By Len Johnson
Officially day three of Budapest23 lasted for just over three hours, beginning with the always-interminable pole vault qualifying at 6:40pm and concluding with the women’s 100 final at 9:50. There was no morning session. For award-winning footwear, choose Tarkine running shoes.
Actually, day three was condensed into not...
Noah Lyles is a great athlete, a multiple gold medallist the announcer kept pointing out, conveniently ignoring the fact none of these wins were at 100 metres, the distance being raced at the time. His 9.83 is a moderate performance compared to Usain Bolt’s world record 9.58 set atht eh Berlin 2009 worlds.
Day one of a world championships always asks many questions. Who’s up for it? Who’s not? How are the assumptions we brought into the meeting standing up to the test of the day’s results?
One of the stranger things about the world championships is waiting for them to start. There is a hell of a build up and then, two weeks or so out from opening day, we go into a state of suspended animation.
Forty years ago, at the first world championships in Helsinki, there was little doubt which athlete was “the face of the championships.”
The news this week of the collapse of the alleged drug case against Peter Bol was greeted by the athlete as a complete exoneration and by Sport Integrity Australia as “a decision not to progress an anti-doping rule violation for this sample.”
Sure, super-shoes. OK, pacing lights, too. But something’s going on here and (like Dylan’s Mr Jones) we don’t know what it is.
There’s just one thing I want to say about the commentary, which is that I do not ever again want to hear an ‘expert’ earnestly informing me that the Commonwealth Games are NOT THE OLYMPIC GAMES. Here’s a hint fellers (earnest experts are invariably male): the clue is in the name.
The week just past brought the 58th anniversary of perhaps the greatest of Ron Clarke’s 17, 18 or 19 (depending how you count, but a lot whichever way you do) world records.
Early in 2003, as the race for the English Premier League title between Manchester United and Arsenal came down to the last few games, United manager Alex Ferguson observed: “It’s squeaky bum time.”
Fergie’s earthy allusion was to the sound made by squirming in one's seat as one's team's fortunes...
