THE WORLD ATHLETIC CHAMPIONSHIPS 2017 – FROM AN AUSTRALIAN {CURRENT} PERSPECTIVE
In London over the past week or so, we have seen the World Athletics Championships in Track and Field conducted. Now in Australia generally, there is not an abundance of interest in athletics, except maybe around the times of the Olympic or Commonwealth Games, when some of us suddenly realise there are athletes competing for Australia, who in the main, we hear little of in-between those events! Hence the purpose of this article, which aims to at least bring to the attention of readers [here in Australia at the very least] some of the names which are likely to appear on our radars in April. 2018, at the Gold Coast, where the next Commonwealth Games are to be held.
The 2017 IAAF World Championships was the 16th edition of this event, held from 4 to 13 August 2017 in London, United Kingdom, that city being officially awarded the Championships by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), in Monaco, on 11 November 2011 The championships were held in the Olympic Stadium in Stratford, London [where the 2012 Summer Olympics were hosted], a stadium which has a capacity of 60,000. Even the earlier sessions of the 10 day event saw the stadium almost filled to capacity, sadly something that would not occur consistently here, except on those occasions when special individual events were taking place, for example, the Melbourne Cricket Ground hosted some huge crowds on most days of the 2006 Commonwealth Games athletic events that year. Similarly, in Sydney at the 2000 Olympic Games, the Olympic Stadium was often at capacity, though admittedly at those times, Australia had a more successful team of athletes than has been the case recently, and, as it turned out, on this occasion..
For the London event, Australia had a relatively small team of competitors, and while over the ten days, they did not, with a couple of exceptions, achieve any significant results [apart from two significant results, and personal improvements which is never a bad thing], I intend to highlight their individual performances, good or bad, and basically introduce their names to my readers, hopefully to generate some interest in those Australian athletes likely to be participating at the Gold Coast next year. I have basically gone through the program in chronological order. A full listing of the Medal results has been placed at the end of the narrative.
Day One – Friday 4 August
The program this afternoon, included one Medal event, and it was great see a capacity crowd at the London stadium for what was essentially a two and half hour session covering three Field events, two Track event heats, and the Men’s 10,000 metres Final.
In the men’s Long Jump qualifying round, Australia had two competitors – Henry Frayne, who finished in 14th position with a jump of 7.88 metres, and Fabrice Lapierre, who qualified for the Final, in 12th position, with a jump of 7.91 metres. Fabrice jumped conservatively, which possibly cost him some distance. The best qualifying jump was 8.24 by Radek Juska of the Czech Republic.
The Men’s Discus qualifying round saw Australia represented by Ben Harradine [finished in 21st position with a throw of 60.95 metres] and Mitchell Cooper [28th with 57.26 metres]. Neither progressed to the Final [held on Day 2 with the Long Jump], Sweden’s Daniel Stahl had the best qualifying throw with a distance of 67.64 metres].
The Women’s Pole Vault qualifying saw Australia’s Liz Parnov vault 4.35 metres to finish in 15th place, which meant she’d not progress any further. The leading vault was 4.55 metres by Sandi Morris of the USA, that Final to be held on Sunday night.
In the Women’s 1500 metres, three Heats were conducted, and we had three girls attempting [unsuccessfully] to qualify for the next round. Zoe Buckman finished 9th in Heat 1 [in 4.05.44] and 17th position overall [she qualified for the semi-finals]. Georgia Griffith finished 11th in Heat 3 [4.08.99] and 27th overall. Linden Hall came 9th in Heat 2 [4.10.51] and was 33rd overall. The fastest Heat time was 4.02.62 by Ethiopia’s Genzebe Dibaba.
The first round of the Men’s 100 metres took place during this session. There were no Australian competitors. The fastest qualifier from the heats – Julian Forte [Jamaica] in 9.99 secs. Usain Bolt, ran 10.07 secs in winning his heat but a number of others bettered that time. The semi-finals and Final were scheduled for Saturday night.
The Men’s 10,000 metres Final was for this writer, the highlight of the session. Of the 24 starters, 21 of them had been born in Africa, though some of them now run for other nations. Australia’s representative was Patrick Tiernan. The field included the legendary Mo Farah [now competing for Great Britain, and quite clearly, the crowd favourite and hero], a truly amazing athlete. IN the early stages of the race, Patrick stayed close to Farah who was content to remain near the rear of the field and was in no ‘hurry’ or concerned about moving up to the leaders. It was only with about 16 laps of the 25 lap race to go, and the Kenyans and Ugandan runners setting the pace, that we see Farah begin to make his move towards the leading group, ‘show-boating’ a little as he waves to the crowd [also did that in the first lap]. He was still in 12th position at the 5000 metre stage, and it was here that Patrick Tiernan lost touch with Farah, and the field in general. At 6000 metres, Farah is in 6th position as the East African runners continue to alternate the lead. by now Patrick, while at the front of the second group of runners, is well behind the leaders, and in fact, with two laps to go, and Farah having taken the lead in the race, after alternating between 1st and 3rd for a few laps, Patrick is lapped by Farah.
Here we see the example of the ‘true athlete’ as after running almost 10 kilometres, four African born competitors, sprint for the last 150 metres, but in the end it is a commanding performance by Britain’s Mo Farah to win in a time of 26.49.51 from Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda. The next eight placings went to Kenya, Kenya, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Canada, USA and Ethiopia [all African born]..
Day Two – Saturday 5 August
Two sessions today – a morning session, followed by an afternoon/evening session.
The Women’s Heptathlon event commenced today – a multiple event which sees the ladies compete for points over two days and seven events. Sadly, no Australian girls apparently met the standard to compete on this occasion though we have had Heptathlon success in the past.
The seven disciplines in this event are the 100 metres Hurdles, the High Jump, Shot Put, 200 metres [today’s events], and the Long Jump, Javelin throw and the 800 metres. Points are allocated on the basis of times, distances, etc. At the end of the first day’s competition, with 31 original starters, the leader was Carolin Schafer [Germany] on 4036 points, followed by Nafissatou Thiam [Belgium] on 4014 points, Yorgelis Rodriguez [3905 points] and Katarina Johnson-Thompson [Great Britain] 3838 points. Thiam is the current Olympic champion in this event.
The Men’s Shot Put qualifying rounds saw the appearance of Damien Birkenhead for Australia, He would finish 20th overall with a throw of 19.90 metres, and not qualify for the final.The best qualifying throw was by New Zealand’s Tomas Walsh with 22.14 metres. That final was on Sunday.
The Women’s Hammer-throw qualifying – no Australian competitor, and the best qualifying throw was by Malwina Kopron [Poland] 74.97 metres,
The Men’s 400 Metres had four heats today – Stevin Solomon of Australia ran in Heat 2, he finished 7th in 46.27 secs, and was placed 38th overall in the event. The fastest heat time was by Isaac Makwala of Botswana in 44.55 secs. The semi-finals took place on Sunday.
The Women’s Triple Jump qualifying – again. No Australian representative – the day’s best jump was by Olga Rypakova [Kaz] of 14.57 metres.
The Women’s 100 metre Heats – no Australian women sprinters [very sad] – the fastest qualifying time was by Germany’s Gina Luckenkemper in 10.95 secs. The final to be run on Sunday evening.
Men’s 800 metre heats followed, with the best 24 runners to proceed – Australia represented by Peter Bol in Heat 4. He finished in 7th position, in a time of 1.49.65, and eventually classified into 38th position overall. The fastest qualifying 800 metres was by Thijmen Kupers [Nederlands] in 1.45.53.
