I just wrote a piece for the L.A. Daily News about Allyson Felix winning her first Olympic gold, as part of the U.S. women’s 4×400 relay team.

It seems as if Felix has been winning stuff for years, but she had never won Olympic gold until tonight.

She had a pair of silvers in the 200, one at Athens (a pleasant surprise), one here (an unpleasant surprise), but she had never run a relay. Till tonight.

At Athens, the U.S. went with Marion Jones in the sprint relay and (you won’t believe this but) the U.S. couldn’t get the baton around the track and was disqualified. Maybe if Allyson had been there …

And she was left off the 4×400 team, as well.

She likely would have been on the 4×100 here, but the women tossed the stick two nights ago … and that left the 4×400 tonight, and Felix ran the fastest split of the evening, a 48.55-second tour of the track that gave the U.S. the lead.

Anyway, she wasn’t all that happy to have a gold, it seemed to me, and it didn’t strike me as something laudable. She clearly was still disappointed she hadn’t won her individual event. Olympic gold is Olympic gold. Sheesh.

The relay gold medal looks pretty much the same as the individual one would, I’m sure. And at least now she has one — to go with the three from the world championships last year, and the two Olympic silvers, from Athens and from Beijing.

I’d put up a copy of the text here, but I don’t want to scoop my clients at LADN.