IOn the eve of each Olympics, a handful of athletes become the center of attention. Stand out from these few or be chosen as the “face” of the Olympics. In London in 2012, Jessica Ennis demonstrated the all-round excellence of an Olympian as a heptathlete. This visibility is not just a matter of athleticism; Ennis fulfilled his host country’s hopes by winning gold and being incredibly friendly throughout. Usain Bolt’s face and long limbs dominate multiple championships as he is one of the world’s fastest and most likeable track and field athletes, and therefore the world’s most sponsored track and field athlete . Whenever his image appears somewhere—which is to say, everywhere—it promotes a package of associations that includes his running shoes (Puma), Visa, Gatorade, Jamaica, Olympic ideals, and, through some The expansion of species and the value of sponsorship itself.
But while 90 per cent of the football players at this year’s Euros will be familiar to most people who watch the games on TV, in athletics the numbers may be the other way around. The most famous athletes to emerge from a given championship may be someone most viewers have barely heard of before. Such is the case with Josh Kerr – paradoxically, his identity is obscured and he wears Oakley sunglasses. · Jakob Ingebrigtsen, who became famous in one fell swoop but then fell into (temporary) obscurity.
I was only vaguely aware of Femke Bol before the Budapest tournament. For those who were as ignorant as I was at the time, she was a 24-year-old Dutch 400m hurdler and sprinter whose Budapest experience was disastrous. In an innovative and popular event, the 400m mixed relay, she was running alongside American Alexis Holmes until she tripped and fell just meters from the finish line. Causing the baton to spill, thereby disqualifying herself and her team, but thankfully – and looking horrendous since the fall – avoiding injury. Five days later, as expected, she won the 400m hurdles, an embarrassing and tiring event but not as fraught with danger as the 110m (meaning former world record holder Colin Jackson never won Olympic gold medal).
The championships then concluded with the traditional 4x400m relay format: first the men’s race, then the women’s race. The 4x400m relay is very different from the explosive, flurry of excitement of the 100m relay, where batons are often dropped and handoffs fail. Even when the game has been clearly won, there can be a period of uncertainty as footage is scrutinized to see if anything has changed outside the penalty area, etc. Deciding who deserves which medals often takes much longer than the competition itself.
This violation also occurs in the less frenetic and roomier 4×400. The first stage takes place in the lanes, then the second group of runners heads to the inside lanes midway through the lap. The ensuing handover is characterized by squeezing around the bar and desperately waving ten bucks to catch the bartender’s eye with the final order, which may even cause the wheels to come off. The high-profile American quartet was disqualified in the preliminary round and ultimately failed to advance to the finals.
This leaves the Netherlands, Canada and Jamaica as favorites, while Great Britain has a better chance of finishing on the podium. After a long hold on the wooden block, the game begins. BBC commentator Colin Jackson is always good at conveying the excitement of the big game, which makes him even more excited to the point where much of what he says becomes Passionate gibberish. Femke Bol was in charge of the main stage (how I love that expression!) and at the final handover she was in third place, well behind leader Nicole Yelkin of Great Britain ( Nicole Yeargin and Stacey-Ann Williams of Jamaica.
After the transition, each leg will enter a gentler phase. Of course, by any normal standards, they’ll be fighting for the leather, but it’s not a competitive part of the race as the athletes focus on settling into the rhythm of the run. This time, though, Williams gave it his all, as if the end was in sight. When she looked up at the screen, the immediate threat seemed to come from Yergin. Apparently Bol is behind them in the race that’s part of the competition (bronze medal position), but so far, Jackson’s co-commentator Steve Crum says she won’t even compete for gold. What happened next can best be expressed in the closing words of WH Auden’s poem “The Fall of Rome”: Bohr began to close the distance “silently and very quickly”.
