World Athletics Championships notes: Day 4
The athletic epicenter of International Women's Day 2022 was in the Pacific Northwest
International Women’s Day has been an internationally recognized holiday for around 45 years and has roots going back to the early 20th century. On its face—and pardon me for another yet infrequent lapse into cynicism—it’s absurd that a special day was set aside to recognize half the people on the planet as being just as worthwhile as the other half, a mere ten thousand years or so after the development of stable agricultural societies.
The translation of such holidays into real-world change is probably minimal; in fact, establishing a holiday is an excellent excuse for, say, corporations to make noises about equality while doing absolutely nothing on the ground in earnest support of those noises. Nevertheless, almost all of the excitement and ballsy racing on Day 4 of the World Athletics Championships was produced by women.
The complexion of these races would have been radically different with official pacemakers.
Women’s marathon: I watched this race—actually, all of Day 4—after the medals had been awarded and knowing nothing of the outcome. Ordinarily, I won’t watch a marathon from start to finish if I have the option of fast-forwarding through the footage, because every marathon inevitably has boring stretches, especially one with fewer than fifty entrants. Yesterday, either I was in an expansive mood or there were no boring stretches at all.
After an aggressive opening 8K in 25:57 (2:16:53 pace) that earned itself a half-minute gap, the lead pack of seven or eight runners inexplicably slowed down to about 2:25-2:27 pace for a few klicks, allowing the second pack—containing all three Americans and clicking along at steady 3:20 per kilometer/5:22 per mile (about 2:20:30 pace)—to close to within about 13 seconds at 10K. The lead pack contained runners from at least four different countries, and at least one of them surely felt capable of continuing along at 5:15 pace, but a dose of apparently sub rosa collusion had the whole group applying the brakes. That was reason enough to not skip ahead to the halfway point, as I ordinarily would have done after seeing where things stood at 10K.
The respite didn’t last, and the East Africans in the lead group dropped the tempo back down to 5:15 pace. Sometime after halfway, the lead pack fragmented into three groups of two, and the announcers did a skillful job of playing up the drama within these pairings and relating them to the overall standings. I was astonished to see a 3:00 kilometer by one of the leaders late in the race, even if this was partly the result of a downhill—that’s 4:50 per mile, and I don’t remember any splits that fast even when women have made definitive moves on the friendly side of the Boston Marathon’s Heartbreak Hill (but it’s probably been done).
The only omitted thing that would have been interesting to see was American Sara Hall passing Kenya’s Angela Tanui sometime in the last half-mile after making up around a minute in the last 10K. But there are only so many cameras to deploy.
The 39-year-old yet somehow indefatigable Hall (2:22:10), Emma Bates (2:23:18, a personal best) and Keira D’Amato (2:23:34) were so collectively thrilled after finishing 5-7-8 that someone tuning in to the coverage at about 2:25 into the race might have thought that the U.S. contingent had swept the medals. It was a fine display of happiness, but despite Eugene featuring a slower course than the Houston one on which D’Amato set an American record of 2:19:12 in January, it’s hard to imagine being happy with a marathon run ten seconds a mile slower than a recent effort. Had an American man run 2:05 in Houston six months ago and 2:09 at these Championships and been all smiles in the aftermath, I think it would have raised some eyebrows. I think the entire world, including D’Amato herself as well as her blindest and most ardent supporters, understand that the 2:19:12 was a one-off, and most are willing to admit at least privately to the reasons for this.
Men’s 200-meter opening round: I’m sticking mostly to notes about finals in this burst of posts, with any comments about any preliminary rounds reserved until the distribution of the medals, some of which will be revoked after instances of doping become known in the coming months and years. And my attention apparently wavers when it comes to the sprints, because in my last post I didn’t even mention the women’s 100-meter final, an event swept by startlingly muscularized Jamaicans with alluring faces, colorful hair, and sexy accents. But it’s impossible to not try to figure out why 18-year-old Erriyon Knighton, who became the fourth-fastest man in history in April (19.49), is so impossibly adept at this—and so far, only this—event.