The Women’s 1500 metres semi-finals saw Australia’s Zoe Buckman run in the first heat where she finished 8th in 4.05.93, an overall position of 14th in the event.
The Men’s Discus Final saw the Gold Medal go to Andrius Gudzuis [Lithuania] with a throw of 69.21 metres, from Daniel Stahl [Sweden] and Mason Finlay [USA].
The Men’s Long Jump Final saw Australia’s Fabrice Lapierre finish with a jump of 7.93 metres in 11th position. The event was won by Luva Manyonga [Rep of Sth Africa] with a leap of 8.48 metres, from Jarrion Lawson [USA] and Ruswahl Samaai [RSA].
The Women’s 10,000 Metres Final proved to be another outstanding long distance race, and again, with African born athletes dominating proceedings. Due to the television cameras concentrating on the Men’s Long Jump and Discus events, we didn’t see a great deal of this race until the latter stages.
We had two Australian girls competing amongst the 33 starters – Eloise Wellings [finished in 22nd position in 32.26.31] and Madeleine Hills [finished 26th in 32.48.57] – must admit that we didn’t see much of either of the girls, until they were lapped by the eventual winner!! That winner was Almaz Ayana of Ethiopia [who was also the current Olympic Games titleholder] – she would go the lead quite early in the race [a sharp contrast to the Men’s event], and by the last third of the race, was literally destroying the rest of the field as she began to lap other runners, running an average of 69 seconds a lap, or 3.05 mins per kilometre. Simply commanding, in a class of her own, an unbelievable performance, even sprinting over the final 100 metres or so to win by over 300 metres, another lap and she would most likely have lapped the 2nd and 3rd place-getters [Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia, and Agnes Jebet Tirop of Kenya]. A pure example of ‘front running’ at it’s very best for the bulk of the race.
The Men’s 100 Metres Final followed, after earlier in the day, we’d witnessed the semi-finals of that event. The fast semi-final time had been recorded by Christian Coleman [USA} in 9.97 secs, ahead of Usain Bolt [Jamaica] in 9.98 secs. Justin Gatlin of the USA was 6th fastest in 10.09 secs.
The Final was a different story. This was to be Bolt’s last individual race. Writing from London before the finals, Scott Gullan said “Scary is probably the best way to describe life without Usain Bolt. For almost a decade he’s been athletics’ safety blanket. The shadow of doping has loomed over the sport’s most famous event, the 100 metres, in particular, ever since a steroid-fuelled Ben Johnson burnt up the track in Seoul in 1988.Britain’s Linford Christie was Olympic champion four years later, but he too would get busted for drugs. Then in 2004 American Justin Gatlin won in Athens and two years later was kicked out of the sport for his second doping infringement – only to return four years later after his ban was halved. At the 2007 world championships Tyson Gay won the sprint double – beating Bolt in the 200 metres – and six years later was banned for taking steroids. But then bolt emerged and saved everything………………….After all the scandals, which continued with Russia banned from the Rio Olympics, how could anyone watch track and field …and think it was clean? Well, they did still watch and in a large part it was because of Bolt. They like him and trusted him, so when he shrugged off Gatlin’s challenge for his titles, everyone felt warm and fuzzy again……”
Well, on each appearance at these London championships, Gatlin was roundly booed by the crowd [partially I believe he never showed any contrition for ‘crimes’ committed], while Bolt, as he had been for years, was lauded as the crowd’s favourite and a sure winner today.
Usain Bolt didn’t win – in a shock outcome, the Men’s 100 Metres Final saw Bolt beaten into 3rd place by his two American rivals in the race – won by none other than Justin Gatlin [9.92 secs] from Christian Coleman [93.94 secs] and Usain Bolt [9.95 secs]. As some of the headlines in the following day’s media would highlight – Bolt bows out as drug cheat upsets Usain’s fairytale ending – or as Scott Gullan again puts it – “It doesn’t get much worse than his. The greatest athlete the world has seen not only fails to win his final race but is beaten by a two-time drug cheat who epitomises everything that is bad with track and field”. From a more competitive practical point of view – Scott also writes – “Finally Usain made to pay for slow start….Usain Bolt has been a poor starter for all of his career but through freak natural ability has managed tro deal with it. That was until his final race…”
After the race, as to be expected, Usain Bolt was gracious in defeat, and Gatlin knelt down in front of the champion to acknowledge his greatness.
Day Three – Sunday 6 August
The Men’s 3000 metres Steeplechase began today’s program began with three heats, 47 athletes in total, including Australia’s Stewart McSweyn. The first three in each heat automatically qualified, with the next fastest up to a total of 15 in the final. McSweyn ran in the 3rd heat [of 15 runners] – not a promising start which saw him at the rear of the field, where he would basically remain for most of the race, until the last 100 metres when a determined effort to at least beat one runner home as successful – he finished in 14th position ion a time of 8.47.53. The fastest qualifier for the final was Evan Jager [USA] in 8.20.36
The Women’s Heptathlon concluded today, with the last three of the seven scheduled disciplines – today, the Long Jump, Javelin Throw, and finally, the 800 metres [which was the third last event on the Day 3 program] – the 800 metres was conducted over three heats, with the lower ranked performers up until that stage competing in the first heat, the middle ranked girls second up, while the medal chances ran in the third heat.
I think of all athletes [track and field], one should particularly admire those men and women who compete in these multiple discipline events, i.e, the Heptathlon for the ladies, and the 10 discipline Decathlon event for the men. While most of these competitors would not have personal world standard times and/or distances arising from their respective competitions, their all-round ability at a number of different track and field disciplines gives them special recognition in my eyes. Anyway, after a tough Long Jump competition [won by Anouk Vetter of the Nederlands [6.32metres], and the Javelin throw [also won by Anouk Vetter with a throw of 58.41 metres], the girls fronted up for the gruelling final deciding in their two day competition – while the fastest 800 metres went to the Hungarian competitor, Xenia Krizsan in 2.07.17, the overall Heptathlon result saw the Gold go to the Olympic champion, Nafissatou Thiam [Belgian] with an overall total of 6784 points, ahead of Carolin Schafer [Germany] on 6696 points, and Anouk Vetter [Nederlands] 6636 points. The winner’s best scoring events were the Hurdles, High Jump and Long Jump
The Men’s Marathon [always this writer’s favourite viewing event] took place Sunday evening [AEST] – but gone are the days when the marathons were a stand-alone event on at times when there were no other competitions underway, and TV fans would get a complete coverage of the complete race – now it is shared [painfully at times] with other events on in conjunction, today no exception. Nevertheless, I enjoyed today’s coverage – the race began and finished on the Tower Bridge in London, and was more or less a circuit course of approximately 10 kilometres for each leg. The commentators suggested a starting list of 100 runners, of whom eventually, just 71 would finish the course.
Of the three Australians who entered race, one of them was a non-finisher, that being Josh Harris. The other two Australians – Jack Colreavy finished 45th in 2.21.44, while Brad Milosevic finished 60th in 2.25.14. Mind you, Australia has a fairly successful history of marathon runners [male or female] in major events, but of recent years, that success has dwindled. The first World Marathon championship, back in 1983, was of course won by our own Robert de Castello. Meanwhile, in 2017, after the first hour of the race, there was no sign of the Australians in the leading group, and they were basically not sited until they finished. At that stage, it was clear that the East African runners were once again setting the tempo of the marathon, and by an hour and 52 minutes into the race, the eventual winner had got right away from any opposition, and would go on to a comfortable win. The winner was Geoffrey Kipkorir Kirui [Kenya] in 2.08.27, ahead of Jamirat Tola [Ethiopia] and Alphonce Felix Simbu [Tanzania]. A strong finish by Great Britain’s Callum Hawkins, saw him just miss out on the Bronze Medal by 26 seconds after coming from a fair way back in the closing stages.
