With Jamaal Torrence’s scintillating second leg breaking the race wide open, the U.S. took the men’s 4x400m Relay title, clocking a world-leading 3:06.79 to close out action on the track at the 12th World Indoor Championships.
Torrence’s 45.73 dash broke a fairly close contest, led after the first leg by an inspired Dominican Republic quartet, led by Arismendy Peguero. Russia and the U.S. were a few steps behind and still fairly even until Torrence moved the American quartet up and into a lead they would never relinquish.
With the Dominicans a distant second, the Jamaican third leg, Adrian Findlay, moved up to threaten for second, leaving the silver medal-clinching job up to anchor Dewayne Barrett. He moved into second with 200m to go and held off Dominican Yoel Tapia to secure the silver in 3:07.69, just ahead of the Dominican quartet’s 3:07.77 national record.
While close initially, James Davis, Torrence, Greg Nixon and anchor Kellie Willie were clearly the class of field.
This was the seventh time that an American quartet took the 4x400m title, but just the first time they did so without an entry in the 400m final.
Bob Ramsak for the IAAF
