Echoes from a pair of resounding Olympic 1,500-meter finals
The world's best milers in take-no-prisoners mode remains one of the most triumphant displays athletics has to offer. But if you brood just right, it all seems like months ago
Watching an Olympic 1,500-meter final shares a few features with, say, channel-surfing across an episode of House, M.D. or road-tripping through states where towns are still fifty miles apart: You don’t know exactly what you’re in for, and the ride may include unpleasant surprises, but when it’s over, individual flashes of momentary pleasure add up to create an expectation-exceeding experience.
Truth: The anticipation of the 2021 Olympic women’s and men’s 1,500-meter finals both shimmered with unprecedented intensity. While “The Games have never been more eagerly awaited” is a perennially facile refrain, this time, all the hackneyed hype-bytes really did slam nicely into place. Between the extra year of waiting since the last Olympics, the introduction of superspikes in the past two years, and a never-before-attempted distance triple on the women’s side, every distance event on the Tokyo slate was an automatic don’t-miss. But with the women’s 1,500-meter final on Day 8 and the men’s—the last individual track event of the Games—on Day 9, after a few world records and news of a historically quick track surface had already made a resounding and cumulative impact, these “metric mile” races had the potential to become the two most memorable distance competitions of the thirty-second Summer Olympics.
Why does the 1,500 meters seem to be practically every spectator’s favorite track event lasting more than ten or eleven seconds—be that spectator a dedicated running fan or someone who checks in every four years or so, like a lot of us* do with gymnastics? I think “Everyone can relate to a mile” is too easy an explanation; the minds of modern non-running humans can just as easily parse and appreciate what a quarter-mile or a half-mile “means” all-out on two legs.
No, I think it has to do with the conditioned human attention span for external, non-emergency forms of drama or anything that tickles the soul. I have no idea how much of this has to do with inherent neurophysiology and how much is a product of adapting to the modern cultural fray—and keep in mind, the flurry of premises I’m advancing here may all be false—but a rousing sensory-emotional experience ideally consumes three to four minutes. Right? Much more than that, and other stimuli, including internal distractions, begin to compete for our attention; too much less, and drama cannot properly build. (To name one weakness of the 20- to 120-second-long track events: As amazing as 400-meter sprinters and 400-meter hurdlers are to behold, you can’t even tell who’s winning these races without the announcers’ help until these events are three-quarters complete.)
Popular songs have long fallen into the three- to four-minute range, even as delivery methods have shifted from radio to storage media to the Internet. It can even be argued that copulation between humans, even as engagement methods have shifted from quasi-consensual encounters in caves to beds to the Internet, usually lasts between three and four minutes, at least between married partners. Too much less, and you get the couch; too much more, and, at least in ancient ancient times, someone awaiting his turn was apt to brain both of you with a length of broken stalagmite. At that point, you’d be so disgusted by the surely intolerable stench of prehistoric ass that you last thought before landing in long-term unconsciousness would be “Thanks, Og.”
Anyway, most pundits foresaw the women’s final as a two-way battle between Faith Kipyegon, who had nailed a 3:56.80 in her semifinal—a time my mind ineluctably recognizes for comparison purposes as a touch under four minutes by pre-superspikes standards, still quick for a semi; moving forward, if I pay attention at all, I’ll treat times from 2020 on as “normal”—and Sifan Hassan, aiming for her second of three potential distance golds at these Games after breezing to a win in the 5,000 meters with a final two laps in 2:04. (For some reason, the NBC clip linked above is only 71 seconds long, whereas the network chose to upload the men’s final in its entirety.) Laura Muir looked like the best bet for bronze.
Most pundits were correct. Hassan, who can beat anyone in the world from the 1,500 meters on up on the right day but was clearly most vulnerable in Tokyo in this event, took to the front and tried to control the pace while keeping it honest by the standards of the rest of the field, if not her own or Kipyegon’s (62.9 at 400 meters, 2:07.0 at 800 meters). This was probably Hassan’s only chance to win, and while it wasn’t a longshot, it may have cost her the silver as Kipyegon took charge on the final backstretch and Muir sneaked past her Hassan coming into the final 100 meters—and very briefly looked, at least from Colorado, like she had a chance to reel in Kipyegon, who was still moving well but had clearly thrown everything into her move with 250 meters to go.