The Women’s Marathon was also run today, but as far as I’m aware there was little recognition or coverage of it [in Australia anyway] which was a pity. The race was won by Rose Chelimo of Bahrain in 2.27.11, followed by Edna Mgeringwong Kiplagat [Kenya] and Amy Cragg [USA]. Australia had three competitors again, another reason that coverage of the race out here would have been welcome. All three achieved excellent results. Jessica Trengove finished in 9th position with a time of 2.28.59, while the other Australian girls were Sinead Diver [20th in 2.33.26] and Milly Clark [24th in 2.35.27]. This event had 92 starters, of whom 78 completed the course.
The Men’s 400 metre Hurdles were run with 5 heats. There were no Australians entered. The fastest time from the heats went to Yasmani Copello of Turkey, in 49.13 secs.
The Women’s 400 Metres event was of interest to Australia with the inclusion of young budding Indigenous star, Morgan Mitchell. Today, there were 5 heats with the first three in each heat and the next 6 fastest going through to the next round. Morgan had made it through to the semi-finals at the Rio Olympics, but sadly couldn’t repeat that feat on this occasion. She ran in the 5th heat, and finished 5th in 52.22 secs, and was classified 26th overall. The best qualifying time came from Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Nasar in 50.57 secs, while the slowest qualifying time was 52.01 secs, so Morgan missed out by 0.21 sccs.
The Men’s 110 Metre Hurdles heats followed, with the first 4 in each of the 5 heats through to the semi-finals. Nicholas Hough ran in the 5th heat for Australia – he was 5th in 13.61 secs, after a slow start and a powerful finish, but not enough, with the last qualified time recorded as 13.58 secs. The fastest qualifier was Aries Merritt of the USA in 13.16 secs – a courageous runner, having returned to competition after having had a kidney transport!
The Women’s Pole Vault Final was completed today – this saw a wonderful performance by the Greek competitor, Ekaterini Stefanidi with a vault of 4.91 metres. She won over the USA’s Sandi Morris, and Venezuela’s Robeilys Peinado. Australia’s Liz Parnov finished in 15th position with 4.35 metres.
The Women’s Javelin qualifying event saw two Australian girls represented. Kelsey-Lee Roberts qualified for the final with a throw of 63.70 metres [7th best overall], while Kathryn Mitchell finished in 25th position with a throw of 57.42 metres. The best qualification thrown came from China’s Huihui Lyu [67.59 metres].
The next three events had no Australian representation.
The Men’s 400 metre Semi-finals with the first two in each of the three semi finals plus the next fastest times to through to the final – the best qualifying time was recorded by Steven Gardiner of the Bahamas in 43.89 secs ahead of Jamaica’s Nathen Allen, and South Africa’s Wayde Van Niekerk.
Similarly, the Men’s 110 Metre Hurdles semi-finals, three events looking for 8 finalists – the best time came from Omar McLeod of Jamaica in 13.10 secs, ahead of Garfield Darien [France] and Sergey Shubenkov [ANA – Russian runner competing independently because of current bans on that country].
The Men’s Shot Put Final produced a tense and close finish, and of local interest, the Gold eventually went to New Zealand’s Tomas Walsh with a distanced of 22.03 metres, from Joe Kovacs [USA] and Stipe Zunic [Croatia]. Australian Damien Birkenhead, who finished in 20th position [19.90] did not qualify for the final.
The Men’s 800 Metre semi-finals saw the best time go to Kipyegon Bett [Kenya] in 1.45.02, ahead of Mohammad Aman [Ethiopia] and Brandon McBride [Canada].
Day 3 ended with the Final of the Women’s 100 Metres. Earlier in the day, the three semi-finals of the event were run with the fastest time going to Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson in 10.84 secs, in front of the Ivory Coast runner, Ta Lou. Thompson was probably rightfully regarded as a favourite for the final [as per Usain Bolt], but it was not to be – in fact, she would finish in 5th position [10.98]. The sprint winner was Tori Bowie of the USA, in 10.85 secs, just shading out Maree-Josee Ta Lou [Ivory Coast] and Dafne Schippers [Nederlands].
Day Four – Monday 7 August
We had just the one session today [early Tuesday here in Australia] with four finals to be decided [two Track, and two Field events]. As usual, detailed final results [Gold, Silver & Bronze, together with Australian performances] in all events, will be posted at the conclusion of this report of the ten days of competition. Monday night in England, saw another almost packed house at the London stadium, for a wonderful sporting occasion.
The Men’s 200 metre heats got the program underway. Again, no Australian representation – where are all our sprinters these days? There were 7 heats of this event, with the fastest qualifier of the day going to Jereem Richards [from Trinidad & Tobago] in 20.05 secs, with Great Britain’s Nethaniel Mitchell-Blake not far behind in 20.08 secs.
The Qualifying round of the Men’s Triple Jump was the first field event of the day, with the best distances from the two groups being Chris Benard [USA] with a jump of 17.20 metres, and Cristian Napoles [Cuba] leaping 17.06 metres. There was no Australian participant in this event.
The Women’s Hammer Throw Final saw a trio if very happy ladies at the end of a tough competition, with the Chines competitor squeezed between two Polish girls on the victory podium at the competition. That was won by Anita Wlodarczyk [Poland] with a throw of 77.90 metres, ahead of Zheng Wang [China] and Malwina Kopron [Poland]
The Women’s 400 Metre Hurdles heats saw Australia’s Lauren Wells compete – she appeared in Heat 1 of what is traditionally a gruelling event on the track. Sadly, Lauren did not progress any further, finishing 7th [last] in her heat in a time of 56.49 secs, and overall, would be placed 25th in the competition. Lauren has previously competed at the Commonwealth Games in the 400 metre hurdles event and the 2012 and 2016 London & Rio Summer Olympics in that event, and is also a 400 metre runner and long jumper. The fastest heat today was run by the USA’s Dalilah Muhammad in 54.59 seconds [in Lauren’s heat], with Jamaica’s Ristananna Tracey running 54.92 secs in Heat 3.
The Men’s 400 metre Hurdle semi-finals followed, with the first two in each heat to the Final plus the next best two times. The three semi-final winners were Kerron Clement [USA} in 48.35 secs; T J Holmes [USA} in 49.12 secs, and Abderrahaman Samba [Qatar] in 48.75 secs.
The Women’s Triple Jump Final proved very popular, especially with the crowds on the opposite of the stadium to the main straight, where the event was conducted, and resulted in a close tussle between two South American competitors with the lead changing on a number of occasions. The result would have been a rare piece of good news for the politically and economically embattled nation of Venezuela – their competitor, Yulimar Rojas won the Gold Medal with a jump of 14.91 metres, ahead of Colombia’s Caterine Ibarguen [14.89] and Olga Rypakova of Kazakhstan [14.77].
The Women’s 400 Metre semi-finals [aka Cathy Freeman’s 2000 Olympics triumph at Sydney] consisted of three heats, in which we saw the fastest time go to Salwa Eid Nasaer [Bahrain] in 50.08, just shading out the hot favourite [and winner of six Olympic Gold Medals], Allyson Felix of the USA in 5.12 secs. The World Record in this event currently stands at 47.60 secs. The final will be held early Thursday morning, AEST.
Well, we had two thrilling track finals to finish up the program on Day 4.