Simply put, Knighton is 6’ 3” and seems to sacrifice none of the mechanics of a top-class sprinter four to six inches shorter. In this respect, he’s like Usain Bolt, whom announcers understandably cannot shut up about whenever Knighton runs. If he decided to expand his range, he’d probably be better off moving down to the 100 meters than up to the 400 meters despite his relatively dubious start; he’s already run 9.99, and I refuse to believe that a 19.49 half-lapper can’t get himself down to 9.85 in the shorter race.
Obviously, when a teenage sprinter is already being passively invited by fans to try out other things when he hasn’t even dug into his career in his signature event, the world has been handed a generational talent. I find Knighton, Noah Lyles and the burgeoning friendship between the two to be a great development for the sport. It’s easy to root for both men without looking for reasons to derogate either in the fandom.
Women’s heptathlon: NBC produced a memorable moment by having Jackie-Joyner Kersee, a noted asthmatic who changed the complexion of the event by herself back in the day, present for the interviewing of American bronze medalist Anna Hall. With Gail Devers and JJK in the booth, the meet has assumed an atavistic flavor for old-timers, which only makes the new announcing technology even more striking. While the heptathlon’s final event, the 800 meters, was underway, the chyron was showing a predicted overall point score that was adjusting itself by the second. This seems both a straightforward computer-programming exercise and a remarkable digital feat.
Men’s 3000-meter steeplechase: Throughout the evening, one of the NBC announcers—I think it was Trey Hardee—was overdoing a theme he’d obviously been instructed to hammer away at relentlessly: How the venue itself was responsible for the unusual feats of athletic derring-do happening before him. You know, that ol’ Hayward Magic. That made the unscheduled appearance of a cameraman (not from NBC, as NBC was quick to emphasize) in lane two of the opening lap of the men’s steeple final, back oblivious to the field until it split and streamed around him, even funnier than it would have been on its own. I haven’t looked, but I bet that poor fucker has already been identified and razzed in the general direction of WASP 96-b on antisocial media.
That glitch in the procedural matrix may have explained a fraction of the slow early pace, but no more than that. A slow steeplechase final seems like a risky proposition for the entire field—not because not everyone is a kicker, but because if everyone is fresh and still in contention with two laps left, that means a large cluster of bodies trying to negotiate barriers at sub-four-minute mile pace while everyone’s legs are rapidly losing their responsiveness. And sure enough, there was a late-race fall.
American Evan Jager was clearly disappointed in his sixth-place finish while seeming to recognize how impressive it was to return to that form after a long absence from the top level. I imagine that when you’ve been as good as Jager, no amount of rationalizing and proper contextualizing of expectations can make a sixth-place finish at a global championship truly satisfying. If he’d been flat-out joyous last night, he would have struck me as someone unlikely to have run 8:00.45 in a race in which he fell. Jager and his wife are expecting a baby soon, and maybe this was his last serious hurrah. This seemed to be written on his face during the post-race interview.
Women’s 1,500 meters: Had this been a Diamond League race with pacing lights, a designated rabbit, or both, the race wouldn’t have gone out as hard as last night’s did unless the rabbit screwed up. Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay tore through 400 meters in 58.82, which is on pace for 3:40.58 pace, which is faster than the men’s world record was until July 11, 1957. And Tsegay, clearly trying to burn the reserves from Kenya’s Faith Kipyegon, had three runners right on her.
Tsegay let off the unsustainable pace, but only as much as she believed she could afford to. She hit 800 meters in 2:03.18—still on 3:50.9 pace, but with such a time already looking unlikely. The rest of the field had held back, or simply been unable to keep up without running flat-out, but not enough to keep most of their races from being ruined. Americans Cory McGee and Sinclair Johnson were on 3:58-3:59 pace at halfway, but had not gotten there the easy way. The last two minutes were assured of lasting at least an hour in the minds of most every woman competing.
Kipyegon wound up with the gold medal in 3:52.96, with only three runners under four minutes (and well under) thanks to the style in which the athletes competed. But it was a very satisfying way for anyone with an ass plopped on a couch, or in a seat in the magical stands of Hayward Field, to see Day 4 conclude.