Canada’s men’s 4x100-metre relay win on Friday was shocking, amazing and — like many Olympic track events — not without controversy.
A protest was launched after the team of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and anchor Andre De Grasse captured gold in Paris at the Stade de France, winning in a time of 37.50 seconds, just ahead of South Africa (37.57). Great Britain was third in 37.61 seconds.
The protest was ultimately dismissed, which meant its origins and details would not be revealed, according to Devin Heroux of CBC Olympics.
A replay of the final exchange between Rodney and De Grasse appeared to show the former stepping into Lane 8 — China’s lane — as the handoff was being made.
In a post-race interview with Heroux, relay coach Glenroy Gilbert watched the video and said there was no foul.
“Andre is running in the middle of the lane so it’s kind of crowding Brendan a little bit,” said Gilbert, who was part of Canada’s Olympic gold-medal-winning relay team in Atlanta in 1996. “The rules, as we understand it, you can touch the line, you just can’t have consecutive on the inside-lane line.
“It used to be that you couldn’t touch it at all, at all. But the rules changed a few years ago.”
China wound up in seventh place.
The U.S. team, on the other hand, was disqualified for a lane infringement when Christian Coleman botched the initial exchange with Kenny Bednarek. The Americans would not have placed in the medals regardless.
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