The Men’s 110 Metre Hurdle Final saw a strong field line up at the start, including the defending champion [the then Russian competitor, Shubenkov], the 2012 London Olympic champion, Aries Merritt, who has since undergone a kidney transplant, and current World No. 1, Omar McLeod of Jamaica. The World record for this event stands at 12.80 secs. Today’s result – the Gold went to Omar McLeod [Jamaica] in 13.64 secs, ahead of Sergey Shubenkov [now running as an independent competitor for ANA – Authorised Neutral Athlete – during Russia’s current suspension period], and Hungary’s Balazs, bringing up an unexpected 3rd placing in 13.28 secs. This was Jamaica’s first Gold, and would help to make up for the disappointments created by the defeats of Usain Bolt and Elaine Thompson, amongst others. Aries Merritt finished in 5th place in 13.31 secs, behind France’s Garfield Darien.
The Women’s 1500 Metre Final, another wonderful distance event. The World Record of 3.50.07 seemed out of reach of these competitors, despite a strong field of 12 starters, who included the Olympic and Commonwealth Games champion [Kenya’s Kipyegon]. The Brit, Laura Muir, and the USA’s Jennifer Simpson took the initiative at the start and went out fast, and while Muir was still just in front at the 800 metre mark, she was soon overtaken, while Simpson had dropped well back in the pack. As they approached the winning straight, we could a fight back by Muir, but then like a galloper coming from the back at the last bend, two brilliant finishes by Jenny Simpson, and South Africa’s Caster Semenya, saw Muir just knocked out of the Bronze Medal result near the finish line. The race was won by Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon [Kenya] in 4.02.59, with the Silver and Bronze medals going to Jennifer Simpson [USA] and Caster Semenya [RSA]. Muir finished in 4th spot, just 0.07 secs behind the South African girl.
After a few medal presentations, that event brought an end to Day 4’s competition. For Sally Pearson fans, the Heats of the Women’s 100 metre Hurdles commence from 7.45 am on Friday, 11 August; and if she progresses, the Semi Finals are scheduled for 4.05 am on Saturday, 12 August, with the Final, at 5.05 am on Sunday, 13 August [Foxtel Channel 511], all times Australia Eastern Standard Time.
Day Five – Tuesday 7 August
Before beginning our summary of Day 4 of the Championships, I’d just like to make reference to a few points of interest
- When referring to the Final of the Women’s Pole Vault on Saturday, I neglected to mention that there were in fact two Bronze Medals awarded on that occasion,that came in behind the Gold to Greece and the Silver to the USA- to the competitors from Venezuela and Cuba [full results appear at the end of the Championship’s report.
- .On the morning after the Men’s 100 Metres Final, the ceremony for that event [with the Gold to be given to Justin Gatlin of the USA], it was decided by officials much earlier than originally planned, prior to the start of that day’s competition, and before the bulk of the crowd had arrived. Gatlin had been consistently booed by much of the crowd [due to his prior drug related convictions], so this move was made to avoid too great an embarrassment to the IAAF [and I suppose the athlete himself]. As it turned out, of the crowd who were there at that stage, there was a percentage who did boo Gatlin as he received his Medal. It is difficult to know how to respond to this – Gatlin had served his time out of the sport because of his actions [one of those sentences had been reduced in length], but I believe the antipathy towards him was partially related to the fact that he had apparently not shown any remorse or, shall we say, humbleness, over his actions, which, as with so many other instances in the sport over recent years, have tarnished athletics. In my report some years ago of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games [copies available upon request], I praised the achievements of the American sprinter, Marion Jones, only to discover in later years [as did the sport] that she had been taking drugs at the time of those Olympics. The words I quoted at the time [which would be regretted in many circles later] were “Though she failed to win the five crowns , it was a record debut at an Olympics and she became the darling of the track [yes, a US sprinter in Australia]. She came under immense pressure when it was revealed her husband, C.J.Hunter, had failed four drug tests’. And yes, to respond and perform in the way she did, won her to the hearts of Australian spectators – but little did we know at the time!!
- I was not away that the name of the London Stadium was in fact ‘Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park’ – I assume that title was granted at the time of the London Olympics, in 2012.
- During these championships, the death was announced of one of Australia’s great athletes – Betty Cuthbery [1938-2017]. Prior to today’s program at the Stadium [just an afternoon/evening session today], a tribute was paid to Betty Cuthbert by the IAAF – total silence in the 60,000 full stadium for a couple of minutes, a beautiful moment. I recall that at the Opening Ceremony of the Sydney Olympics, Betty Cuthbert was wheeled into the stadium carrying the Olympic torch, and pushed by Cathy Freeman [later, Australian winner of the 400 metres Gold Medal]. As a further tribute, the remaining Australian athletes competing in London, would wear a black armband [though I noticed later that didn’t seem obvious in some instances]. Betty Cuthbert won the 100, 200 and 4 x 100 relay Gold Medals at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Gold in the 400 metres at Tokyo in 1964, along with numerous medals at the Empire and Commonwealth Games in 1958 and 1962, and many national titles. She became Australia’s first inductee into the IAAF Hall of Fame, in its inaugural year of 2012
But now back to this day’s events, with a crowd of 60,000 [capacity] in the stadium again.
Women’s Javelin Throw Final
Australia’s Kelsey-Lee Roberts had just managed to scrape into this final, from the qualification rounds, but unfortunately failed to make the final cut in today’s event, despite distances thrown this year of over 65 metres – her three rounds today saw distances of 60.76, 59.39 and 59.76. She would finish 10th overall in the competition. Kelsey-Lee failed to qualify for the Rio final, but was the most recent Commonweslth Games Bronze medallist.
The winning throw of 66.76 metres went to Czechoslovak’s Barbora Spotakova [a 36 year old Mum, who won this event ten years previously], from the two Chinese competitors [on 66.25 and 65.26]..
Women’s 200 Metre Heats
This event saw Australia represented by two athletes – Riley Day, and Ella Nelson. I couldn’t help noticing prior to the start of each of the shorter races, the absolute silence that pervaded the stadium as we waited for the starter to send the athletes on their way.
There were 7 heats, with the first three runners in each heat into the semi-finals, plus the next fastest competitors [can’t recall the number in this instance].
Riley Day competed in Heat 1, and finished back in 7th place [last] in a time of 23.77 secs. The winner was the Nederlands Dafne Schippers in 22.63. Heat 2 was won by the USA’s Kimberley Duncan, in 22.86 secs. Ella Nelson took her place in Heat 3, and I would actually be disappointed for her sake with her 7th [and last] placing in 24.02 secs. She had essentially finished in 9th position at Rio, having missed out on a place in the Olympic final by 0.01 secs. The winner of this heat was Deajah Stevens [USA] in 22.90 secs. The other four heat winners were Shaunae Miller-Uibo of the Bahamas in 22.69 secs, Dina Asher-Smith [GBR] in 22.73, Maree Josee TA LOU [CIV] 22.70 [it was a real joy to watch the running style of this girl]; and Rebekka Haase {Germany] 22.99.
Men’s Pole Vault Final
Despite my earlier assumption, that he had not qualified for the final, Kurtis Marschall [Australia] sneaked in near the end of qualifications, so took his place in today’s final. He succeeded at the height of 5.65 metres but later failed at his three attempts 5.75 metres. Overall in the Pole Vault, Kurtis finished in 7th position. Kurtis was a Junior champion vaulter a couple of years ago.
