Powerhouse sprint team USA have been disqualified from the 4×100 men’s Olympic relay race.
The Americans are in the middle of a relay curse and have not won the event since Sydney in 2000.
This time they were ruled out due to a bumbled baton exchange.
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Even without sprint king Noah Lyles, the team of Christian Coleman, Kenneth Bednarek, Kyree King and Fred Kerley were still the hot favourites.
But they had two horrible baton exchanges and the one between Coleman and Bednarek was later ruled to be illegal.
Baton passes have to be completed in the changeover box but Coleman — who ran an electric leg — did not complete the first change with Bednarek in the legal zone.
As it happened, Nine commentator Gerard Whateley said it was “terrible” and Tamsyn Manou called it “awful”.
“Utter devastation for the Americans,” Todd Woodbridge said.
“So hard to comprehend.”
After the event a disappointed Coleman was hurting.
“We’re all human beings too and we’ve been through ups and downs in life, this is another of those times,” he said.
“This is a part of the sport.
“This is a risk-reward type of thing. We do it on the biggest stage … This one still hurts. A lot.
“It just didn’t happen … Maybe we could have put in some more work (but) it just didn’t happen.
“We practised a lot. Me and Kenny have been awesome teammates a few times over the years. We felt really confident. It just didn’t happen.
“We’re our own biggest critic. We’re disappointed because we know we had the speed to do it. It’s part of the sport that you come into it with the risk reward.”
But US Olympics legend Carl Lewis was outraged.
“It is time to blow up the system. This continues to be completely unacceptable,” he said on X (formerly Twitter).
And Lewis also gave the USA Track and Field governing body a serve.
“It is clear that EVERYONE at USATF is more concerned with relationships than winning,” he said.
“No athlete should step on the track and run another relay until this program is changed from top to bottom.”
The Canadian team of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre De Grasse won the race in a time of 37.50 seconds.
It was Canada’s first gold in the men’s relay since the Atlanta Games in 1996.
It was better news for the US women’s team with star sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson powering to the line to take the gold.