What went wrong: The U.S. track and field team is on the decline

Let's get straight to the point: The Olympic track and field competition was a debacle for the United States.

From the botched relay handoffs to Tyson Gay's bum hamstring to Lolo Jones's stumble to Wallace Spearmon's disqualification and other misadventures in Beijing, it was ugly out there. Everything that U.S. swimming and gymnastics was, track wasn't.

Not that this football-basketball nation will lose any sleep over this — at least until the next Olympics.

For the record, the men's 14 medals represent the second-worst total ever in 28 Olympic appearances that date back to 1896 (the worst being the 12 in the 2000 Sydney Games).

Eight of those medals came from just three events — both hurdle races and the 400-meter dash. They won just four gold medals, America's worst showing ever. The women's nine medals and three golds are about average. The men's and women's combined total of 23 medals is their fewest since 1976 and third worst ever.

Five world champions failed to defend their titles — Allyson Felix (200-meter dash), Tyson Gay (100, 200), Bernard Lagat (1500), Brad Walker (pole vault) and Reese Hoffa (shot put). Of that group, only Felix managed to win any medal at all. And Sanya Richards, a big pre-meet favorite, settled for bronze in the 400.

Here's what went wrong for Team USA:

• For decades, American sprinters were so superior that they could throw together 4x100 relays virtually at the last minute and still win. Not anymore. In Beijing, both the men's and women's teams botched handoffs and didn't even make the final. If you're tempted to dismiss this as a fluke, remember that American women blew handoffs in the last two Olympics to come away without a medal of any color, and the men did the same at the 1988 Olympics and the 1995 and 1997 world championships.

• American middle-distance and distance runners claimed one out of a possible 36 medals. Alan Webb, one of the rare Americans who can compete at this level, didn't even make the team. Perhaps it's contagious. Lagat, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was the silver medalist at 1,500 meters in the last Olympics while running for his native Kenya; running for the U.S. in Beijing, where he was favored to win based on his victory in last year's world championships, he didn't make the final.

All of the above continues a long slide for American distance running. Since 1976, American men have won one medal total in the 1,500, 5,000, 10,000, marathon and steeplechase — a bronze during the Soviet boycott of 1984 (this discounts a silver medal won in the 2004 marathon by Meb Keflezighi, who became a naturalized citizen four years earlier). American women have claimed four medals at those distances.

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