Unusually in this event, three of the final 12 vaulters have dropped out of the event at the first height of 5.50 metres. The winning vault in the event which lasted well over two hours, the commentators describing the closing stages as representing ‘match point’ on a number of occasions as the tussle between the American and French competitors dominated the final battle for supremacy, with a Pole having a say in the outcome also. The final outcome saw the Olympic Gold medallist, Sam Kebdricks [USA] win with a vault of 5.95 metres, over Piotr Lisek [Poland] on 5.89, and Renaud Lavillenie [France] 5.89. The Frenchman attempted 6.01 to take the Gold over the American, but failed in that attempt.
Women’s 400 Metres Hurdles Semi-finals
No Aussies in this event, which consisted of three semi-finals. The first 2 in each heart plus the 2 fastes losers would go into the final. Winners were Zuzana Hejnova [Cze] 54.59; Ristananna Tracey [Jamaica] 54.79; and Dalilah Muhammad [USA] 55.00. The existing World Record in this event is 52.34 secs.
Women’s Shot Put Qualifications
This year, there was no Australian representative. The leading qualkifiers for the final were in Group A: Anita Marton [Hungary] with a Put of 18.76 metres, and in Group B, Lijaio GONG [China] 18.97. The qualifying distance for the final was 18.30 metres.
Men’s 3000 Steeplechase Final
As with all distance races, this event would attract my particular attention, having preferred to attempt [never successfully I might add] the longer journeys as a young man.
There were 15 starters in the final, of whom 14 would finish. The USA’s Evan Jager would lead for a large part of the race, but inevitably, the Kenyan runner, Conseslus Kipruto [who was also the Olympic champion], would overtake him in the final stages. Jager was described as ‘serving it up to the Kenyan’, and losing probably his best chance at winning a world championship event, having finished second behind Kipruto in the Olympic event. He would actually finish in 3rd place, behind Morocco’s Soufiane Elbakkali. The winning time was 8.14.12 [compared with the existing world record of 7.53.63].
Men’s 800 Metres Final
Another classic race at these championships. The World Record is 1.40.91. Interestingly, a Kenyan born athlete has won 9 of the 15 editions of this particular race, but it was to be a different story today, with two Europeans finishing ahead of the sole Kenyan runner – in fact we had eight different nations represented in this final, with the opportunity for the competitor from Botswana [Nijel Amos] to win for the first time for his country [again not to be, he finished in 5th position [1.45.83]. The victory went to France’s Pierre-Ambroisse Bosse in a time of 1.44.67. It was a tactical victory for the Frenchman who skipped the field in the last 200 metres and was never going to be caught from that point. Second place went to Poland’s Adam Kszczot, ahead of Kenya’s Kipyegon Bett. Australia’s Peter Bol, who had failed to qualify beyond the heats stage, finished overall in 38th position, in a time of 1.49.65. Great Britain’s Kyle Langford almost snatched the Bronze from the Kenyan, one more stride would have done it, missed out by 0.04 of a second.
Men’s 400 Metres Final
Now this event used to be regarded as a ‘USA birthright’, with that nation having dominated the event over many years. The existing world record is 43.03 secs. Today’s seven starters would not get near that mark. There had been listed eight starters, but the runner from Botswana was banned from taking his placed in the field [after arriving at the stadium to do so] following a bout of illness which had affected a number of athletics and others in one of the hotels they were staying at. He was Isaac Makwala, and he will come to our attention again over the next two days, having also been preventing from competing in the 200 metre heats because of the illness.
The winner of this final, from South Africa, was described as being in a ‘class of his own’, through the brilliant manner in which he ran and won this race – also of significance because he was also a competitor in the 200 metres event, which came him little recovery time between races. Wayde Van Niekerk won the Gold in 43.98 secs, ahead of Steven Gardiner [Bahamas] and Abdalelah Haroun [Qatar]. He appeared to win without effort, yet afterwards was criticised by the two British ‘interviewers’ because he didn’t do a lap of honour, and lay down in the interview area for a long period of time [being interviewed by some whilst still lying on the floor, and then leaving before he reached the English interviewers]. He did speak to them the next morning, though I’m not sure if that satisfied them completely – they felt, that as these interviews were televised world-wide and perhaps in the stadium itself, the successful athletes in particular had a duty to meet such obligations. Most certainly did, but Niekerk obviously felt that he was not fully recovered from his run to meet all those obligations! He was due to run in the 200 metre semi-final next day, and while he had looked refreshed almost at the end of the 400 metres, that energy seem to have deserted him soon afterwards. Having run a number of 400 metre races many years ago, I can easily understand such exhaustion – it is a gruelling distance to cover in a short time!!.
Day Six, Wednesday, 9th August
It was a dreadful day, weather-wise in London – rained throughout the entire evening’s program [there was no morning session again today], and at one stage, the likelihood of events such as the Hammer-throw might have to be deferred. However, all events proceeded as planned, and must have main things much more difficult than they needed to be – after-all, athletics is a Summer sport, and such conditions would be difficult to adjust to., but in most instances, they did just that.
There was the usual presentation of medals from the previous day’s events at the beginning of the day’s program [it appeared that the presentation stand was just under the cover of the standing roof, as there was a lot of water on the ground just behind where it continued to rain steadily, but the athletes and officials involved in the medal ceremonies appeared to be relatively sheltered, as so they should have been].
The ‘program’ began with an unusual event. The runner from Botswana [ Isaac Makwala] who had been prevented from competing in the 400 metres Final yesterday, appealed to the IAAF that he be allowed to participate in the 200 metres semi-finals [the heats of which he had also missed yesterday]. He was granted permission to undertake a ‘time trial – to run the 200 metres, alone, with the aim of completing it in a time of 20.53 secs or better, which was the time run by the slowest qualifier for the semi-finals [that runner would not be prevented from taking his place if Makwala succeeded]. Well it was a big ask – he undertook the run in driving ran at the beginning of the evening’s session, with the knowledge that if he succeeded, he would have to line up again in 2 hours. Succeed he did – in 20.20 secs, powering towards the finish line in a desperate attempt to ensure he made the required time. That was a very ‘popular’ run as far as the almost capacity crowd was concerned [numbers obviously down a little as a consequence of the weather].
Women’s 3000 Metres Steeplrchase Heats
This event officially began the evening session. Australia had two girls competing – Genevieve Lacaze and Victoria Mitchell. The world record in this event is 8.52.78, held by Ruth Jebet of Bahrain, who would finish second in Heat 2 today in the much slower time of 9.19.52.
In view of the weather conditions, I found myself feeling the way I do when watching horses over steeples and hurdles – just hoping they all get to the end safely, as this event seemed to be a particular danger to the athletes in the driving rain [although from a ‘dampness’ point of view, there would be little concerns about falling at the water jump!!]. The first three in each heat plus the six fastest would progress – there was some criticism of that format of qualification, and it was suggested that the competitors [which was a very slowly run heat] in the first heat were disadvantaged and it was unlikely that anyone after the first three to get through because of the pedestrian pace of the race, whereas the second two heats had some indication of how fast they needed to run. However, surely that situation applies in any event beginning with heats?
In any case, the 1st heat was eventually won in 9.39.86 by the German girl Gesa Felicitas Krause, ahead of the two Kenyan runners, the first of those finishing just 0.03 secs behind Krause.
The 2nd heat saw Victoria Mitchell included in the field of 13 starters. This was a much faster run heat – too fast for our girl, who finished back in 11th position in a time of 10.00.40. The winner was Beatrice Chepkeoch [Kenya] in 9.19.03..
