SAINT-DENIS, France – Between the Noah Lyles Drama in sprints and in the distance demon Sifan Hassan’s 62-kilometer odyssey which ended with a gold medal, track and field took the Olympics on a wild ride over 10 days of end calls, disturbs and drama.
In summing up the winners and losers of the meeting that featured another world record for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and three gold medals in Gabby Thomasperhaps the biggest winner was the track itself.
Fighting for the eyeballs in a post-Usain Bolt worldthe sport had incredible shows from Lyles, who fought against COVID, and Sha’Carri Richardson, who left her mark, and a beatin the US 4×100 meter relay, gold in a visceral reminder that she is very compelling television.
As much as the personalities, it was the dramatic endings and the excitement on the track that made it difficult to dodge.
“One night I had Snoop Dogg on one side and Simone Biles on the other and she said, ‘I had no idea people ran that fast,’” said World Athletics leader Sebastian Coe. “The sport became cool. It’s the first time my kids think something I did on the planet was cool.”
The track will open the Olympics, not close them, four years from now at the Los Angeles Olympics. If this encounter is anything like this one, these Games will be on the right path to success.
A look at some winners and losers from Olympic track and field in Paris:
Hassan will never attract the attention of, say, a Lyles or Richardson. Maybe she should. Exchanging elbows as she passed her last remaining competition in the marathon was a great way to close the track at the Olympics.
Hassan won gold and here is his tally from the last two Olympics:
—Bronze in 1,500 (2021).
—Gold (2021) and bronze (2024) in the 5,000.
—Gold (2021) and bronze (2024) in the 10,000.
—Gold in Sunday’s marathon.
Over the course of two Olympics, she ran more than 86.5 kilometers.
Could there be a legitimate rivalry between Lyles, who lost in his best race, the 200 meters, to Letsile Tebogo of Botswana? Someone asked the new champion if he wanted to one day be the “face of the track” – a role Lyles clearly aspires to.
“I think for me, I can’t be the face of athletics because I’m not an arrogant or loud person like Noah,” Tebogo said.
Although the stakes weren’t that high – Olympic medals aren’t a matter of life and death – Lyles’ fight with changed COVID its Olympics, altered the mood of track and field competition (for one night, at least) and reminded the world that the virus will never go away.
It’s hard to call someone who leaves Paris holding a gold medal a loser.
But the mind games he played with Brit Josh Kerr clearly caught Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen in the 1,500 meters. For the third consecutive time in a major championship, he failed to win what is seen as the track’s longest distance race.
Four days after finishing fourth, Ingebrigtsen recovered mentally to win the 5,000 meters convincingly.
“When you hit a wall and don’t perform as well as you want, it’s very difficult,” Ingebrigtsen said. “I had another chance, I just had to make the most of it.”
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone makes the 400 meter hurdles look so easy. She finished in 50.37 seconds to break the world record for the sixth time, then followed with a split of 47.71 in the American adventure in the women’s 4×400.
The 50 second barrier awaits.
Armando Duplantis had won a gold medal long before, but he still held his pole and looked up at a bar higher than any human being had ever cleared in pole vaulting.
Duplantis, the 24-year-old Louisiana native who competes for his mother’s native Sweden, cleared 6.25 meters s (20 feet 6 inches) to break the world record for the ninth time – but for the first time at the Olympics.
The obstacles don’t seem to be much of an obstacle for some of these athletes, Coe says, before suggesting he’s heard calls for an idea that probably won’t go anywhere.
“The only thing I would say is that there are probably reasons to look at the height of the obstacles,” he said. “These guys really don’t seem to be breaking their form too much to do this.”
Currently, the women’s hurdles in the 400 meters are set at 30 inches high and the men’s hurdles at 36.
The USA won 34 medals and 14 golds, numbers equal to those not seen since the 1960s and before.
Lyles, Richardson, McLaughlin-Levrone and Thomas are the obvious candidates to become bigger than the game.
“But the athletes who competed here were harassed as they left the stadium and still walk around their hometowns in anonymity,” Coe said of the general lack of love for track in the U.S. outside of the Olympics. “This we need to resolve. ”
Track has four years to resolve its issue in the US. One problem: Crawl fans in the United States hoping to see all these budding stars on TV will have to really look around.
NBC’s contract to broadcast many of the track’s premier meetings, the Diamond League, comes to an end in 2024, replaced by a crawl website which will charge a hefty monthly fee to watch the action.
Thomas wasn’t the only track and field athlete disappointed by the news when it arrived in the spring.
“This might be the worst news I’ve heard from the diamond league since…ever,” she said on social media.
Coe said there’s a fine line between finding new ways to distribute the track’s best races and making sure everyday fans can find them on traditional TV. The future of track in the US may very well depend on it.
“This is our moment,” Coe said. “We cannot allow this to slide smoothly into anything other than a truly successful 2028.”
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