ST.-DENIS, FRANCE, August 01–11 — Best track & field Games yet? Some said so, though, answering the question would be a fool’s errand. While a few pundits have tried, we’ll pass on absolute across-eras comparisons.
Let’s leave it at stupendously great — 11 days of highlight after highlight, 77,000-odd fans reveling in the drama of 9 competition days in the Stade de France and Parisians and throngs of fired-up visitors cheering along the routes of the road events.
Three years ago, the Games went on successfully in Tokyo, remarkably achieved despite the fans-absent, sterile circumstance of a pandemic Olympics. In Paris, hosting for a third time and first in 100 years, the Games went off! As in blow the roof off the sucka, time to celebrate “off.” The athletes recognized this, they raised their personal games to it.
Let’s count the ways, or some top-line numbers anyway.
We got 3 World Records: Mondo Duplantis in the men’s pole vault (20-6/6.25), Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone in the women’s 400H (50.37) and the USA mixed 4×4 squad in its heat.
Olympic Records? Two went down on the first in-stadium comp day and 13* total tumbled, 7 in men’s events, 5 in women’s plus that mixed 4×4. The OR-setters:
•Cole Hocker (USA), 3:27.65 in the 1500 as 4 total bettered Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s 3:28.32 from Tokyo.
•Joshua Cheptegei (Uganda), 26:43.14 in the 10,000 with 13(!) total under Kenenisa Bekele’s 27:01.17 from Beijing ’08 with the thermometer at 73 (23C) and 51% humidity.
•The USA men’s 4×4, 2:54.43 with Botswana also faster than the USA 2:55.39 of ’08.
•Tamirat Tola (Ethiopia) to win the marathon, 2:06:26, 6 seconds under Sammy Wanjiru’s 2:06:32 from ’08 in sultry humidity with the temp rising to 72 (22C) at the finish along the Esplanade des Invalides.
•Duplantis’s vault, nearly a head higher than Thiago Braz’s 19-9¼ (6.03) from Rio ’16.
•Roje Stona (Jamaica) in the discus, 229-8 (70.00), 5 inches beyond the 20-year-old OR of Virgilijus Alekna, whose son Mykolas also bettered it in taking silver.
•Arshad Nadeem (Pakistan) in the javelin, 305-0 (92.97), nearly 8ft longer than Andreas Thorkildsen’s 297-1 (90.57) in ’08.
•Marileidy Paulino (Dominican Republic) in the 400, 48.17 to race under Marie-José Pérec’s 48.25 from Atlanta ’96.
•Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) in the 1500, 3:51.29, to better her 3:53.11 from Tokyo, which the silver and bronze winners ducked under, as well.
•Winfred Yavi (Bahrain) in the steeple, 8:52.76, erasing Gulnara Galkina’s 8:58.81 of ’08.
•McLaughlin-Levrone’s lap tour over hurdles in 50.37 improved her Tokyo mark by 1.09.
•Sifan Hassan (Netherlands) in the marathon, 2:22:55 on a toasty morning with two bronzes already earned and Tigst Assefa (2:22:58) pushing her to the very end under Tiki Gelana’s 2:23:07 OR from London ’12.
(*= as a new Olympic event the mixed marathon walk saw an OR too.)
Remember the pre-Olympic skeptics with their questions — can France and Paris deliver the Games safely and securely? Will the Parisian public care? Are the Games still relevant, still compelling, in the era of TikTok attention spans? Certainly doubts, gloom and doom come before every Olympics, and not without reason. Decaying facilities in Athens and Beijing remind us that all that glitters is not gold.
Still Paris set the bar high and sailed over. The mood around crowded venues and on metro trains, even those lacking air-conditioning, was upbeat. Logistical challenges to moving around an Olympic host city just run with the territory. One exhausts oneself — this surely goes for locals and visitors alike — sleeps too little and runs happily on the buzz of adrenaline.
Around Paris, heat, humidity and on some days rain showers that blew in as if out of nowhere imposed inconvenience but no perceptible dent in the mood.
The Stade de France throngs (in suburban St.-Denis) made each track & field session a celebration to rival London ’12. The raucously cheering locals raised the (partial) roof for French athletes, bien sûr, but also for inspired performances across the board. It’s a pleasure to soak up the sport among like-minded nuts. This was palpably true for the athletes too and they responded — seemingly undeterred for the most part by the meteorological challenges that arose.
Stomp through puddles? That’s what the women’s 100 finalists did. The evening 3 downpour dogged the men shot putters, too, and the women triple jumpers. Distance performances in several events defied warmer than optimal conditions.