The third heat went to another Kenyan – Celliphine Chepteek Chespol in 9.27.35. Australia’s Genevieve LaCaze ran a strong race, being amongst the leading runners for a large part of the race, was 4th with 2 laps to go, and finished up in 3rd place in a time of 9.27.53 – it was great, after mostly failures to see an Australian competitor get through to a track final! Genevieve had finished 9th in this event at Rio last year. Genevieve was a finalist in the Rio 5000 metres event. Speaking after her race, she said that ‘Worlds were not even a possibility two months ago –I thought I was going home” after suffering a host of injuries this year.
Women’s Long Jump Qualification
This event, as with all others today, conducted in persistent rain. Two Australian girls took part – Naa Anang, and Brooke Stratton. Naa took her place in Group A, where she would finish in 13th position with a jump of 6.27 metres. The leading qualifier in that group was Claudia Salman-Rath of Germany with a jump of 6.52, together with Chantel Malone of the British Virgin Islands.
In Group B, Brooke Stratton finished 4th with a jump of 6.46 metres, behind the leading qualifier, Lorraine Ugen of Great Britain [6.63 metres]. As far as the coverage of that event, we saw very little of the Australian competitors – of course, this is a British broadcast we are taking, so in the main, the Australian competitors, particularly in the field events, well we see very little of them! As for Brooke, she qualified for the Final, finishing in 12th position to sneak into the Final. She finished 7th in the Rio Olympics final, and has shrugged off an injury-prone season to get to this championship event,. Not having competed during the Australian summer due to injury. Speaking after the qualification rounds, Brooke said that she’d not expected to make it to London, and didn’t feel that her best leap of 6.46 metres would get her through to the final, saying “I had frozen feet which isn’t ideal for jumping and made it quite difficult”. The Long Jump final is scheduled for the early hours of Saturday morning, AEST.
Men’s Hammerthrow Qualification, Groups A and B
We had no Australian representative in this event. Despite the weather, most of the throwers seem to cope fairly well with the bad conditions. The best qualifiers in each of the two groups were Pawel Fajdek of Poland [76.82 metres], and Wojciech Nowicki also from Poland [76.85 metres].
Men’s 5000 metre Heats
There were two heats in this event which included three Australian competitors – Morgan McDonld, Sam McEntee, and Patrick Tiernan [who’d had a rather disappointing 10,000 metre run earlier in the competition, when he appeared to be disorientated as he was lapped during the final stages].
Morgan and Sam lined up in Heat 1, which also included the great Mo Farah [who won the 10,000 metres Gold]. The two Aussies would find themselves in the middle of the field early in the race, but gradually would drift bavk towards the rear, while Mo Farah who had started in his customary position at the race, gradually made his way forward. After 8 laps, there were 15 men in the leading pack, with both Australians at the rear of that group. With the first five in each of the two heats plus the next 5 fastest runners, Mo Farah did not seemed concerned about his eventual 2nd placing behind Ethiopia’s Yomif Kejelcha [13.30.07]. While Sam McEnteee would finish back in 11th position [of the 21 starters], Morgan McDonald finished the race strongly, coming home fast trying to get into that 5th spot of automatic qualification – a desperate effort in the closing metres, saw him just miss out, finishing 7th in 13.30.73 [0.37 secs behind the 5th runner].
The second heat, run in the still driving rain, saw a much stronger race by Patrick Tiernan. There was a lot of physical contact in this race, particularly towards the latter stages, and Tirnan was able to take advantage of the fall of two competitors with just over 3 laps to go, in fact he jumped over one of the fallen athletes to avoid going down himself. A tall man, he took the lead in the race [great to see] with 3 laps to go – at the 4000 metres mark, Tiernan still held that lead, however with two laps to go, he is overtaken by the African runners and is soon sitting back around in 4th/5th position. Certainly a much better run than his 10,000 metres, and he battled on in the closing stages, 3rd in the final lap, in pouring rain, to finally come home in 4th position [13.22.52], and automatically qualify for the Final. The eventual winner was Selemon Berega of Ethiopia [13.21.50] ahead of the competitors from Bahrain and Kenya.Tiarnan had run himself into the final, with McDonald just missing out.
Women’s Shot Put Final
This event saw a tight battle at the end between the competitors from China, the USA and Hungary, with the three Chinese finalists eventually finishing in 1st, 5th and 12th position. The winner was Lijiao Gong [also the Olympic champion] with a put of 19.94 metres, ahead of Hungary’s Anita Marton, and Michelle Carter of the USA.
No Australian had qualified to participate in this event.
Men’s 200 metre Semi-finals
We chad the three semi-finals of this event today – the first two in each heat only, to the final plus the next two best times. Heat 1 saw Isaac Makwala [of Botswana] run his second 200 metres within two hours, following his especially IAAF granted early morning trial. I think he may have been the crowd favourite [aside from the Great Britain competitor] with a lot of sympathy directed towards his efforts. Makwala would finish second [and qualify for the final, almost from aick bed] behind Isiah Young [USA] who ran 20.12 secs [Makwala in 20.14] with the Great Britain competitor coming in third place, 0.05 secs behind.
Heat 2, saw a win to the exciting young athlete from Trinidad & Tobago – Jereem Richards, in a time of 20.14 secs, an easy win on the day, and to many, the sign of a future star.
Heat 3 went to the Turkish runner, perhaps a surprise result ahead of more fancied oppoments including the South African Gold Medalist of the previous day, Van Niekerk – Ramil Guliyev won in the time of 20.17 secs, at the time, the 4th fastest qualifier for the upcoming final.
Men’s 400 metres Hurdles Final
This was a very welcome, and perhaps unexpected win for Scandinavia – Karsten Warholm of Norway, stormed home to win the race in the time 48.35 seconds – a race which considering the ongoing weather conditions, was probably more of a challenge than it normally is. In any case, he gate crashed the party from behind in the closing metres to defeat Yasmani Copello [Turkey] and Kerron Clement [USA]. Clement started as one of the favourites for this race n- he was the reigning Olympic and World champion in the event, and had been the fastest qualifier. The winner, a very personable young man, was rather excited about his success. In his homeland, he apparently trains up to 7 hours a day, and following today’s success, wore a Viking helmet for an hour or so during his lap of honour and post-race interviews, etc. Watching his medal ceremony the next morning, I wondered if I’d ever heard the Nationa Anthem of Norway previously?
Women’s 400 metres Final
The final event on today’s rain-plagued day of competition, saw the long-time success story of American track, Allyson Felix into the third spot on the podium by her fellow country rival, Phyllis Francis [USA] winning the Gold in the time of 49.92 secs. The Silver Medal went to Salwa Eid Naser [Bahrain], with the Bahamas’ Shaunae Miller – Uibo fading to 4th after looking a possible winner earlier in the race. Francis hs normally being regarded as a relay specialist, so this would be a special result for her. For Felix, this would be her 14th Championship medal, of which 9 had been Gold medals.
Day Seven, Thursday, 10th August
On this 7th day of the Championships, we saw a number of Australian athletes attempt to make their mark on this competition. Prior to this day’s events, the Medal tally stood at USA: 4 Gold, 5 Silver, 6 Bronze; Kenya: 3 Gold, 1 Silver, 3 Bronze, and South Africa: 2 Gold and 2 Bronze. There were 14 other individual countries having won at least one Gold Medal. In total, there were 27 countries having secured a medal of some colour so far – but for Australia, not yet a single medal. Could today be the start of something, down under?
Compared to yesterday’s weather, London turned on a good day for the athletes. Here is the way things eventuated.
Women’s 5000 metre Heats
With two heats of the 5000 metres for the girls, we had the first 5 in each heat, plus the next 5 fastest to go through to the final. Australia had three competitors – Madeline Hills and Heide See [both running in Heat 2] and Eloise Wellings [in Heat 1].
