American Rai Benjamin is finally golden in 400-meter hurdles

SAINT-DENIS, France — On a night when U.S. hurdler Rai Benjamin, forever the silver prince, finally became golden and Canada’s Andre De Grasse completed his relay medal set, Team USA’s reliably unreliable men’s 4×100 relay team found yet another way to blow an Olympic Games final.

Benjamin, who took silver in the Tokyo Games and two out of the last three World Championships, pulled away from archrival Karsten Warholm of Norway, the defending Olympic champion, in the final 100 meters to capture the 400-meter hurdles in 46.46 seconds.

“Feels great, to be honest,” Benjamin said. “I got it done. I finally got it done. In a way, the weight has been lifted. This color of the medal has eluded me for so long, and to get it done in this fashion, in front of my friends and family just means so much to me.

“I don’t think I ever doubted it. It was more about staying patient and keep showing up every day. I told myself, it has to go my way at some point. It went my way today and that’s all I can ask for.”

The U.S. women started off a wet Friday night at Stade de France by surviving a series of shaky passes to win the 4×100 relay thanks largely to blistering legs by Twanisha Terry, like Benjamin and DeGrasse, a former USC star, and Sha’Carri Richardson.

Terry got the baton from leadoff Melissa Jefferson in third place but blasted the U.S. into the lead with a leg clocked in 9.98 seconds. Team USA was back to fourth by the time Gabby Thomas, the Olympic 200 champion, got the stick to Richardson. The Texan, second in the Olympic 100, then ran down the gold with a 10.09 leg and a 41.78 clocking.

“Each and every one of us came out to these Games to drive for greatness,” said Terry, “and I feel like we all did a very good showing of that.”

DeGrasse was second to Usain Bolt in the 2016 Olympic 200 in Rio de Janeiro, going on to win gold in the event in Tokyo three years ago. Along the way, he added a pair of 100 bronze medals to his Olympic collection along with a 4×100 bronze from Rio and a silver in Tokyo.

Paris so far had been a disappointment for DeGrasse. He failed to make it out of the semifinals in either the 100 or 200.

Canada moved up with each leg in Friday’s final, sixth, to fourth to third by the time Brendon Rodney handed off to DeGrasse, who closed in 8.89 to give Canada (37.50) the slimmest of edges over South Africa (37.57) and Great Britain (37.60).

“It’s amazing. To team up with these guys … to end the Games like this, with a gold medal,” said DeGrasse, who tied swimmer Penny Oleksiak as Canada’s most decorated summer Olympian. “We all talked about this moment. It’s a complete set, we got the bronze in Rio, Tokyo we got the silver. Now it’s like icing on the cake to get the gold medal with these guys. It’s an incredible feeling and a great way to end the Games.”

For the American men’s relay, it was an all too familiar way to the end the Games.

Team USA blowing the men’s 4×100 is as American as apple pie. A U.S. trainwreck in the relay has become the safest bet of the Summer Games. It’s not if the U.S. will go off the rails, only a matter of on which leg or exchange and how.

Of the 22 Olympic Games or World Championships finals since 1995, the American men have won only six times. During that same period, Team USA has either dropped the baton, failed to finish, been disqualified or stripped of a medal for a doping violation 12 times. The U.S. has failed to even place in the last five Olympic Games: failed to finish in 2008, stripped of a silver medal in 2012 for a doping violation, disqualified in 2016, 2021 and on Friday night.

A lack of practice time and commitment by American sprinters (and their agents and coaches) has been a constant theme throughout four decades of relay debacles. Chemistry was again an issue Friday after the team was forced to shuffle the lineup after Noah Lyles, the Olympic 100 champion and anchor of a rare U.S. relay victory at last summer’s World Championships, was ruled out with COVID.

Leadoff man Christian Coleman put the U.S. in or near the lead only to literally run into Kenny Bednarek, normally the third leg, who didn’t take off fast enough. Somehow they passed the baton in the exchange zone and Bednarek stayed in his lane. But Coleman took two steps out into the next lane earning Team USA its fourth disqualification in the last eight Worlds and Olympic finals.

Afterward, the U.S. quartet’s responses ranged from indifferent shrugs.

“We went out there, it didn’t happen,” Kyree King, the third leg, said. “It is what it is. We’ll go through it next time, we’ll get to it. We want to challenge ourselves and that’s what we came out here to do and it didn’t work out today.”

To angry.

“Y’all saying the same (stuff) over and over,” said anchor Fred Kerley, waving his arm, upset when reporters pressed Coleman and Bednarek on what exactly happened. “You guys say the same (stuff).”

To, in Bednarek’s case, silence.

Then there was Coleman who at least admitted, “We could’ve put in more work.”