I was gratified for largely ineffable reasons to see someone other than Hassan win, but I would have traded the actual outcome for one that included a Hassan win and an Elle Purrier St. Pierre medal. A lot of fans have found the wholesome Vermonter easy to root for, and because I and so many track followers I know have ties to the University of New Hampshire and the general urbane-redneck region, I didn’t realize until talking to other people in Colorado how widespread this phenomenon is.
Unfortunately, Purrier St. Pierre wasn’t in top form in Tokyo and like most of the women in the 2021 1,500-meter final, she was relegated to chasing the speeding train of dreams from half a straightaway back by the time it was over. It’s amazing how much of a gap five seconds feels like when the bodies ahead of you are churning along at close to fifteen miles an hour. You feel like you can barely see people well enough to tell them apart from that distance, in the jumble and jostle of the competitive mosh pit. (Results)
The men’s final was even more of a strategic sure bet than the women’s had been, with the fastest man in 2021 and the seventh-fastest of all time coming into the games, Timothy Cheruiyot, opining after the semifinal that it would take a sub-3:30.00 to win the gold. Given that Cheruiyot is a frontrunner, evocative in many respects of Daniel Komen, it was evident that the Kenyan would simply try to burn off his pursuers.
The race was all of that. Cheruiyot’s forward-leaning, track-grabbing style makes him a natural leader and gives the picture of a man whose entire purpose is winning while holding just a smidgen of strength in reserve. But with 300 meters to go, it was clear that Jakob Ingebrigtsen was not merely holding on but biding his time. Off 56-second laps of the Tokyo track. And when he went, he left little doubt that he’d take the victory. Matt Kerr, who may be a hybrid of Paul McMullen and Jim Ryun engineered in a Scottish laboratory, steamed down the homestretch for the bronze.
The race earned comparisons to the 1960 1,500-meter final in Rome, as in each case six men broke the Olympic record. Actually, the similarities were startling:
Coincidentally, in sixth place was Dyrol Burleson, same as [Cole] Hocker. Burleson was a 20-year-old coming off his sophomore year at the University of Oregon, same as Hocker.
Hocker is a remarkable talent and already a patient but confident racer, and I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t run under 3:30.00, 3:46, and 7:30.00 within three years. (Results)
Although I never raced any mile-like distance seriously after the tenth grade, chasing a sub-5:00 1,600 meters in my first track season as a ninth-grader was the first solid running goal I ever formed, and I’ll never forget either the thrill of both chasing and getting it or what the hardest parts of that pursuit were. In an all-out, four-lap race, I recall experiencing two points of doubt, about halfway down the back straight on lap two and coming into the home straight for the penultimate time. This is sort of how any race presents itself, at least to me: Generally, you have a choice of trying to succeed or opting to coast about one-third and two-thirds of the way in.
Do I think this way because I’m conditioned by, say, the typical three-part arc of a novel, film, or stage performance, or is this in-race response more organic? Clearly, I have a lot of time and not enough real anguish on my hands. But the concept seems equally applicable to the mile, the 5,000 and the marathon, so if you buy into the idea, you can mine it for training and strategic wisdom.
Besides the 1,500 meters, the Olympics threw a lot of expected-unexpected things our* way. How cool was it to see Nigel Amos (who seems like he should be 40 by now, but is 27) and Isaiah Jewett pull this move? Did anyone else notice Eluid Kipchoge being Eliud Kipchoge and conspicuously thanking the Japanese for their hospitality? (Yes, he also won his event, but everyone already knows that.) Allyson Felix has now medaled in five Olympic Games, defying Mother Time for an extra year in events inimical to the long of tooth. Molly Seidel of course gets her own encyclopedia entry now. Fred Kerley’s full transformation into a 100-meter dash stud is now complete—I don’t think many people saw him medaling—and Courtney Frerichs bagging a silver for the U.S. in a distance event was great to watch. Katie Nageotte…well, let’s just say she responded well to the pressures she faced. There was the French marathoner who may or may not have swept a bunch of other athletes’ fluid bottles off the aid-station tables. And the accent in this telling of the Barshim-Tamberi high-jump-tie story makes it the best telling of all. It was a sublime week-plus of television.
In the past, I would have generated and posted at least 2,500 words about this topic within hours of the conclusion of the men’s final even if I thought no one would read it, because my fundamental level of excitement about professional running once demanded that I create some sort of record of my thoughts in the immediate wake of monumental or merely exciting happenings. I would also be fired up about this weekend’s Prefontaine Classic, where perhaps the world will be treated to a sub-3:45.00 mile, among many other post-Olympics snacks.