Heat 1 also included the 10,000 metre winner, Almaz Ayana, and the UK hope, Laura Muir. This was the strongest of the two heats. After the first lap, we found Eloise near the rear of the field, yet by the 2 km stage, we had all 16 runners bunched up together in a fairly tight pack. At the 3,200 metre mark, Ayana hits the front momentarily, as if to say “I’m in charge now’, although she would share the lead for the rest of the race with the Kenyan and Ethiopian runners. Meanwhile, Eloise was gradually starting to lose ground on the leading group with 3 ½ laps to go, and at 600 metres, the field was really beginning to stretch out. The English girl, really has her work cut out now, and appears to be struggling, eventually finishing back in 7th position. The race would eventually be won by Hellen Onsando Obiri of Kenya in 14.56.70, ahead of Ayana who made no real attempt to finish in front at the end, perhaps saving herself for the Final at the weekend. Eloise Wellings finished second last, in 15th position [15.25.92]
Heat 2, which involved Madeline and Heidi for Australia, who as with many of the Australian competitors received little acknowledgement from the British commentators as the competitors lined up [I guess not really having made names for themselves on the international stage to this point in time]. There were again 16 starters in this heat, which saw a courageous run by the American, Molly Huddle who took a ‘bold move’ and went out to a substantial lead over the field at about 4 minutes into the race. With 8 laps to run, Huddle was still in the lead by about 40 metres, and as the laps progressed, and that lead increased to about 7 seconds over the following pack who had made no real effort to close the gap. At that stage, Hills was in 11th position, while Heide See was near the rear of the runners.
With 3 laps to go, Hills has moved up into 7th position and appears to be running strong, while Huddle [barring a major mishap] looks to have done enough to secure a win with one kilometre to go. Hills goes back to 10th. However, with one lap to run, the gap has closed to around 4 seconds, and suddenly it is closing very fast now fast for the brave Huddle who is passed by six competitors in the final 60 metres or so, a very disappointing outcome for the American after taking the field on do early. The eventual winner was Letsenbet Gidey of Ethiopia in 14.59.34, over runners from the Nederlands and the USA. Molly Huddle finished in 7th position in 15.03.60. The two Australian girls finished back in the field – Madeline Hills was 10th [15.13.77] and Heidi See came in 14th spot [15.38.86]. None of the three Australian girls qualified for the final – in the overall standings, Hills [19th], Wellings [27th] and See [29th] of the 32 starters.
Men’s Javelin Qualifying, Groups A and B
Australia’s representative in this field event was Hamish Peacock. The qualifying mark for advancement to the Final was 83 metres, in which the best 12 competitors would participate. . Competing in Group A of the competition, against 14 other throwers, Peacock’s three rounds produced 77.88, 82.46 and 82.19, just short of the qualification distance, he would have to wait until the completion of Group B to see if he could get through. In Group A, he was placed 6th behind five rivals who all passed the 83 metres. The leading throw was by Johannes Vetter of Germany [a very self-confident man – my harsh description was ‘a bit full of himself’ but perhaps he’d earned that attitude – he did throw a massive 91.20 metres].
In Group B, it was quickly evident that our man was going to miss out, as the number of successful throws grew rapidly – eight of the sixteen competitors exceeded the 83 metres, with the winner of the group being Petr Frydrych [Cze] throwing 86.22 metres. In the overall classification summary, Hamish Peacock finished in 14th position with his best throw of 82.46 metres, the best non-qualifier on the day, with the top 13 going into the Final..
Women’s High Jump Qualifying
In the direct telecast of this event, there was little of it shown, and certainly, prior to the various replays of the events, no progressive results were indicated to the viewers. Nicola McDermott was jumping for Australia.
We would later learn that she competed in Group A with 15 others, but sadly did nor register a jump, failing at her three attempts at an opening height of 1.80 metres. Nicola would be classified overall at the bottom of the 30 starters in the event. A disappointing journey for the young Australian.
The leading heights in the two groups were Katarina Johnson-Thompson [the unsuccessful British Heptathlon competitor] with a leap of 1.92 metres, and Maria Lasitskene [ANA – one of the independent Russian competitors] with 1.92 metres also.
Women’s 800 metre Heats
The first three go into the semi-final stage, plus the next best six. There were six heats, and we had three Australians competing – Lora Storey, Brittany McGovern and Georgia Griffiths.
Heat 1 went to Ajee Wilson [USA] in 2.00.52. Heat 2 went to Poland’s Angelika Cichocka in 2.00.86. Australia’s Lora Storey found herself well back in the field of eight with a lap to go, and finished in 7th place in 2.07.17. Heat 3, resulted in a similar outcome for Brittany McGovern, who 6th of seven starters, in the time of 2.02.25. The winner of that heat was Caster Semenya of South Africa in 2.01.33. Heat 4 went to the Kenyan runner, Margaret Myairera Wambui in 2.00.75. Heat 5 was won by Charlene Lipsey of the USA in 2.02.74. Australia’s Georgia Griffith put in a strong finish to miss out on 4th place by 0.09 secs – her time, in 5th position was 2.03.54. I was hoping the times for Griffith and McGovern might qualify them for the next stage. Heat 6 went to Francine Niyonsaba of BDI in 1.59.86.
In the overall classification of results before the semi-finals which none of the Australian girls qualified for, we found that Brittany McGovern finished 28th, Georgia Griffiths, 38th, and Lora Storey, in 41st position of the 45 original starters in the heats.
Men’s Triple Jump Final
This event received all of the coverage not allocated to the Women’s High Jump, both undertaken at similar times. It turned out to have the Americans going ‘toe for toe’. The World record for this event has been held for some 20 years by one of the broadcast interviewers, England’s Jonathan Edwards on 18.29 metres – he and his offsider felt that record might be broken today.
Well, despite the battle between two Americans that didn’t happen, and Jonathan’s remained secure for a little longer. The eventual winner would be Christian Taylor [USA] with a jump of 17.68 metres ahead of his fellow countryman, Will Claye, 17.63 metres. Nelson Evora of Portugal came for the Bronze, with the third American in the Final finishing in 6th position.
Men’s 1500 Metre Heats
One of the glamour events of any athletic completion is the 1500 metres, and in past decades, Australia had some success in the event, but not in recent times. We had three hopefuls in this race – the experienced Ryan Gregson, the high prospect. Luke Matthews, and Jordan Williamsz. There were three heats with the first six in each heat plus the next best six runners to progress to the semi-final.
Heat 1 saw Williansz compete in a field of 14 starters, and he was sitting in 8th position at the 8oo metres mark. The race would be won by Elijah Motonei Manangoi of Kenya in 3.45.93, in a ‘bunfight’ of a finish involving up to eight seeking one of those first positions. They included Jordan Williamsz who finished very strongly, coming from behind to grab the 6th position, in 3.46.11, and qualify for a start in the next round.
Heat 2 featured Ryan Gregson, whom I’d anticipated would finish close to the front, but despite a strong run towards the final straight, he dropped back in the closing stages to finish in 9th position in a time of 3.43.28. The Heat 2 winner was Sadik Mikhou of Bahrain in 3.42.12. Gregson failed to qualify.
The Heat 3 result was a rare pleasing one for an Australian viewer. Luke Matthews was in 4th position at 400 metres, 3rd at the 800 metre mark, and back to 4th at the bell lap. Early in the final lap, he went to the lead, and despite close opposition managed to retain that position to win the heat for Australia in 3.38.19 [he had apparently run times of around 3.35 in Australia]. It was a rare pleasant to view an Australian athletic cross the line in first place – true, only a heat, but the opportunity is there. In the overall classification, he was in fact the fastest qualifier, while Ryan Gregson, whom I thought had qualified initially, just missed out, in 20th position. Meanwhile, Jordan Williamsz finished back in 29th position in the overall time classification, but because of his 6th placing in the heat would also compete at the semi-final stage.
