The Paris 2024 men’s Olympic 1500 metres was preceded by a bucketful of talk, some of it maybe contrived, but all of it setting the scene for an epic showdown between defending champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen and the man who beat him for last year’s world championship, Josh Kerr.
Mondo Duplantis had the first word on day five of the Olympic athletics program. The pole vault final kicked off the evening program at 7 pm local time.
Noah Lyles didn’t win his heat of the Olympic 100 metres. He didn’t win his semi-final either. He never led the 100 metres final until the moment his chest touched the line. But he is the Paris 2024 men’s 100 metres Olympic champion. And with victory we can acclaim him the world’s fastest man (until the next global championship).
It was supposed to be the day when Shelly Ann Fraser-Pryce, the engaging Jamaican who has been the queen of women’s sprinting for most of this century was displaced by America’s Sha’Carri Richardson in the 100 metres.
Cheptegei is very, very (insert extra ‘veries’ as per personal preference) good. Three times a world champion at 10,000 metres, an Olympic champion at 5000 metres and as of 2 August, 2024, Olympic champion at 10,000 metres after the deepest 10,000 ever run at championships or any other level.
Football and Rugby start with an actual kick-off, but Paris 2024 is kicking off in the figurative sense before a boat has even been launched down the Seine. The very first men’s football match, between world champions Argentina and Doha 2022 semi-finalist Morocco, was ‘highlighted’ by a pitch invasion after the Argentines had seemed to score an equalizing goal.
nne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, launched herself into the Seine this week. Not in response to a suggestion from an aggrieved citoyen or citoyenne that she should go and do so, but to celebrate the fulfilment of a pledge that the French capital’s iconic waterway would be ready to play its part in the Paris24 opening ceremony and as the venue for the Olympic triathlon swim legs and the marathon swim.
Having seen the last of ticketing stories – who knew there would be more wanting to go to the Games than there are tickets available; of confected uproar over accommodation (again, who knew?) and hospitality (ditto) price gouging; of panic over any number of remote possibilities – we stand just a couple of weeks away from the opening of competition. When what does happen swamps what might have happened in organisers’ worst nightmares.
If McLaughlin-Levrone goes on to retain her Olympic title in Paris and improves her world record in doing so, she will complete a hat-trick of double world record victories in US Trials and global championship races. Who would be game to say she will not? Certainly, I’m not about to.
Lasse Viren, the fabulous Finn who won consecutive Olympic track 5000/10,000 doubles – once suggested that elastic tapes must be used to measure the last three or four miles of the marathon.
