« This was a football coach taking a team to the Super Bowl and losing 99-0 because they were completely ill-prepared, » Lewis said.
Carl Lewis, the winner of nine gold medals in four Olympic Games, could not believe his eyes. He was at home Wednesday night in Houston watching the U.S. men’s 4×100-relay team melt down half a world away in the Olympic Stadium, and he simply could not contain his frustration. “This was a football coach taking a team to the Super Bowl and losing 99-0 because they were completely ill-prepared,” Lewis said in a phone interview with USA TODAY Sports. “It’s unacceptable. It’s so disheartening to see this because it’s people’s lives. We’re just playing games with people’s lives. That’s why I’m so upset. It’s totally avoidable. And America is sitting there rooting for the United States and then they have this clown show. I can’t take it anymore. It’s just unacceptable. It is not hard to do the relay.” Moments after the Americans finished a stunning sixth in their preliminary heat in relay qualifying, failing to advance and eliminating their medal chances, Lewis took to Twitter: “The USA team did everything wrong in the men’s relay,” he wrote.
