Ben Bloom argues that it’s not the watch that counts, but the people who take part in creating the greatest sporting moments.
Any athletics fan with access to the internet will have seen and heard this. “UCC is coming out of the depths of Hell,” shouts commentator, regular AW contributor and all-round athletics expert Cathal Denhy, his voice reaching an octave previously considered beyond the human range in utter disbelief to future Olympian Phil Healy. that jumps the rim. outright winning one of the most remarkable 4×400 meter backstroke victories of all time.
Dating back to 2016, it’s a great video that has traveled the world, going viral then and on countless occasions since.
Ask anyone from which event (Irish Universities Championships) and chances are they won’t know. Ask them who UCC (University College Cork) are and they almost certainly have no idea. Ask them what the winning time was and prepare to be scared if they know the answer, because there isn’t even a clock on the screen in the race footage.
However, those three things were completely irrelevant. Here’s perfect proof that, for all the fixed numbers in athletics, they can be superfluous to creating sports drama.
It was on the iconic ‘Deeps of Hell’ video that my mind wandered as Femke Boal anchored the Netherlands to a stunning 4x400m Olympic gold on the second night of the race in Paris.
And so it was when Noah Lyles won the 100m in a thrilling sweep. And when Cole Hawker pulled off an epic 1500m upset, hugging the inside rail to thwart Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s quest for glory.
In creating and promoting his controversial Grand Slam Track competition, which launches next year, Michael Johnson has somewhat worked on the point that he doesn’t care about athletes breaking records while competing in his lucrative creation. Go to the contest’s website and you’ll find talk of “head-to-head matches… rivalries… (and) stories.”
No numbers.
Of course, these will be the best short and middle distance runners on the planet, millions of miles away from Ireland’s 2016 university students, ensuring fast times are a natural byproduct. But the emphasis will be on winning and winning alone.
So what makes a great race? Why, as a British athletics writer and fan, was I infinitely more excited ahead of the men’s Olympic 1500m final than the women’s 800m final?
Kelly Hodgkinson (Getty)
Through Keely Hodgkinson, the latter promised as close to a guaranteed gold medal as any British athlete had experienced in the Olympic cycle for many. It gave a glimpse into the coming of age of a British athletics legend. A moment in time that instantly ranked him alongside just seven other GB athletes to have won individual Olympic titles in the last 30 years.
Her phenomenal performance fully deserved the plethora of accolades, endorsements and riches that will surely come her way. And yet, as a competitive racing scene… it was good.
Almost exactly 24 hours later, Kerr stood next to Ingebrigtsen at the starting line for one of the most eagerly awaited races I can remember. Competition, talk, respective medal wins and recent performances have contributed to a display of epic proportions.
My only fear beforehand was that no one else would get into the gold and silver medal positions to spoil what many hoped and expected to be a two-man battle.
That Hawker did, and that it added to the spectacle rather than detracted from it, is a testament to what a phenomenal race it was. Of course, Hawker broke the Olympic record and Kerr consigned Mo Farah’s British record to history. But these were indicators of the quality of their performances, not highlights in themselves.
Olympic 1500m final (River)
The greatness as a race arose from the folly of Ingebrigtsen trying to run his rivals into the ground, Carey thinking he had perfected his finishing burst, from Hawker catching them all unconscious by lightning and out of sight of the world. an overconfident athlete (an attitude I love, I might add) fades from the podium as he nears the finish line.
That it didn’t bring the curtain down on that evening’s athletics, followed by two more races, will forever baffle me.
That’s why we love relays, which, for the average athletics fan, are even less than individual races. Relays thrive on the drama of ebb and flow, the thrill of a comeback that can occur on any of the four legs, and the potential for disaster with any relay.
We all love to see the limits of human ability pushed further by the true greats of the sport. Mondo Duplantis, who capped the night’s action by becoming the first man ever to clear the pole vault over 6.25m while his best rivals fell 30cm short, was an impeccable sporting moment created by a showman born for the biggest stage. :
Of course, the likes of Usain Bolt were streets ahead of his competition, and that did nothing to stop him from becoming the biggest star in the sport in decades.
But, and I readily admit that this felt frankly ridiculous, I couldn’t help but feel disappointed in the Olympic women’s 400m hurdles final, where Sydney McLaughlin-Levron continued to rewrite what was thought possible by breaking the world. a record sixth time in three years.
His achievement was unfathomable, and yet it was the lack of a much-anticipated contest with Ball that shocked me the most.
Sydney McLaughlin-Levron (Getty)
The best races and the best sports are filled with drama because of the interactions between the participants. Being extraordinarily good, Hodgkinson and McLaughlin-Levron turned their finals into a march to the detriment of the sporting scene.
The clock is no substitute for humans in creating sporting drama, be it the Olympics or the Irish Universities Championships.
» This article first appeared in the September issue of AW magazine. Subscribe to AW Magazine herecheck out our new podcast! here or subscribe to our digital archive of back issues from 1945 to the present day here
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