Wasn't the coach. It was my friend who ran the 4th leg on the relay. We'd been 2nd or 3rd the previous years and this was our best chance to take 1st. I was young and y and probably thought there was something "cool" about skipping a race. Also hindsight is 20/20. I probably didn't realize how easy it would have been to pick up a medal in the 200. What I didn't want to do is bust my ass in the 200 and possibly not medal. And get tired for the relay where I knew we were going to medal and were the favorites to get a gold.
And now while I'm ranting...another dumb thing was that they wouldn't let me run the 100 on the team even though I always had the fastest or 2nd fastest time. Now that I look back, I realize that it's because this was my friend's best race and his parents were friends with the coach.