What caused the U.S. Track and Field meltdown?

It's been a sobering 10 days for the USATF, the body that oversees the United States Track and Field team. It's been decades since the U.S. Team performed so poorly at an Olympic Games. Swept off the track in the individual sprints by the mighty Jamaicans, the U.S. sprinters hit rock bottom on Thursday when both Men's and Women's 4X100M sprint teams dropped the baton in preliminary heats and didn't even qualify for the finals. Both were expected to be strong Gold medal contenders, although that is somewhat hard to believe after watching the Jamaican women sweep the U.S. Women right out of the medals in the individual 100m (pictured).










The list of failures is long and peppered with high profile names. Tyson Gay, the defending World Champ at both 100 and 200m was injured at the trials and didn't qualify for the 200m and was eliminated in the semis of the 100m, he was also involved in the botched relay hand-off that led to the relay DQ. 1,500m World Champion, Bernard Legat also failed to qualify for the finals. There was talk of a sweep in the shot put as Reese Hoffa and Adam Nelson finished 1-2 at last year's World's and Christian Cantwell had been throwing as well as anyone coming in. Instead they won just a silver by Cantwell.

I could go on and on but the story remains the same. Almost a total collapse in what is typically the stage for some of the greatest U.S. successes. USA Track and Field announced today that they will start an investigation immediately following the Games to determine what went wrong and get a new program in place immediately. But sadly, like in many other high profile sports, it seems the rest of the world has simply caught up. What we saw as an American birthright has been snatched away by hungrier, more motivated and for the time being superior athletes from overseas.

Hopefully the forthcoming changes will be successful and in 4 years things will be back to what Americans are used to seeing on the Olympic track. But for now, all most fans can do is shake their heads in disbelief.