A legacy event that didn’t deliver a legacy. On life support after five years. A course you couldn’t run fast on.
Sydney staged Australia’s first marathon back in 1909. The city hosted an Olympic marathon in the year 2000. The course was reckoned to be “a beauty,” crossing the Sydney Harbour Bridge – for which the descriptor ‘iconic’ is, for a rare occasion, appropriate - from the start in North Sydney, circling the lush Centennial Parklands before making its way westwards to Homebush and the finish inside Stadium Australia.
The recent announcement that there would be no road events at the Glasgow 2026 Commonwealth Games was poignant enough for Australian athletics followers. As Commonwealth marathon champions ‘Deek’, ‘Monner’, Kerryn, Lisa, Michael and Jess are on first-name terms as far as most of us are concerned.
Kipchoge and Bekele eclipsed in Paris. Hassan triumphant, certainly but, like Said Aouita in his pomp, probably too fascinated by her own versatility to focus on excelling at one event. Moderate results in Berlin, by the German capital’s previous standards anyway.
Chicago was dubbed ‘the windy city’ not for meteorological reasons but for the propensity of its citizens for hometown promotion. As much hot air as hold on to your hats.
If you go by Olympic results, Tamirat Tola and Sifan Hassan are the best male and female marathoners in the world.
Broadcaster Gerard Whateley had no doubt on the value of Jessica Hull’s silver medal in the Paris Olympic1500 metres, Australia’s first-ever in the 52-year history of the women’s event.
Truly we live in times of change, in athletics anyway. Everywhere there’s change. Take-off zones for the horizontal jumps, eliminating fouls, so they say. Measuring the highest point reached in the vertical jumps rather than being restricted by height that silly old cross-bar is set at. Measuring the distance in the throws only if it represents an improvement.
As Faith Kipyegon’s accelerated away from her opponents to victory in the women’s Diamond League 1500 metres the livestream commentary team fell to comparing her with Jakob Ingebrigtsen.
Remember 24 September 1993? That was the day International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch reached for the envelope containing the winning bidder for the 2000 Olympic Games, drew out the enclosed sheet of paper and announced (ignoring the mangled English):
“And the winner is . . . Sydney.”
Times are of some significance in popular culture. After midnight is when “we let it all hang out” – according to J.J. Cale, at least. In myriad ditties the dawn heralds the beginning of a new day.
