Dutch hurdlers helped the mixed relay team to an impressive gold medal, but the sport lacks big stars to fight for recognition
Usain Bolt finished third behind Justin Gatlin in the 100m final at the World Championships in London in the summer of 2017, six years after he last competed, 11 months and 29 days. But you can still see him in the sport. He appears in a box at the top of the official start list, listing world and Olympic records; he appears again when the digital board at the finish line shows the same time, reminding you of the gap among the runners you are watching; he appears in a montage of clips shown on the big screen before the game begins.
But most importantly, you only noticed him because he was gone. Given the way he talks about the sport in interviews, you wonder if World Athletics might sometimes prefer him to stay that way. “I think the sport probably just needs a superstar right now. I mean, when I left, people were looking for the next guy to come on stage and really shine and stand out. I think that’s where the sport is now. What’s missing,” he said in an interview last year.
”Track and field needs attention because I think it has been neglected since I retired,” he said in another post. “I love to compete, but track and field needs development.”
What the 70,000 or so fans in the stadium saw was a fine performance by 24-year-old Femke Bol, who single-handedly led the Dutch team to victory in the 4x400m mixed relay. Bol was in fourth place when she took over, but she overtook Britain’s Amber Anning, Belgium’s Naomi Van Den Broek and, finally, America’s Kaylin Brown in 47.93 on the straightaway. Bol was slightly shorter. Her duel with Sydney McLaughlin-Leuron in the 400m hurdles will be one of the most exciting events of the championships.
Even so, Saturday night at the stadium proved Bolt’s point. His shadow was so long that it almost obscured the game at the Stade de France. The sport is still trying to figure out how to get by without him, waiting for someone else to take his place.
He was not the only big name missing on Saturday. The entire tournament had been built around the idea that France could emulate Super Saturday in 2012, when Great Britain won three gold medals in one evening. “We’re probably not going to win three gold medals in a row like Team GB did,” said Olympic athletics director Alan Blondell. “But our aim is for spectators to enjoy the French athletes from the opening morning until the end of the competition. We want the Stade de France to be as lively as the London 2012 Olympic Games.” France has had plenty of success so far at the Games.
On the schedule this weekend, two-time world champion Kevin Meyer will take home a medal in the final event of track and field, the decathlon. But Meyer was unable to start. He left the game on Monday with an injury. “Everyone told me it would be a shame if I fell 20 meters during the game at the Stade de France,” Meyer said. “My goal was to shake the whole stadium.”
Beyond that, the most astonishing sight of the evening was the empty starting gates in lane 5 of the women’s 100m semi-final two, where Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce was supposed to be. Fraser-Pryce, 37, was aiming to become the first athlete in Olympic history to win a fifth medal in the same event, having won gold in Beijing and London, bronze in Rio and Tokyo, and a silver. But she was pulled from the match shortly before it started. There was no ready explanation, just a DNS next to her name on the big screen. Within half an hour, news of her injuries had spread across social media.
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Two-time champion Elaine Thompson-Hera, who withdrew with injury last month, has already pulled out, and Jamaica’s Cherica Jackson, who went 1-2-3 in Tokyo, also pulled out earlier this week. That leaves American Shakari Richardson as the only major star left in the game. Of course, she lost to Julian Alfred, a 23-year-old from Castries, St Lucia. It was St Lucia’s first medal and one of the greatest stories in Olympic history. The problem for World Athletics is that it hasn’t even chosen to tell that story in sprint racing, having recently launched a behind-the-scenes series on Netflix that follows the sport’s rivals.
The show was one of several attempts by World Athletics to make improvements at the behest of Bolt and other big names such as Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson. The mixed relay, which debuted at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago, was another improvement, as was the revival of the event earlier in the day. They decided to scrap the fastest loser rule, giving all players who missed out on automatic qualification in the preliminary events a chance to re-enter. This should make the sport more relevant and important, and means they can schedule more games on TV.
Bol’s performance reminds us that, despite all the stunts, they really do need star athletes.
Post time: Nov-20-2024