U.S. Men’s ‘B’ Team Gets an A-Plus in 1,600 Relay

You could have won a men’s 1,600-meter relay world championship with the American sprinters who begged out of Sunday’s final because of injury or weary legs.

No Michael Johnson, the three-time 400-meter world titlist.

No Butch Reynolds, the 400-meter world-record holder.

No Mark Everett, the United States’ premier 800-meter runner.

No Bryan Bronson, the 400-meter hurdles bronze medalist who had already left Greece for home.

So U.S. men’s Coach Dean Hayes scraped together the junior varsity--”Three young guys and an old man,” in the words of veteran Antonio Pettigrew--and sent it out against Iwan Thomas, Roger Black and the favored, gold-starved Brits.

USA JV 1, Great Britain nil.

With Pettigrew running a 43.2-second second leg and Chris Jones running a resilient third leg--losing the lead to Great Britain’s Jamie Baulch, only to pass him down the straightaway--the Americans scored an upset victory in 2:56.47, the best time in the world this year. Jerome Young ran the first leg.

Great Britain, running Thomas and Black 1-2, finished second in 2:56.65. Jamaica was third with a national record 2:56.75.

The United States reached the finals with a patchwork semifinal unit that featured Allen Johnson, the world champion 110-meter hurdler, running the anchor leg--a move that was second-guessed by Michael Johnson, working Saturday as a commentator for NBC.

“I guess after the comment Michael made on NBC that Allen shouldn’t have been running no four-by-four, we came back and kind of put a foot in his mouth,” Pettigrew said.

“Allen Johnson is a competitor. He just said, ‘Hey, I’ll do whatever it takes to help the team . . . ‘

“If you can’t help us, don’t talk about us. If you’re not out there running with us, don’t talk about us. Michael Johnson is a part of USA Track and Field. He’s not bigger and beyond USA Track and Field. He’s a part of our country, so he needs to help us and not talk about Allen. He needs to help us.”

Hayes said he asked Allen Johnson to run the semifinals to give another day’s rest to Tyree Washington, 400-meter bronze medalist. The gambit worked; Washington ran a 44.0-second anchor leg Sunday to hold off Great Britain’s Mark Richardson for the title.

“Not bad for three young guys and an old man,” said Pettigrew, 29. “Those young guys showed they can run. They are our future.”

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With the United States conspicuously absent from the other men’s relay, Canada defended its 400-meter relay championship, holding off Nigeria in the final with a time of 37.86 seconds.

Bruny Surin, who ran the third leg for Canada, couldn’t resist taking one last swipe at the Americans, who failed to get out of the first round when they failed to complete their first baton exchange.

“The big difference is we are a team,” Surin said. “I don’t think the U.S. has a team. They just put their fastest four guys together and say, ‘You guys are going to run.’ You just can’t do it like that.

“We have a team. We showed that here and we’re going to stay that way.”

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With its women’s 1,600-meter relay team finishing second behind Germany on Sunday, the United States finished these World Championships with 18 medals--its lowest World Championship total.

The seven gold medals won by the Americans also represented a World Championship low. (Previous lows: 19 total medals in 1995, eight gold in 1983).

Hayes, the U.S. men’s coach, said he came to Athens “expecting to win 15 to 18 medals, which is just what we did. We felt all along that this was a developmental team. Only 30% of last year’s big-meet team made this team. We had so many young ones here--and the young ones got us most of our hardware.

“The year after an Olympics, your first question is: What is the future? I’d have to say we’ve got a pretty good team coming up.”