Brazil Beats the USA and takes the gold in the 4x100m World Relays
Note from BW of Brazil: Well now THIS is a big deal! If you’re a fan of Brazilian athletes and the performance of the Brazilians on the world stage, you’re pretty accustomed to seeing Brazil not fare very well against the world’s top countries. In Olympic Games, while the US regularly comes home with more than 100 medals, the Brazilians generally come in near the bottom of the list of medal winners. Between 2000 and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, the Brazilians brought home between 10 and 20 medals every four years. To put this into further perspective, in the five Summer Olympic Games between 2000 and 2016, Brazil earned a total of 75 medals, 46 medals less than the US won in the 2016 Games alone.
With this in mind, it’s easy to understand why the news that the men’s 4x100m relay team edging out the United States in a stunning upset at the world championship in Japan will probably be the top news story in Brazil’s media for the next week. I note that Brazilian athletes often do quite well in competitions against other South American nations but usually falter when pitted against more powerful competitors. This time, four black men held it together and claimed perhaps one of the biggest victories of any team of Brazilian athletes and overcame one of the most dominant countries in world athletics in history while they were at it. Congrats are in order to Rodrigo Nascimento, Derick Silva, Jorge Vides and Paulo André Oliveira, four names that will go down in history!
Brazil beats the USA and takes the gold in the 4x100m World Relays
In Japan, Rodrigo Nascimento, Derick Silva, Jorge Vides and Paulo André Oliveira left the Americans behind
Brazil beats the USA and takes the gold in the 4x100m World Relays
Brazil defeated the strong US team and took the gold medal in the 4×100-meter World Relay Championship held in Yokohama, Japan. Brazilians Rodrigo Nascimento, Derick Silva, Jorge Vides and Paulo André Oliveira scored 38.05, two hundredths of a second ahead of the United States quartet, that had as its main athlete Justin Gatlin, the current 100m world champion. The Brits scored 38:15 and completed the podium.
The Brazilian title in the sport was won on Sunday at a well-known stadium, Yokohama Stadium, where the Brazilian futebol team, led by Rivaldo and Ronaldo, became five-time World Cup champion in 2002.
In addition to guaranteeing gold, which can be considered historic because it is Brazil’s first in a world-class competition – the Brazilian team was silver in the Sydney 2000 Olympics and bronze in Atlanta 1996 and Beijing 2008, in addition to climbing the podium in some World Championships -, the Brazilian quartet reached the best world record in the season.
“It’s a lot of joy. You have no idea what we’re going through to be here. We deserved it very, very much. We’re world champions… We’re very happy, very happy indeed. We’ve trained, we’ve spent a lot of time away from home. “We managed to be world champion and no one can take that away from us,” celebrated Paulo André, the fastest athlete in Brazil today and who was responsible for closing the relay.
Other results. If they didn’t take the men’s 4-100-meter relays, in the women’s race, the United States triumphed. The Americans shone and got the gold by scoring the time of 43.27, just two hundredths of a second ahead of the Jamaican athletes. Germany completed the podium.
Brazil’s Ana Carolina Azevedo, Lorraine Martins, Franciela Krasucki and Vitoria Rosa finished 43s75 in fourth place and were close to bronze at the end of the relay, when Vitoria Rosa took Franciela’s baton in fifth place and almost made it past the German in the final straight.
In the mixed test of 4×400 meters, which will debut at the Olympic Games in Tokyo-2020, Brazil made a time of 3min20s71 coming in sixth. The United States were champions of the race, which had Canada in second place and the Kenyans in third.
In the men’s 4×400 meters, Trinidad and Tobago were a surprise were crowned champions. Among the women, there was one more surprise: Poland won the title, leaving the Americans in second place. The Italians came in third.
Source: Gazeta Esportiva, O Tempo
Congrats to the Brazilian team on doing a great job! I really thought Gatlin and his team would pull this off since Usain Bolt has retired from sports.