Poor exchanges hurt team says Pickering's Anson Henry

Sixth for Canadian men's relay team

August 22, 2008

Brad Kelly

BEIJING -- The Canadian men's relay team finished right where they started.

Coming into the Olympic Games ranked sixth in the world in the 4x100m relay, the team, with Pickering's Anson Henry running the second leg, finished sixth in a time of 38.66 at the National Stadium on Friday night.

The race was won in world record time by the powerful Jamaican team, who crushed the rest of the field, clocked at 37.10. Trinidad and Tobago was second in 38.06, followed by Japan, who won the bronze in 38.15.

Henry wasn't surprised by the domination of Jamaica, who had 100- and 200m winner Usain Bolt running the third leg.

"No, we weren't surprised," said Henry. "If you saw the one hundred and how they've been running all year, we expected them to be quick."

The time for Canada was a season best, after qualifying for the final the night before in a time of 38.77, finishing second in their heat.

Henry said the team, that included Hank Palmer, Jared Connaughton and Pierre Brown of North York running anchor, left some time out on the track through bad baton exchanges.

"We didn't get any time for the exchanges," said the 29-year-old. "They were really short. The baton didn't keep moving. We needed to do that because it was a world record race.

"There were some legs in that race. We had to be slick through the zones and we weren't. Our runs were OK because it was a season best time with garbage exchanges."

The hamstring that he tweaked during the second round of the men's 100m earlier in the Games was still bothering him as he ran down the back straight. But it was a situation where he didn't want to let the team down.

"I had to run with the team. They needed me and I did what I could with it," he reasoned.

He plans to take the next month off, returning home to Pickering to get healthy, then start preparing for next year's World Championships in Germany.