Lyles, Richardson anchor US sweep of relays at world championships

BUDAPEST, Hungary — Now that they’ve got the baton thing down, the American sprinters can start brushing up on celebrations.

Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson anchored their 4×100 teams to victories Saturday, giving the U.S. its first sweep of the short relays at world championships since 2007 and a boost of confidence heading into next year’s Olympics.

Lyles finished 3 for 3 at these championships — with zhands as he accelerated.

Lyles got the baton in time and kept going.

He started the anchor leg with a one-step lead on a Jamaican — in days past, a sign of bad things to come. But the best closer in the game right now is no longer Bolt, who retired in 2017. It’s Lyles. He put Jamaican Rohan Watson in his rearview mirror to wrap up a run of 37.38 seconds, good for a .24 win over Italy and a .38 margin over Watson and Co.

“I’m not turning around,” Lyles said when asked if he thought about looking back to see what was going on with the exchange. “We did what we came to do. We got the job done, regardless of the situation.”

It hasn’t always been that way.

Sometimes because of the pressure Bolt applied, and sometimes simply because of their own bad habits, the U.S. has struggled in this race, even when it has brought the deepest team.

The baton exchanges have cost the men wins in seven worlds and five Olympics since 1995. The women have had their share of trouble, too. As if to drive home that point once more, it was the women’s 4×400 team that ran into problems about an hour before the 4×100 runners took to the track.

Quanera Hayes and Alexis Holmes passed outside the lane in qualifying of the longer race, where the exchange isn’t even supposed to be hard, and the U.S. was DQ’d.

All that felt like ancient history by the time Richardson grabbed the baton from 200 silver medalist Gabby Thomas, took off and outran Jamaican 200 gold medalist Shericka Jackson to the finish line. It didn’t hurt that Thomas handed it to Richardson with about a two-step lead that the American held throughout the final leg.

The U.S. women finished in 41.03 — .18 ahead of Jamaica — with Britain finishing third. Richardson will leave Budapest with her two golds, plus a bronze in the 200. Any tensions that lingered from a much-discussed recent U.S. training camp felt like water under the bridge.

“No matter what we put out there, we knew what we needed to do, and we all had a common goal and we did it,” Richardson said.

In individual action on the second-to-last day at the meet, the world’s best pole vaulter, Armand Duplantis, cleared 6.10 meters (20 feet) to win his second straight gold medal at worlds. With the win sealed, he tried to break his own record, but couldn’t clear 6.23. This still marked the 50th time he’s gone over 6 meters in competition.

Faith Kipyegon completed the 1,500-5,000 double by running the longer race in a leisurely 14 minutes, 53.88 seconds. That was more than 48 seconds off the world record she set earlier this year but still .23 seconds ahead of her friend, Sifan Hassan.

Hassan adds this silver to a bronze she won in the 1,500 and an 11th place finish in the 10,000 after she tripped and fell near the finish line on opening night.