Dissecting a Defective Olympic Relay Handoff

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As I sat at home watching track and field last night (Yes, I have a life. I just also love the Summer Olympics.), my mouth literally dropped open after not one, but both U.S. 4x100m relay teams dropped the baton. Are you freaking kidding me? It wasn't even the medal race! (Sigh)

Click here to watch both teams botch their dreams of gold.

Even so, it got me pondering; what exactly makes that baton so difficult to hand off in the first place? We have the speed to win gold, but we can't transfer a measly stick from one hand to another?  For the Americans, it turns out that there could have been a couple of different reasons for their disastrous handoffs.

If you think about it, the baton itself is designed to be extremely lightweight. When you're running up to speeds of 27 mph, lightweight can also translate to flimsy. Still, you'd think that practicing handoffs with the 11-inch aluminum tube would be a bit of a priority after the women did the same dang thing in 2004's Olympics. Apparently not.

The talk among track and field experts is that the lack of handoff practice might be another reason why both teams flunked out of the finals. Apparently, other teams, like the Russian women, train year-round with the same four people in the same order. It's characteristic of U.S. relay teams to switch around not only the order, but the actual athletes in the relays, prior to the finals heat. It might have worked for swimming, but perhaps the U.S. needs to start taking a different approach here.

Lastly, although it appears to be a mere hurried grab for a shiny stick, there is actually very strategic reasoning behind which style of handoff to use. Handoffs are difficult in the first place because the athletes never actually look back at the person while the exchange is taking place, and there are a few different handoff styles to choose from. There is an upsweep, a downsweep, an inside-style and an outside-style, and there are unique old school and modern takes on them all.

Moral of the story? Handing off a baton is more difficult than we might be willing to admit when we're busy yelling "You idiot!" at the television.

I guess there's always London...