Women Carry Baton For U.S. Relays Men’s 4x100 Team Suffers Another Discouraging Dq

The U.S. women’s relay team got it right, as usual. The men didn’t, as usual.

After the men had bungled a handoff in the first round of the 400-meter relay at the World Championships and did not finish, the women blazed to an American and championship record victory in their final Saturday.

“We saw what happened to the men and we didn’t want that to happen to us,” said Marion Jones, the women’s 100-meter champion, who ran the second relay leg and became the first double gold medalist of the championships.

“We wanted the victory for the USA - not just for the women, but for the men,” Gail Devers, the women’s anchor, said after the Americans raced home in 41.47 seconds, the second-fastest ever.

The women’s crackling performance in winning their second world title was in sharp contrast to the devastating showing by the men, who botched a baton pass for the second consecutive championships.

The foulup came on the first handoff, between leadoff runner Brian Lewis and Tim Montgomery.

Although the two have worked together on handoffs many times while training at Norfolk State, they failed to connect in their most important relay ever.

“It was a simple misunderstanding of when to call for the stick,” said Lewis, told about 1-1/2 hours before the race that he would be competing in his first major championship. “We made a mistake. I can’t explain it.”

Neither could U.S. men’s coach Dean Hayes.

“I couldn’t tell if he (Montgomery) left too early,” he said.

Flubbing relays in big meets is becoming commonplace for American teams in recent years.

They were disqualified in the first round of the 1988 Olympic Games after Calvin Smith’s pass to substitute Lee McNeill was out of the zone on the final exchange. And they failed to finish their first-round heat in the 1995 World Championships when Jon Drummond, running the second leg, and substitute Tony McCall failed to connect on a handoff.

Last year at the Atlanta Games, the Americans failed to win for the first time, other than by disqualification, finishing second behind the Canadians. Their Olympic DQ came in the 1960 Rome Games.

The women had no such mishaps on Saturday.

Chryste Gaines, Jones, Inger Miller and Devers had clean handoffs in winning by about 9 meters and just missing the world record of 41.37 seconds set by Germany in 1985.

In other finals, all involving women, Cuba’s Ana Quirot swept past Mozambique’s Maria Mutola with 50 meters remaining and won her second consecutive 800 title in 1:57.14.

Lyudmila Galkina of Russia won the long jump with a world-leading leap of 23 feet 1-3/4 inches.

She beat a world-class field that included Olympic gold medalist Chioma Ajumwa of Nigeria, who was injured after one jump; defending champion Fiona May of Italy, who wound up third; Heike Drechsler of Germany, the 1983 and 1993 world champion and 1992 Olympic gold medalist, who was fourth, and Jackie Joyner-Kersee, the 1988 Olympic winner and 1987 and 1991 world champion, who finished fifth.