What Went Wrong In Beijing

A lot has gone on in the sports world over the past couple days.  Tom Brady's suspension was lifted (more on that tomorrow), LA stepped in as the U.S. bid city for the 2024 Olympics, the U.S. Open is in full swing as Serena Williams chases history, football season is right around the corner, and baseball's pennant races are heating up.  But first I want to go back to the Track & Field World Championships in Beijing, which were a huge disappointment for the United States.

On paper, the U.S. did "fine" in Beijing.  They won 18 medals, the most of any nation, six of which were gold, the same number they won at the World Championships in Moscow two years ago.  And the U.S. finished at the top of the unofficial placing table, which awards points top-eight finishes in each event.  However, a deeper look at those numbers shows exactly why the 2015 edition of Worlds have to be classified as a disappointment.

First and foremost, the six gold medals were only the third-most of any nation.  Jamaica and Kenya both won seven golds.  The U.S. had never finished lower than second in the gold medal count at Worlds before.  And the 18 total medals were the fewest for an American team since 2003, when subsequent positive doping test resulted in medals getting stripped and the total being knocked down to an official number of 16.  By comparison, the U.S. medal total is usually somewhere in the mid- to high-20s (it was 25 at both the 2011 and 2013 World Championships and 29 at the London Olympics).  Track & Field News, in its World Championships predictions, projected 31 medals for the U.S. in Beijing.

Adding insult to injury, the Americans won a grand total of two gold medals on the track.  The men's team didn't win a single individual gold, and it took until the final event of the meet--the 4x400 relay--for the American men to take a gold medal in a running event.  The American men had NEVER been shut out in individual running events at a Worlds or Olympics before.  Meanwhile, the women also only won one gold medal in a track event--Allyson Felix in the 400.  Felix then ran a blistering third leg to give the U.S. the lead in the 4x400 relay, only to see it given all back on the anchor leg and Jamaica win its seventh sprinting gold of the meet.

To sum it up, Jamaica won three of the four relays, both 100s, Usain Bolt in the 200, and a surprise win in the women's 100 hurdles.  And Kenya didn't just clean up in the distance events, either.  Kenya had gold medalists in the men's 400 hurdles and javelin, too.  Meanwhile, the Americans are limited to one individual gold on the track, one relay gold, Ashton Eaton's incredible decathlon world record, and three field event wins.  That's unacceptable.

In some cases, bad luck or superior performances were to blame.  Justin Gatlin won two silvers behind Usain Bolt.  There's no shame in that, even if Gatlin could've (and probably should've) won the 100.  LaShawn Merritt ran a personal best in the 400, only to have South Africa's Wayde Van Niekerk run the race of his life to win the gold.  Jenny Simpson lost her shoe in the women's 1500 and Alysia Montano fell in the heats of the women's 800.

There were also some ill-timed injuries that contributed to the American fortunes.  From Trey Hardee not being able to finish the decathlon to Ajee Wilson not even being able to make the trip.  All that makes what Aries Merritt did all the more remarkable.  He had a kidney transplant on Tuesday, less than a week after winning a bronze medal that's worth its weight in gold.  (See, it wasn't all bad.)

And Emma Coburn and Evan Jager were disappointed in themselves that they didn't come away with medals, but they both finished fifth in the steeplechases, the best-ever finish for an American, and simply got beat on the last lap.  Nothing wrong there.  The fact that they're disappointed is a good thing.  It shows that they know they're contenders, and they're not content with the best-ever finish by an American.  The steeplechasers could've medaled, but I'm not calling fifth place there a "disappointment."

But, for the most part, "disappointing" is the only word you can use to describe the American team's performance.  Bershawn Jackson and Johnny Dutch both failed to get out of the heats in the men's 400 hurdles, and that's just one example of an event where American medal favorites didn't deliver.  David Oliver fell in the 110 hurdles final and was never in it.  Jeff Henderson fizzled out in the long jump.  There wasn't a single American man in the 800 final, and the 1500 runners finished well back in the pack.  Then there was the traditional handoff issue in the 4x100 relay that resulted in another DQ.

It was almost an indentical script on the women's side.  No finalists in the 800 despite having five runners ranked in the Top 10.  No medals in the 1500, where Simpson and Shannon Rowbury were ranked 2-3.  A disaster in the 100 hurdles.  Four athletes (all of whom were considered medal contenders), two finalists, no medals.  And I don't know what happened in the 4x400, where the U.S. selections were highly questionable and Jamaica was clearly the superior team (they placed four in the individual 400 final).  Brittney Reese didn't even make the final of the long jump, which is easy to forget because Tianna Bartoletta won the gold 10 years after her first World Championship.