Sports are not beauty pageants, and athletic excellence is not always eye-catching. I can’t bear to look at Cameron Norrie; he has the ugliest forehand in the history of tennis. Every shot he takes is a punch in the face of elegance. Roger Federer has the most beautiful game of any male player. There is currently a dearth of beauties in women’s tennis for the simple reason that the one-handed backhand technique has become extinct, just like the bird whose pleasing but fragile feathers prevent it from surviving the harsh schedule of the WTA’s constant global migrations. Joe Frazier was a heroic boxer who threw punches so hard that, in his own cruel and beautiful expression, “they could almost knock a building down”; the man who was attacked was Muhammad Ali, he was beautiful. Sprinter Ben Johnson bursts out of the obstacle course as if desperate to escape the limitations of his body, echoing Saint-Just’s declaration: “I despise the dust with which I am compounded”; His hated rival Carl Lewis was physically restrained by his speed and celebrated in style. The relationship is not simply an adversarial one, or at least is enhanced by the intensity of the confrontation. George Best looks better because tough guys like Ron “Chopper” Harris are willing to go to great lengths to make him less beautiful.
One characteristic of this beauty is that it gives the illusion of effortlessness and full elegance. Gravity seems to exert less pressure on some athletes than others (hence “floating like a butterfly”), and therefore – and here I realize getting lost in the mysteries of physics – time dilates.
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Kerr defeated Ingebritsson with a right old jingle. In an interview after the game, Kerr said that on some level he knew he had “broken him,” but to anyone watching, it seemed like Ingebritsson had the potential to break him. Finally he failed and Cole threw it out and kept pumping. Although there was no physical contact, the confrontational nature of the game remained after Ingebritsson’s apparently reluctant and impolite admission of defeat.
Things were very different in the final stages of the women’s 4x400m. Within the widely recognized concept of biomechanically efficient technique, each athlete has a unique style and rhythm. (Sometimes this is so obvious that it goes beyond consensus norms; Michael Johnson’s oddly formal, upright propulsive style suggests he turned to running after being pushed while working as a waiter at a fancy restaurant.) At Bol’s It’s not just that she looks effortless when running at high speeds; the faster she runs, the more effortless she looks.
Critics talk about athletes eating the ground, but the metaphor is too apt. Sport is about the body, but sometimes it also has a metaphysical dimension or Give it a shine. While it seems impossible for Bol to cover all the necessary bases, period Each second somehow lengthens—even as the distance to the finish line shrinks—so that more and more can be done in it. Although there is less time and space left, there is more time and space! With Bol’s long, easy, effortless stride—a pace that seems not to be met with resistance but actively encouraged every time his foot touches the track—Boll is clearly chasing Yergin. Can she even catch Williams? It was tactical, everything required perfect judgement, but a sense of inevitability began to emerge: a feeling that, wherever the route lay, Boll would get there first. She did, passing Williams in 0.16 seconds.
There is more to do. Crumb mischaracterized what had happened before and made up for it by declaring “Femke Bol was awesome.” To say nothing of this visceral surprise would be an understatement. She won the game, but it was a team win. Her teammates left her with a lot to do; also There is a lot to do. She collapsed on the track, “exhausted,” as Jackson put it, while her teammates swarmed over her. Then something really cute happened. The Dutch men’s team itself was far from a medal, but they jumped on the track and everyone hugged each other. Watching these eight young men constantly transform their perfect arms and legs, it seems like we are watching an elite level twisting game as a reenactment. It’s a world away from the middle-aged Luis Rubiales wearing a suit and openly kissing Spanish football player Jeanine Hermoso on the lips. It’s more physical and Less intrusive and an appropriate, shared expression of joy. The rival team then congratulated the Dutch team. This is the most important thing. A strongly personal achievement that has become more widely accepted and affirmed – and therefore a triumph of sportsmanship.
Since that thrilling victory, Ball went on to break the indoor 400m world record. She’s poised to become one of the stars – maybe this The star of the Paris Olympics and before that, the star of the European Championships in Rome. Realizing that this little article has strayed off the rails of journalism and entered the lexicon of love, I’ll end it in a similar way: I’m counting the days until I see her again (running).
Jeff Dier’s latest book, The Last Days of Roger Federer, is published by Canongate; his memoir, Homework, will be published next year, also by Canongate
