Friday, August 22, 2008

Relay blues for Shelby's Padgett

Can you believe that BOTH the U.S. men's and women's 4x100 relay teams dropped the baton on the same night in the preliminaries of their races?

Those weren't even the finals. The U.S. only had to make the top three in its heat. All they had to do was NOT drop the baton. Yet they did.

Who do I feel most sorry for in this scenario? Probably Shelby's Travis Padgett, who now stars at track at Clemson.

Padgett made the Olympic team only in the relay, missing a spot in the regular 100-meter dash by .01 of a second in the U.S. Trials. So he waits around the whole Olympics to run the relay, then he does his part, executes a clean handoff and runs fast in an early leg.... and then his teammates let him down.

No final. No medal.

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