Even some of the good stuff was overshadowed by negative storylines.  Emily Infeld won a surprise bronze medal in the women's 10,000.  But all anybody could talk about after the race was how Molly Huddle had the bronze in her hand before celebrating too early and getting clipped by Infeld at the line.  Even Infeld felt terrible for Huddle, who will sadly have her entire career defined by that one moment, saying in her post-race press conference that she felt like she "stole" the medal.

So how did this happen and how does USATF fix it?  The biggest explanation people have offered is that the gap between U.S. Nationals and Worlds is too great.  Athletes have to peak at Nationals, which are held two months before Worlds, just to make the team.  It's impossible to maintain peak performance that long.  Maybe the gap should be less.  In London, it was 33 days and the U.S. came home with 29 track & field medals.  Next year, the gap between Olympic Trials and the Rio Games will be the same 33 days as it was in 2012.

U.S. Nationals have always been held in late June/early July, but tradition is the only thing keeping USATF bound to that date.  And it is a legitimate concern.  The 2019 Worlds will take place at the end of September.  That's three months after the traditional date for Nationals.  If the performance in Beijing is any indication, USATF needs to be more flexible in its scheduling of the U.S. Nationals.  Because peak performance at Worlds/Olympics is optimal.  With the U.S. Nationals as competitive as they always are, moving Nationals later would also assure the best team possible heads to the global meet.

Perhaps going hand-in-hand with that is the fact that all of those top times run by Americans took place early in the year.  What good is it to run super-fast in April or May when Worlds are in August?  Maybe that was part of the problem.  The expectations became somewhat unrealistic because of these times being put up, but these times were being put up so far in advance of the meet that they really were somewhat irrelevant.  How athletes are performing as the meet draws closer is the real indicator of how they'll do at Worlds.  Because anyone can put up a good time running behind a rabbit in early May.

The field events weren't as publicized as the problems on the track, but there were issues in the field, too.  I obviously mentioned the long jumps, but the U.S. didn't qualify anyone in the women's triple jump or women's high jump (although, the national champions in those two events were both given a wild card by the IAAF to fill the field).  The men's triple jump had four Florida Gators who were all expected to challenge, and Christian Taylor had a remarkable jump that was close to the world record, but the other three floundered.  And Joe Kovacs' gold in the men's shot put (an event the U.S. used to dominate, but only got the one medal in this time), along with Michelle Carter's bronze in the women's shot put, were the only medals in the throws.  The U.S. didn't even have any finalists in the men's discus or javelin.

It's not just a sprint problem.  It's an all-around problem.  And don't even get me started on the relays.  I know Sanya Richards-Ross is Sanya Richards-Ross, but she didn't even make the finals in the 400 at Nationals.  Why is she running the 4x400 final at Worlds and Phyllis Francis, who finished sixth in the open event, isn't?  And why is Francena McCororoy running the anchor instead of Allyson Felix?  And it's gotten past the point of blaming the men's 4x100 on Jamaica and Usain Bolt.  They can't even get the stick around the track, which has been an issue for years.  That has nothing to do with Jamaica.  Finishing the race and taking silver behind Jamaica is fine.  Dropping the baton and getting DQed--again--isn't.

Traveling to Beijing and the time difference and all that might've come into play, too.  And who knows how much of a distraction all of the crap involving Nick Symmonds and the various doping scandals were?  Adjusting to the time difference should've been a non-issue.  They had a week-long training camp in Japan for the sole purpose of getting their bodies acclimated.  As for the external distractions, no matter which side they were on, I'm sure getting in the middle of Nick Symmonds vs. the USATF wasn't on anybody's pre-Worlds agenda.

I don't know what the solutions are.  Maybe USATF doesn't need to do anything.  This might've just been a bad meet.  But I suspect it's more than that.  The U.S. has long been the dominant power in the sport of track & field and in many ways still is.  But that perch at the top is being seriously threatened.  And if the U.S. doesn't rebound in Rio, the doubters will become even more vocal.

If you want to call yourselves the world's best, you've got to go out and prove it.  Put your money where your mouth is.  I think we can all agree, that during the nine days of the World Championships in Beijing, USA Track & Field didn't do that.