“I mean, that would be pretty special, pretty crazy actually,” Coleman said.

Other coaches are already guaranteed multiple medals here. Edrick Floréal’s hurdlers are having quite a meet, with Omar McLeod of Jamaica winning gold in the men’s 110 hurdles and Kori Carter of the United States winning gold in the women’s 400 hurdles. Floréal also coaches Keni Harrison, the world-record holder in the women’s 100 hurdles, who hit the first hurdle in her semifinal Friday night but recovered to squeak into the final as the last qualifier.

“If you think about it, how many athletes would reach a medal stand without a coach?” Floréal said. “The good ones are really life coaches. It’s not just running around teaching how to hurdle or do stride patterns.”

But while Floréal said he appreciated the gesture by the London organizing committee and track and field’s governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, he still felt some of its priorities were not in order.

“I think there’s an underlying slap in the face for coaches in that something as simple as getting access to the warm-up track to talk to an athlete means you have to jump through 9,000 hoops and get a pass and then pass it on to someone else when you’re done,” he said. “Meanwhile, it seems like all the agents are getting a pass from the I.A.A.F. Its like the agents are more valued than the people actually getting athletes to perform. There has to be a shift. I think it’s senseless.”

There is also the argument, not unreasonable in light of track and field’s long history of doping violations, that giving medals to coaches only means there will be two to return instead of one after an infraction. Should coaches be so honored considering the role some have played in some of the sport’s biggest scandals? (See Trevor Graham, former coach to Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin.)

“You don’t want to treat everybody as an inmate because a bunch of people are thieves,” Floréal said. “You put the law in place to punish criminals, but I think coaches should be given the benefit of the doubt.”

While Stefanidi said she supported recognizing coaches, she said that if the I.A.A.F. continued the practice there should be an attempt to make the presentation more formal. Now, she said, it feels like an afterthought to be handed the coach’s medal away from the spotlight.