Angelo Taylor of Atlanta came to the Olympics as the fastest man in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles this season. Yet his chances for a gold medal seemed severely compromised when he drew Lane 1 for Wednesday night’s final.
“Angelo being in Lane 1 gave us a chance to win the gold,” said John Smith, who coaches Hadi Souan Somalyi of Saudi Arabia.
“The only place you can win from Lane 1 is on the moon,” said 1992 U.S. Olympic coach Mel Rosen about having that position in races of 200 or 400 meters.
Taylor, 21, felt as if he were moonstruck when he learned of the lane assignment after Monday’s semifinals. He knew how difficult it is to handle the tighter turns on the inside lane.
“My initial reaction was, `I don’t know how I’m going to do it,'” Taylor said.
Then Taylor remembered he had struggled recently because he was approaching the hurdles too quickly. He figured the tight turns could work to his advantage by slowing him down. The result was victory in a personal-best 47.50 seconds, with Somalyi second in an Asian record 47.53, making him the first Olympic medalist from Saudi Arabia. The difference was Taylor’s lean at the finish.
Like Uganda’s John Aki-Bua, who won the same event from Lane 1 in world-record time at the 1972 Munich Olympics, Taylor had made something good of a bad situation. Few of his teammates on the U.S. Olympic track and field team have done as well with better prospects.
“The Americans are running like junk,” Smith said.
Not to mention throwing and jumping like it.
“It has been a tough Olympics,” said Gail Devers, the favorite in the 100-meter high hurdles who pulled up in Wednesday’s semifinal with a sore hamstring.
“Other countries are developing talent in a way well above the U.S.,” Smith said. “We have to be careful or we’re going to be left behind.”
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For the first time since 1960, when just six runners made the final, the U.S. had only one finalist in the women’s 100 meters. For the first time since 1964, the U.S. had no finalist in the women’s 400.
For the first time since 1960 and just the second in history, the U.S. had no finalist in the men’s 800, won Wednesday by Nils Schumann of Germany over world record-holder Wilson Kipketer of Denmark. No U.S. man even advanced past the first of four rounds.
Among the other flops: Lance Deal, the 1996 Olympic silver medalist in the hammer throw, did not qualify for the final. Only one U.S. man has made the final in the long jump, an event the U.S. swept in 1992 and 1988 and one in which the U.S. has had at least two in the top eight since 1964.
The leading finisher in the triple jump, Robert Howard, was seventh. Not since 1964 has the best U.S. finish in the event been lower.
For the first time since the event was added to the Olympic program in 1984, the U.S. had no finalist in the women’s 400-meter hurdles.
The failure in the intermediate hurdles seems even worse because a woman who never had run them before this year, Irina Privalova of Russia, won in 53.02 seconds, making her the ninth fastest ever in the event. U.S. veterans Kim Batten and Tanja Buford-Bailey, the two fastest women ever, joined U.S. trials winner Sandra Glover as underachievers by not getting out of the semis.