But lately, it takes me over a week to cobble together half of that, and this wouldn’t change if I knew ten thousand people were waiting to read the result. I’m just not into much, or, for the first time I can remember, anticipating ever being into much, and I’m fundamentally not sure why. (You can safely skip the rest of this if you’re here for what’s advertised—competitive running talk. I can only choose one category per post.)
My often gag-level distaste for the purposeful transformation of the running media into a carnival of bullshit would be mere wincing bemusement were this phenomenon limited to its niche of wobbly joggers battling butthurt-inflicting demons and Instagram narcissists pretending that whatever weight, size or shape they happen to be in that day’s photo is perfect. There, the deal is simply this: A dispersed cadre of harpies powered by personal grudges—editors, freelancers, content-producers—are pimping “anti-oppression” momentum to bash away at all the things that annoy them. On the surface, this assumes the form of male-bashing and trying to shut down “body talk,” but the real targets-and this explains most of the transgender one-sidedness within the plain-Jane, woman-jogger crowd—are the women whose bodies men generally prefer. Take a moment to look at the women who are complaining about this as a group and compare them to the ones who seem okay with “body talk” (most of you pervs are checking out one of these groups already) Notice any differences?
But none of the joke-journalism and the concomitant elevation of sociopathic icons of triumphant overconsumption I’ve been writing about for the past year could be happening without the hijacking of the entire corporate media by flagrant, even proud liars. I see Lindsay Crouse as the index case, or mainframe, or epicenter, or whatever of all of this within the running community, because her standing at the New York Times compels people to suck up to her even in the few instances they’re sanguine enough to recognize her as a pathological constructor of alternate realities, with her sham support of social justice among those falsities. With each new offering, Crouse manages to re-epitomize her own disgrace, the free-fall into journalistic obsolescence of her employer, and the pitiable victimization of her entire target demographic of affluent white female neurotics. Her entire theme is her own inability to find the elite-caliber mate she believes she deserves—and after a lifetime of failing upward, why not?—and her externalizing the blame for this and other disappointments is rabidly shared by her distaff peers in the running community.
I’ll save most of this for next time, both to limit the stain on an otherwise unrelated running topic and not bloat this by 2,000 additional words. But Crouse’s most recent torrent of projection-laden nonsense—a column about Seidel, her latest goggle-eyed, bumbling effort her appear a visionary—dinged a personal nerve with unusual force. That the harpies willingly amplify (I’m stealing that from the Wokish glossary) material from a known liar underscores just how off-kilter and dismal the running media’s coverage of eating disorders is. They don’t care one bit about anything besides waggling their larger-than-desired derrières in everyone’s faces in the name of self-promotion and keeping “really, we care” media enterprises like the Outside suite of unhelpful electronic scratchpads afloat. That's it.
Yeah, it’s a bummer watching purposeful, unprecedented stupidity spread throughout U.S. schools and everywhere else, all under the flagrantly dishonest guise of “a reckoning” (although I think some of these younger Wokesters really are blinkered enough to think that they are part of a vanguard of positive social change). It’s dispiriting to see people, 93 percent of them in Boulder, continue to be as inconsistent about “consideration” and as anti-science about face-masking as possible. Still, if I could at least get fired up about something, some useful eventuality, I could tolerate living in a society in which following current events, something lots of bored folks traditionally enjoy, is no longer a viable option. But I just have no mojo. Obviously, had I done the normal thing and built a life around kids and a career or something more absorbing than…drifting stably in one place is what I’d call it.
My self-monitoring gadgetry informs me that I covered over 90 miles on foot last week, although only about half of that was running. I’ve started doing some runs without Rosie to see how I feel about running at somewhat higher intensities, and I’m not yet sure whether I will choose to race this year so I can have something more tangible to bitch about or choose to forgo racing and condemn myself for not at least trying at something while I’m healthy enough to fail in style.
Whatever the case, I’m just one more extra citizen with a bunch of hazy existential problems. Dumb, unpretentiously incapable people suck, as do serial liars, and I wish my fellow lonely skanks would find better ways to process their dissatisfaction than playing journalist—really fucking badly at that. But if you need a reality check as often as I do, listen to this recent podcast with Yeonmi Park, whose name you may never have seen or heard. It will bring tears as surely as some of the Olympics scenes did, just not the same kind.