World Athletics Championships notes: Days 7 and 8

Adding an extra hurdle to Sydney McLaughlin's lane and using 36-inch barriers might give other women a chance in the 400m IH in the next five years

It’s been in the mid- to high nineties here all week, which sounds grim until you consider how many people that keeps inside all afternoon. Only a dumbass could like running when it’s that hot outside, but if all you’re after is thirty easy minutes or so, there’s only so oppressive it can get when the don’t-dewpoint is low. Tolerating any 100-degree day in Boulder is easier than being awash in, say, the unrelentingly intravaginal conditions of South Florida nine months of the year.

I don’t know what any of that has to do with the 2022 World Championships, because my mind rarely turns to performance-oriented running lately when I’m doing my own version of it. I really need to permanently situate myself someplace where I see a paucity of other faces outside even when it’s not in or near triple digits; I now find the unanticipated sight of other people frankly unwelcome and expect this to be the case for the rest of my life, and if anything starts to change about this, I’ll do what it takes to stabilize my revulsion level.

Day Seven

Women’s 800 meters, opening round: I don’t know what it takes to compel people who watch track and field mostly for the sprints, jumps, or throws to declare any distance event a can’t-miss live viewing event, in the way “all” distance groupies, 300-pound collegiate shot-putters, and tunnel-vision pole-vault fans collectively and automatically tune in whenever Sydney McLaughlin lines up for a 400-meter intermediate-hurdles race. But I suspect that Athing Mu has developed the same kind of cross-discipline gravity as Mondo DuPlantis, Ryan Crouser, and McLaughlin.

Even without Mu, the U.S. women would be unusually strong in this gloriously volatile event right now. All three Americans advanced to the semis with ease.

Men’s 5,000-meter heats: In the first heat, the field farted around at 13:45 for the first three-quarters of the race before the pace picked up to sub-60s. The seventh-place finisher, Telahun Bekele, ran his final kilometer in 2:28.39 and still failed to advance to the final. Heat two was hotter, with Jakob Ingebrigtsen—who is young, has not spent a lot of time in the United States, and is perhaps not yet used to non-filled stadiums at global championships—trying to get the crowd fired up in the homestretch, his own advancement to the final assured. American and Bowerman Track Club member Woody “William” Kincaid missed qualifying for the final by 0.46 seconds, whereas the other two Americans, whose names will matter once the final is run, were auto-qualifiers out of the first heat.

Women’s 200-meter dash: Shericka Jackson’s 21.45 was the second-fastest time in history, with Florence Griffith-Joyner’s world record of 21.34 closing in on thirty-four years of age. This should have been more exciting than it was, but like a lot of viewers I was more anxious for the

Men’s 200-meter dash: I wanted to see Erriyon Knighton win mostly to see how he and his chief rival, Noah Lyles, would handle this outcome—Lyles has been thinking of nothing besides claiming a global 200-meter title for months if not decades, while the reticent Knighton clearly felt that his 19.49 from April would mean a lot less without a win on Thursday night at Hayward Field. Lyles running 19.31 and edging past Michael Johnson to become the fastest-ever American in the event did not count as a letdown. It’s hard to picture anyone being around Lyles and his personality for long and not wanting to become better at their event of choice.

Day Eight

Women’s 35-kilometer race walk: There is no rational explanation for staging both a 20K walk and a 35K walk at a championship meet. Make the longer walk a straight 42.195K marathon and the shorter one a 10,000-meter track steeplechase event or discharge walking from the program wholesale; all alternative, more nuanced options are nonviable. Or at least guarantee the racers some fucking shade out there, even if it means threading the course through residential neighborhoods and up and down cul-de-sac streets overloaded with elms. (Conflict-of-interest disclosure: I didn’t watch this event.)

Women’s 800-meter semifinals: All eight women who advanced past the three semifinal heats broke two minutes in advancing; Switzerland’s Lore Hoffman ran 1:59.88 and did not make the final.

This event kicks ass right now. Any 800-meter final is a wild-card owing to the volatile physiological nature of the event, and surprise medalists are so common that the concept of a surprise medalist over two laps is probably void. Mu is as close to unbeatable as anyone has ever been when she’s on, but she’s still vulnerable when she’s not having fun. Ajee’ Wilson still believes she can beat Mu. But I’d watch out for Keely Hodgkinson in tomorrow’s final.

Women’s 400-meter dash: A women’s 400-meter global championship final including no Americans on its face is like a Major League Baseball game with no players from the Dominican Republic and no ridiculously bad home-plate calls: Does that ever even happen?

Six of the eight women ran faster than the winner of the 400-meter intermediate hurdles, so something must have been going right out there.

Men’s 400-meter dash: With the doping-related sidelining of Randolph Ross, Michael Norman and Champion Allison—who should marry Allyson Felix and change his name to Champion Allison-Felix, a handle that will always resound with truth—are pretty much all the U.S. have right now in this event, which features twelve American names among the top sixteen all-time.

Norman is one of those guys who always looks good with a gold medal around his neck. He seems unusually appreciative of both his own talent and his own frailties. I get all that from a few words and some facial expressions, but since it seems true, it gets a high internal fact-check score and is appropriate for sharing.

Women’s 400-meter intermediate hurdles: There are endless ways to contextualize McLaughlin’s 50.68, and it’s hard to find one that doesn’t reveal how unique a performance this was. That time was bettered by only 31 NCAA Division I collegiate men this spring; other 31st-place times on the 2022 D-1 outdoor men’s qualifying list include 3:39.54 in the 1,500 meters (tantamount to a 3:56-3:57 mile) and 13:34.86 in the 5,000 meters.

The fastest time on the NCAA Division III men’s list this spring was 50.88 seconds. In theory, Sydney McLaughlin could have competed as a transgender male this spring and won a collegiate title in the 400-meter intermediate hurdles.

Together, the foregoing makes McLaughlin’s existence statistically impossible. So until someone proves she’s not a deeply religious hologram, that’s the most likely explanation for anyone able to do what she’s done. She would have a highly nonzero chance to win gold medals in both the open 400 meters and the 400m IH at the same World Championships or Olympics. Since she doesn’t get tired, she could probably run the 800-meter intermediate hurdles in around 1:41.36. If it didn’t pose a serious risk to her health and therefore her career, she should “jump into” a Diamond League 100-meter high hurdles race or two just to watch her (maybe?) lose a race over barriers occasionally. She would make a superior steeplechase rabbit as well, if only because her form is as close to unimprovable as the world’s most advanced cryogenic laboratories are to reaching 0 K. but ditto on the chances of getting banged up.

Anyway, I’ll leave ludicrous and overreaching superlatives to others. McLaughlin probably has Dalilah Muhamad contemplating retirement and the current U.S. contingent of world-class 400-meter runners hoping McLaughlin doesn’t elect to diversify her game.