LONDON — It will be said that the U.S. men’s 4×400-meter team failed Friday night. But maybe they didn’t lose the gold so much as they won silver.
Yes, they lost the lead on the home stretch when Ramon Miller of the Bahamas took the lead from Angelo Taylor with about 60 meters to go. But it was a team without LaShawn Merritt, the world’s top-ranked 400-meter runner who pulled up lame in a prelim of the individual 400. It also was a team that reached the final when Manteo Mitchell ran 200 meters of Thursday’s semifinal with a broken fibula in his left leg.
Mitchell went beyond what anyone could have expected him to do Thursday, but in the aftermath of Friday’s final he pulled out a cellphone and took a picture of a television replay showing the Bahamian team finishing ahead of the U.S.
“That’s the last thing I want to see, and the first thing I want to remember,” Mitchell said, adding that he would make it his cellphone background picture and not change it until the U.S. wins a gold medal — at the world championships or the Olympics.
“We have guys out there who are 21 years old, still juniors in college, two of them,” Mitchell said of the undermanned squad. “Then one that just graduated, four or five weeks ago. We’ll bounce back, we’ll heal up these injuries. I took that picture because it’s going to inspire me.”
Mitchell inspired a lot of people after news spread that he ran half of the semifinal round on a broken leg that caused him “indescribable” pain because he didn’t want to let down his teammates, or his country. Mitchell said doctors told him if he’d taken just a few more steps past the finish line, the broken bone probably would have pushed through the skin.
“Stop? It crossed my mind a few times,” Mitchell said. “I couldn’t leave those three guys behind me hanging. I knew if I would just finish, they would do what they needed to do to get us a secure spot in the final. I guess you can call it God or adrenaline, I don’t know, the spirit of USA was in my heart and I didn’t want to quit so I just kept going.”
Taylor looked devastated after the final for having let the lead get away. The Bahamas, winning their first-ever gold medal, ran a 2:56.72, 0.33 ahead of Team USA.
“I think I floated a little bit too much on the backstretch, got out of rhythm,” Taylor said. “I was right where I wanted to be at 300, and I tried to kick to come home. Unfortunately, Ramon had more than I did. I didn’t come into my second gear until about 50 to go, but by that time he had passed me. It was too late.”
Tony McQuay, who ran the third leg, said he was sad the gold medal got away but proud of his fallen teammate.
“Big shout-out to Manteo Mitchell,” McQuay said. “He had the option to stop and he didn’t. He fought through it. We just wanted to come out and compete for country and also bring it home for Manteo.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616, jmeyer@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jmeyer26
