Angelo Gets His Gold
by Devon Jeffreys
Angelo Taylor wasn't about to leave the 13th IAAF World Championships without a medal.
Despite a plantar injury that contributed to keeping AT off the medal stand in the 400-meter hurdles, Angelo knew he had 400 more meters in him. So he laced up on Friday for Team USA’s run at a fourth straight World Championship gold in the 4x400.
Angelo joined LaShawn Merritt, Bershawn Jackson and Greg Nixon for the 4x400-meter relay final and they won gold.
The four man team of Greg Nixon, Bershawn Jackson, AT and LaShawn Merritt faced its challenges and fell behind early. But in the end, they got Merritt the baton in a position to win and the team’s anchor leg did just that. Merritt made his move with 50 meters to go, passing both South Africa’s LJ Van Zyl and Jamaica’s Leford Green to cross the line in first with a time of 2:59.31 to secure another gold.
Watch the race in its entirety below:
Angelo has now been a part of four straight gold medal teams in the 4x400. He and Merritt were both on the winning team at the World Championships in 2007 and 2009 as well as the 2008 Olympics.
But this run was different than any of those because when AT got the baton for the third leg, he wasn’t receiving it at the front of the field. When Jackson handed off to Angelo, Team USA was firmly entrenched in third.
"I've been running on national teams in the 4x400m since 1999, and I've never gotten the baton behind," Angelo said. "It was different. It was a strategic race on the part of the other teams. They put their best runners on the first leg. Some of them had their best runners on the second leg."
After taking the handoff, AT stayed step for step Willem de Beer of South Africa as Jamaica’s Riker Hylton briefly pulled away. After gassing out, Hylton pulled back to the pack and Angelo knew his job was just to get the baton to his teammate LaShawn Merritt with a chance to put it away.
"I just wanted to go out there and get the baton around. When I got the baton, I was in third place. It was a tactical race. Jamaica got out front and South Africa was up there. I couldn't run my race. I didn't want to go out and swing wide and run out of gas. I just had to run off the South African. He tried to change the tempo, and as we went down the stretch, I told myself that I had to keep it close for LaShawn."
By the time the trio reached the handoff spot to their anchor legs, all three were bunched and Angelo had paced himself perfectly to bring Team USA back to the pack. He handed off to Merritt and the defending Olympic Champion in the 400m did the rest.
The race win gave Angelo his sixth career gold medal in Olympic or World Championship competition.
RELATED STORIES
- United States wins 4th straight men’s 4x400-meter relay gold at worlds (Washington Post, September 2, 2011)
- US wins 4x400 relay (Associated Press, September 2, 2011)
- Merritt takes USA to relay gold (ESPN, September 2, 2011)
- Team USA's men golden in long jump and 4x400m (USATF, September 2, 2011)
- USA Continues 4x400 dominance (FloTrack, September 2, 2011)
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