Shockers! USA Falls Gut-Wrenchingly Short Of Winning Two Gold Medals In Favored Track Events

Let’s be real: if you win any medal at the Olympics (regardless of the event), you’ve done something special. Accomplishing this feat means you’re one of the top three people on the WHOLE PLANET at what you do. 

By that standard, the United States track and field team members should be thrilled to have bagged two more silver medals (and a bronze for good measure) for their nation in Paris. But that enjoyment will be mingled with grief, because they came agonizingly close to winning a pair of golds.

It first started with the mixed 4x400 relay team. Yesterday, they demolished the field in the preliminary heat, setting a world record for the event. I’m pretty sure the distance between the U.S. and the closest finisher was about the size of the Eiffel Tower.

With that kind of showing, you’d think that the Americans would put on cruise control and have no problems getting to the top of the podium in today’s final.

But the Netherlands apparently had other plans.

On the final turn of the last lap in the championship, Femke Bol somehow went from fourth to first, overtaking Kaylyn Brown and Team USA en route to a gold.

There are several things that are absolutely astounding about this feat, not the least of which is that the Dutch didn’t even qualify for this event at the last Olympics. But can we also talk about Bol’s form?

I’m not going to go into a dry discussion about how in-sync her arms and legs were while running (who needs all that noise?). My biggest thing is that it didn’t even look like Bol was trying all that hard, while Brown seemed to be fighting for every inch. And yet, Bol is the one who got to the finish line first. What an unreal ending.

While most Americans probably felt a massive let-down after watching the Dutch grab the gold, they still had the women’s 100m dash to look forward to. Sha’Carri Richardson was the heavy favorite heading into the race, and three separate Americans (including Melissa Jefferson and TeeTee Terry) were in the final. Surely, we could wash away the sorrows of the 4x400 mixed relay with a little gold hardware?

Wrong.

Julien Alfred - a native of St. Lucia - shocked the world by finishing with a blistering 10.72 second sprint to take the gold, her country’s first of any kind.

If you’re honest, most of you probably hadn’t heard of St. Lucia until today (I’m one of those people). It’s a small Caribbean island that has a population of not even 181,000 people - for perspective, that’s just 14 percent of the population of Dallas, TX (where Richardson is from). But the one big difference between those two places? One produced an Olympic gold medalist, while the other did not.

Richardson did earn her first Olympic medal in the process, and Jefferson secured the bronze. The Americans did have reason to hold their heads high after this event.

But for both the 4x400m team and the Americans in the 100m dash, it must hurt because they were oh so close to both being the best in the world. They’ll have to wait another four years to prove that they can be.