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August 28, 2004 8:41 pm

Baton woes leave U.S. men with silver in 4x100

By Elliott Denman

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - On paper, the U.S. sprinters were in a league of their own, an absolute cinch to strike gold in the Olympic 4x100-meter relay final.

Team USA, after all, had Justin Gatlin, the newly crowned Olympic 100 champion; Shawn Crawford, the newly crowned 200 champion; Maurice Greene, third place finisher in the Olympic 100 and a past world record-holder, and Coby Miller, who'd chased them all down in last month's Olympic Trials.

But - as students of past Olympic sprint relay races know - they're never won on paper. There's still the business of getting the baton around the track, and past American teams have had the unfortunate tendency to run into snafus.

Sure enough, Team USA bobbled away almost-sure gold again Saturday night at Olympic Stadium.

Lead-off man Crawford got the team off to a quick start, but the exchanges from Gatlin to Miller, and Miller to anchorman Greene were flawed.

As the Americans were busy trying to hold on to the stick, the teams of Great Britain and Nigeria were having no such problems, and Greene was forced to play catch-up.

As fans held their breath, Greene began a dramatic run from third place heading into the final straightaway. He caught Nigeria's Deji Aliu and set his sights on Britain's Mark Lewis-Francis. He seemed to pull even in the closing meters, and many in the stands - depending on vantage point - thought he'd actually leaned over the line first.

But the electronic photofinish equipment told a different story. It was Lewis-Francis who actually won on the lean, 38.07 seconds to 38.08.

Further frustration for the Americans was the knowledge that a U.S. team running with Darvis Patton on second leg instead of Gatlin had breezed to a 38.02 victory in its Friday night semifinal.

Nigeria (38.23) held on to beat out Japan (38.49) and Poland (38.54) for the bronze.

Miller, 27, a graduate of Louisville (Miss.) High School and a past NCAA champion at Auburn, tried to keep it in perspective.

``I knew going in that whoever had the better sticks (baton exchanges) would win the gold medal,'' he said. ``Unfortunately, we didn't have it tonight.

``Justin and mine, our pass was really, really bad. Maybe it was the crowd (noise), but I didn't hear him call stick.''

``We got away with silver and not the gold; it's not that much of a letdown,'' said Crawford, the former Clemson star. ``It's better than no medal at all.''

With his 200 gold and relay silver, he called his first Olympics ``very productive.''

Gatlin, the ex-Tennessee star who ran third in the 200 after winning the 100, thus collected a complete set of Olympic medals and is one of just three American sprinters in the past 50 years to turn that trick.

``I hoped to come home with one gold and maybe a bronze,'' he said. ``But I'll be coming home with all three, and that's just perfect.''

The United States has won Olympic 4x100 gold in 15 of its 19 attempts. But the losses - to Canada in 1996, and to baton-passing disqualifications in 1960 and 1988 - have always hurt.

This one can now be added to the list.

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