It was another disaster for Team USA men’s track and field during the 4×100 meter relay at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Shortly after the Sha’Carri Richardson and the Team USA women’s track and field team won gold at the same event, the men were disqualified when it was their turn to compete.
Team USA men’s was competing without anchor Noah Lyles, who sat out after testing positive for COVID-19 earlier this week. But his presence would not have impacted the results much considering the team was DQ’d before he would have had his chance to run.
Andre de Grasse anchors Canada to 4x100m GOLD in Paris! 🇨🇦 #ParisOlympics
📺 NBC & Peacock pic.twitter.com/uA15jxhZHb
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 9, 2024
As you can see in the video above, USA’s Kenny Bednarek took off before his teammate Christian Coleman could give him the baton. This is a violation of the rules (via Olympics.com):
“The baton exchange has to happen within a 20m changeover box, located 10m before and 10m after the start of each leg, starting from the second relay runner.
A team can be disqualified if any member drops the baton during the handover or if the handover occurs outside the designated area. The runner finishing the race will generally be the fastest sprinter in a team.”
You can see that violation happening in the photos below:
