SAINT-DENIS, France — Between the drama surrounding Noah Lyles in the sprints and the 62-kilometer odyssey of distance demon Sifan Hassan, which ended with a gold medal, the Olympic Games in athletics experienced a wild ten-day ride full of close calls, surprises and drama.
Looking at the winners and losers of the competition, which saw Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone set another world record and Gabby Thomas win three gold medals, the biggest winner was perhaps athletics itself.
The sport, struggling for attention in a post-Usain Bolt world, got great shows from Lyles, battling COVID, and from Sha’Carri Richardson, who put her stamp on the U.S. gold medal in the 4×100-meter relay and provided a stark reminder that she is very compelling on television.
In addition to the personalities, it was the dramatic finishes and the excitement on the course that made it difficult to look away.
“One night, Snoop Dogg was sitting on one side and Simone Biles was sitting on the other and she said, ‘I had no idea people ran that fast,'” said Sebastian Coe, the head of World Athletics. “The sport became cool. It’s the first time my kids thought anything I did in the world was cool.”
Athletics will open, not close, the Olympics in four years at the LA Olympics, and if that meet plays out similarly to this one, the Games will be well on their way to success.
A look at some winners and losers of the Olympic athletics meeting in Paris:
Hassan will never get the attention of, say, Lyles or Richardson. Maybe she should. The elbow exchange as she glided past her last remaining competitor in the marathon was a great way to end the Olympics.
Hassan won gold and here is her record from the last two Olympic Games:
—Bronze in the 1,500-meter run (2021).
— Gold (2021) and bronze (2024) over 5,000 m.
— Gold (2021) and bronze (2024) over 10,000 metres.
—Gold in the marathon on Sunday.
She ran more than 86.5 kilometers at two Olympic Games.
Could a real rivalry be brewing on the track between Lyles, who lost his best race, the 200m, to Letsile Tebogo of Botswana? Someone asked the new champion if he wanted to one day be the “face of the track” – a role Lyles clearly aspires to.
“I think I can’t be the face of athletics because I’m not an arrogant or loud person like Noah,” Tebogo said.
Although the stakes weren’t high – Olympic medals aren’t a matter of life and death – Lyles’ battle with COVID changed his Olympics, changed the mood at the track and field meet (at least for one night) and reminded the world that the virus will never go away.
It’s hard to call someone a loser who leaves Paris with a gold medal.
But the psychological games he played with the Briton Josh Kerr clearly got on Norwegian Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s nerves in the 1,500 meters. For the third time in a row, he was unable to win this long-distance race, which is generally considered the most important on the track, at a major championship.
Four days after her fourth place, Ingebrigtsen made a mental restart and won the 5,000 meters in convincing fashion.
“It’s very difficult when you hit a wall and don’t perform as well as you imagined,” said Ingebrigtsen. “I was given another chance, I just had to make the best of it.”
Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone made the 400 meter hurdles look easy, finishing in 50.37 seconds to break the world record for the sixth time. She then followed that up with a time of 47.71 seconds in the women’s 4×400 meter race, which the American emerged victorious in.
The 50-second barrier awaits.
Armando Duplantis had won a gold medal much earlier, but he was still holding his pole in his hand and staring at a bar higher than any human had ever cleared in the pole vault.
Duplantis, the 24-year-old from Louisiana who competes for his mother’s native Sweden, cleared 6.25 meters (20 feet, 6 inches), breaking the world record for the ninth time – but for the first time at the Olympics.
For some of these athletes, hurdles don’t seem to be a big hurdle, Coe says, then suggests that he’s heard calls for an idea that’s unlikely to go anywhere.
“I would just say it’s probably appropriate now to consider the height of the hurdles,” he said. “These guys don’t really look like they’re going to break their form much to achieve that.”
Currently, the hurdle height in the 400-meter race is 30 inches for women and 36 inches for men.
The USA won 34 medals and 14 gold medals, more than at any time since the 1960s.
Lyles, Richardson, McLaughlin-Levrone and Thomas are the obvious candidates to become bigger than the game.
“But the athletes who competed here were harassed as they left the stadium and are still running anonymously through their hometowns,” Coe said of the general lack of appreciation for track and field in the U.S. outside of the Olympics. “We need to address that.”
Athletics has four years to solve its US problem. One problem: Athletics fans in the US who want to see all these up-and-coming stars on TV will have to look very hard.
NBC’s deal to stream many of track and field’s premier meets, the Diamond League, expires in 2024 and will be replaced by a track and field website that charges a hefty monthly fee to watch the action.
Thomas was not the only athlete who was disappointed by this news in the spring.
“This is perhaps the worst news I have heard from the Diamond League since… ever,” she said on social media.
Coe said there’s a fine line between finding new ways to broadcast the track’s best races while also making sure the average fan can watch them on old-fashioned TV. The future of track in the U.S. may very well depend on it.
“This is our moment,” Coe said. “We can’t allow this to just turn into anything other than a really successful 2028.”
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AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
