trust me when I say that to have a country like the Bahamas run up close behind us DOES mean something as far as recent history is concerned.

Do you realize that, prior to Berlin, Jamaica and the Bahamas each had the same number of IAAF World Championships gold medals, seven (each)?

But even more important, while their elite 4x100-meter team is no more, this is a country in a rebuilding phase with its women. Look out down the road for young talent like Nivea Smith (she is faster than any of our current Carifta games girls), Cache Armbrister, and others.

I still recall, although you may not, the 1996 Olympic Games, the 1999 IAAF World Championships, the 2000 Olympic Games, and the 2002 Commonwealth Games in Manchester, England! What saved us at the 1997 IAAF World Championships was the only disastrous exchange I have ever seen the Bahamas’ 4x100-meter relay team make, which caused them to end in sixth position.

They were uncomfortably close yesterday, and I do not like that!

[Historian]

Missing My Point

historian yuh a gwa'an lik seh excellent baton change cannot and have not made a difference..didn't france win the 4 x 100 once without even a 100m finalist?

Did you see the relay in Athens back in 2004? The time our women ran was 41.73 seconds. Were the baton exchanges not safe? My goodness, the safest baton change that I have seen in decades of watching 4x100-meter relays was, without question, that final exchange between Aleen and Veronica!

So of course I know about safe baton exchanges! Even more than that French team was the Bahamas women, who from 1995 until 2002 showed the world nothing but safe exchanges (with the only weak point being Athens in 1997)! More than any women’s relay team in the past twenty years, they showed what safe exchanges can do.

Of course I know about safe exchanges, and I maintain that yesterday’s performance by Jamaica was not particularly impressive at a world championships level. If you wish, I could post the list of women’s 4x100-meter relay times during the period 1983 to now. For example, yesterday’s Jamaican team was, on paper, a faster team than our 1991 team, yet in 1991 our women posted 41.94 seconds for the win in Tokyo.

But I guess islandman has the only explanation that I can probably accept, that is, the emotional state of our women.

[Karl]

Now you make me really anxious to see what the Bahamas’ exchanges were like!!!

Safe exchanges by the Jamaicans or not, the fact is that the Bahamas had a basically weak team compared with Jamaica (Sturrup and Ferguson-McKenzie were the only real strengths). Is it that they had wild, crazy exchanges why they ran up so close to us? I refuse to believe that Sheniqua Ferguson outran Simone Facey!

I really wish now that I could see their exchanges up close.

And remember, except for Chandra Sturrup on the second leg and Debbie Ferguson-McKenzie on anchor, this is a team that has NEVER run together before and so never passed before (except at their pre-championships camp in Germany)! Sheniqua, for example, did not run on their team at the Penn Relays!

All our changes were safe changes. The outgoing runner left late (took no chance of leaving the baton)...and the incoming runner had to apply the brakes (took no chance on over-running the out going runner).