Men 4x100m Relay Athletics XVIII Olympic Games Tokyo, Japan 1964 - -- October - Gold Medal:
Men 4x100m Relay Olympic Games 1964 Tokyo (JPN) - Wednesday 21.10
Final 13:50
Time
1.
2.
3.
4.
1. United States
39.0s
Otis Paul Drayton
Gerald Howard Ashworth
Richard Vaughn Stebbins
Robert L. Hayes
2. Poland
39.3s
Andrzej Zielinski
Wieslaw Jan Maniak
Marian Foik
Marian Dudziak
3. France
39.3s
Paul Genevay
Bernard Laidebeur
Claude Piquemal
Jocelyn Delecour
4. Jamaica
39.4s
Pablo S. Mcneil
Patrick D. Robinson
Lynsworth W. Headly
Dennis O. Johnson
5. Soviet Union
39.4s
Edvin Ozolin
Boris Zubov
Gusman Kosanov
Boris Savchuk
6. Venezuela
39.5s
Arquimedes Herrera
Lloyd Murad
Rafael Romero
Hortensio Herrera Fucil
7. Italy
39.5s
Livio Berruti
Ennio Preatoni
Sergio Ottolina
Pasquale Giannattasio
8. Great Britain
39.6s
Peter Frank Radford
Ronald Jones
Walter Menzies Campbell
Lynn Davies
Italy were fastest in the heats with 39.7, as compared to 39.8 for the
United States and France. The US team ran 39.5 in the semis, with six
other teams on 39.6; both rounds featured Hayes making up 2-3m on
the opposition for the American team. Both Trenton Jackson and Mel
Pender were injured in Tokyo so 200m men Drayton and Stebbins were
brought into the US lineup for the final.
Zieliński led on the first leg with Genevay and McNeill just behind,
and Drayton, with a slight injury, half a metre back; this became 2m
after a poor pass. Maniak and Foik kept Poland ahead of France and
Jamaica, as the USA showed good speed but abject baton passing.
Hayes took the baton in around fifth place, 3m behind Dudziak and
Delecour. With virtually all eyes on him he swept past the field within
30m and kept going, winning by 3m in a world record 39.0. Times of
8.5 and 8.6 for Hayes’ leg seem a little generous, as he made up 6m on
a man who ran 10.52 in the individual event, suggesting a time in the
order of 8.80-8.90 for his 100m ... similar to Carl Lewis’s time in
Barcelona 28 years later on a rather better surface. Hayes himself later
asserted that had he run the individual 100m with the same alacrity as
his relay leg, his time would have been less than 10 seconds.