Banner Games For Team USA
Boy howdy, Team USA tracksters came to play. They scooped up a “modern era” record 34 medals (see chart), 2 more than at Rio ’16. Another comparable performance came at Barcelona ’92 when the U.S. captured 30 medals in a program with 5 fewer events and thus 15 fewer medals on offer.
Fourteen U.S.-won medallions — each with a chunk of iron from the Eiffel Tower embedded in it — were gold, evenly divided 7/7 among men and women. For the men this marked a sparkling turnaround from just 2 golds 3 years ago in Tokyo, when U.S. women won 5 of the shiniest type.
Of 18 U.S. men’s medals, 14 were in track events, 4 on the field. The division of the women’s 15-medal haul went 9 on the track, 6 on the field.
The U.S. men’s 4×4, Ryan Crouser in the men’s shot (now at 3 in a row), McLaughlin-Levrone in the women’s long hurdles, Valarie Allman in the discus and the women’s 4×4 (now at 8 straight) successfully defended their titles from Tokyo.
Hurdlers Rai Benjamin and McLaughlin-Levrone each mined double gold as they streaked the fastest legs on those winning 4 x 400 units.
Yet silvers and bronzes all represent triumphs too. Performances like Grant Fisher’s 2-bronze pairing in the 10,000 and 5000, a delightful 1-3 as Yared Nuguse joined Hocker on the 1500 podium, Kenneth Rooks’ silver medal near-steal in the steeple and young Jasmine Moore’s 2-bronze outings in the long and triple jumps should not be overlooked. That’s just a partial list.
While Noah Lyles missed his target in the sprints, a gold and a bronze (fighting through Covid in the 200) are nothing to sneeze at and should keep the showman sprinter hungry.
Team USA showed fine depth too, to the tune of 29 top-8 placings in individual events on the men’s side, versus 26 in Tokyo. The women’s squad’s 27 top 8s bettered Tokyo’s 23 by 4.
Don’t forget, either, the American Records: Bryce Hoppel’s 1:41.67 placing 4th in the 800 and the women’s 4×4 scorcher, 3:15.27, just 0.1 off the WR. Those on top of the SML and mixed relay World Records that were, of course, ARs as well.
No matter what nation you pulled for, a grand Games it was. LA28, in the City of Light you’ve picked an enchanting act to follow. Ready on the set! Break a leg!
| Click Here For A Listing Of Medalists With Links To Reports On Each Event |
U.S. Dominates By-Nation Medal Chart
| Nation | Men | Women | Overall | ||||||
| Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total | ||
| United States | 7 | 6 | 5 | 18 | 7 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 34* |
| Kenya | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 11 |
| Great Britain | — | 2 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
| Australia | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 7* |
| Jamaica | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 7* |
| Netherlands | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 6* |
| Canada | 2 | 1 | — | 3 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 5 |
| China | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 4 |
| Ethiopia | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | — | 2 | — | 2 | 4 |
| Germany | — | 1 | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 4 |
| Spain | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 4* |
| Belgium | — | 1 | — | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Italy | — | — | 2 | 2 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 3 |
| Norway | 2 | 1 | — | 3 | — | — | — | — | 3 |
| Ukraine | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Bahrain | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 2 |
| Botswana | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | — | — | — | — | 2 |
| Brazil | — | 1 | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | — | 2 |
| Ecuador | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 2* |
| Greece | 1 | — | 1 | 2 | — | — | — | — | 2 |
| Grenada | — | — | 2 | 2 | — | — | — | — | 2 |
| New Zealand | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 2 |
| South Africa | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 2 |
| Saint Lucia | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | 2 | 2 |
| Uganda | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | 1 | 2 |
| Algeria | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Croatia | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Czechia | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Dominica | — | — | — | — | 1 | — | — | 1 | 1 |
| Dominican Rep | — | — | — | — | 1 | — | — | 1 | 1 |
| France | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | — | 1 | 1 |
| Hungary | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| India | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Japan | — | — | — | — | 1 | — | — | 1 | 1 |
| Lithuania | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Morocco | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Pakistan | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Poland | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Portugal | — | 1 | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Puerto Rico | — | — | — | — | — | — | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| Qatar | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Sweden | 1 | — | — | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| Zambia | — | — | 1 | 1 | — | — | — | — | 1 |
| 23 | 23 | 23 | 69 | 23 | 23 | 24 | 70 | 145* | |
| * = includes mixed-sex relay medals | |||||||||
