Smh
English Gardner, who ran the third leg of the race (4X100) told “Today’s” Sheinelle Jones that when she looked in her bag just before the final race, she saw only one spike. With just 10 minutes before the race start time, Gardner calmly told a coach she was missing a shoe.
“I’m normally not a person to forget my shoes. That’s kind of like, you know, a soldier showing up to a war without his guns,” Gardner said.
“Once again, Allyson, like the vet she is, pulled out an extra pair of shoes,” she said. “Definitely was a half size too big but there’s nothing that double socks couldn’t fix.”
Gardner says that after Thursday night’s time trial for the relay, which advanced them into the final, she returned to the apartment she shared with her parents in Rio and never touched her spike bag. Friday night at the stadium’s warm-up track, she left her bag in a tent as she warmed up. Just more than 10 minutes before the team was to report to the call room, she prepared to practice hand-offs with Allyson Felix. She went to her bag to get her shoes: “I opened my bag, and it looked like stuff had been moved around. And there was only one spike in it.”