Women’s 200 Metre Semi-finals
The world record for this event is 21.34 seconds. The first two from each of the three semi-finals plus the next two fastest would advance to the final. Our two Australian girls were eliminated at the Heat stage.
Semi-final One saw victory go to Dafne Schippers [Nederlands] in 22.49secs. Semi-final 2 was won by Shaunae Miller-Uibo [Bahamas] in 22.49 secs, while the third semi-final went to Marie-Josee Ta Lou [CIV] in 22.50 secs. So the leading three qualifiers going into the Final, all finished within one hundredth of a second of each other.
Women’s 400 Metre Hurdles Final
The reigning champion in this event was the girl from the Czech Republic, Zuzana Hejnova, and she was highly fancied to retain the crown. However others had different ideas, particularly the two American runners.
The Gold medal was won by Kori Carter of the USA in the time of 53.07 secs, followed by Dalilah Muhammad [USA, the Olympic champion] in 53.50. The runner from Jamaica, Ristananna Tracey, secured the Bronze medal ahead of Hejnova who finished in 4th place.
Men’s 200 Metres Final
The world record in this event is held by Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, in 19.19 secs. He is not competing in the event on this occasion. The final had a great line-up of prospective winners including South Africa’s Van Neikerk [who had qualified as a fast loser], Jereem Williams [from Trinidad and Tobago], and the crowd favourite due to the circumstances of him reaching the Final, Isaac Makwala. Perhaps overlooked was the man from Turkey..
It would turn out to be a close finish after Richards got away to a sluggish start but flashed towards the finishing line a big threat to the also fast-finishing South African – but it would in fact be the man from Turkey, Ramil Guliyev, who stole the race from them all – being the second European runner [formerly of Azabrahan] to ever win this race – in a time of 20.09. Guliyev had finished 8th in the event in Rio last year, and this was apparently his first ever medal in an international championship event. The minor medals went to Van Miekerk and Richards, while Botswana’s Isaac Makwala finished in 6th position in 20.44 secs, much slower than the times he recorded in his ‘solo’ heat, ands semi-final time.
A full listing of the event results, together with those of all other finals, appears at the end the Championships report.
Day Eight, Friday, 11th August
We had the two sessions of competition today, and the highlight as an all-round athletics fam, would be the start of the Men’s Decathlon event, and return to the international track of Sally Pearson. There will be more on both of those shortly, but the day also saw of number of other Australian athletes competing in semi-final and final events.
Friday was a sunny day in London, right up until the last event just before 9pm, where a shower of rain briefly hit the stadium, and for competitors such as the Men’s Hammer Throwers, and the Women Steeplechasers, it was a welcome change from their rain-drenched events of two days ago.
Morning session
The Men’s Decathlon, to be spread over two full days, would get the program underway, and it was great to have an Australian contestant to follow in this multi-disciplined event. It has been a World Championship event since 1983, with the inaugural winner being the great Daley Thompsom.
The decathlon is a combined event in athletics consisting of ten track and field events. The word decathlon is of Greek origin, basically meaning ‘ten’ and ‘feat’. Events are held over two consecutive days and the winners are determined by the combined performance in all. Performance is judged on a points system in each event, not by the position achieved. It is basically the male equivalent of the Women’s Heptathlon, which opened the Championships at the beginning of competition. It combines the results of competition in four runs, three jumps and three throws – on Day 1, we have the 100 metres, Long Jump, Shot Put, High Jump and 400 metres, while on Day 2, contestants compete in the 110 metre hurdles, Discus, Pole Vault, Javelin and the 1500 metres. A true test of all around athletic prowess in a broad range of track and field.
While today’s events were spread over the two sessions, I’ll summarise today’s results before moving on to other events. Australia’s representative was Cedric Dubler, who competed as Australia’s first decathlete in 16 years at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, placing 14th. In 2014 he won Silver at the IAAF U20 World Junior Championships in Eugene, setting a new Oceania Junior Record of 8094 points.[4] In 2012, aged 17, Dubler placed 4th at the same competition in Barcelona. While not anticipating a medal opportunity, he hoped to improve at that Rio performance.
The Decathlon 100 Metres consisted of four heats which saw the following first place getters – Mihail Dudas [Serbia] in 10.75 secs [917points] – Kevin Mayer [France] in 10.70 secs [929 pts]. Cedric Dubler finished 4th in the 2nd heat in 11.06 secs, earning 847 pts – Martin Roe [Norway] in 10.90 secs [883 pts] – Damian Warner [Canada] in 10.50 secs [975 pts]. I was interested to note that before the start of the heats, the competitors each went around shaking each other’s hands, with the Australian initiating that in his heat – something that despite the fierce competition of the Decathlon, is typical of the r4espect and friendship of this particular group of athletes [similarly with the Heptathlon event]. In any case, the leaders after the first of the ten disciplines [remembering that points earned are based on times run, not the position finished] – 1. Damian Warner [Canada]: 975. 2. Rico Freimuth [Germany]: 968; 3. Karl Robert Saluri [Estonia]: 963. Cedric Dubler was in 17th position with 870 pts.
The Decathlon Long Jump saw points earned for successful jumps in each of the three rounds. As with most the field events in which Australians were competing, I would be constantly disappointed that the British cameras could never seem to find the Australians – this event was no different, Cedric was there, but never jumping when the cameras bothered to be about, I think he appeared once on the second track out of view as the British competitor jumped. Anyway, be that as it may, he will slip back a little in this event, finishing 17th overall, an earning 883 points, with a best jump of 7.29 metres. The leading jumpers were Sutthisak [Thailand] 7.65metres [975 pts], Kai Kazmirek [Germany] 7.64 [970 pts], and Ilya Shkurenev [ANA – the Authorised National Athletes team consisting of 19 Russian athletes] 7.62 [965 pts]. At the end of the 2nd discipline, some movement at the top – 1. Rico Freimuth [Germany] on 1898 pts. 2. Damian Warner [Canada] on 1895 pts, and 3. Karl Robert Saluri [Estonoa] on 1895 pts. Cedric Dubler now sits in 19th position on 1730pts. At this stage, of the original 35 starters, there were now 33 left in the competition.
The Decathlon Shot Putt – this event was held late in the morning session, with all other events included – but the British cameras still could not manage to find our Australian man, in covering the Shot Put – my gripe for the day – he is there, but is seemingly ignored until it’s time to sum up the result!! Anyway, like the Long Jump this would be conducted in two groups with points again allocated on the basis of distance thrown. The leading results were – Lindon Victor [Grenada] 15.86 metres [843 pts]; Kevin Mayer [France] 15.72 [834 pts], and Bastien Auzeil [France] 15.23 [804 pts]. Cedric Dubler’s best put was 11.36 metres, in 32nd position [568 pts]. At the conclusion of the Shot Put, the overall placings saw 1. Kevin Mayer [France] on 2703 pts. 2. Rico Freimuth [Germany] on 2678 pts. 3. Trey Hardee [USA] on 2647 pts. Cedric had now dropped to 29th position overall, on 2298 pts. However, his two best events of the day lay ahead.
The Decathlon HighJump followed – this event was held in the very early hours of an Australian Saturday morning, and was almost over before the advertised starting time. Australia’s Cedric Dubler had a very good competition in this event, though the writer didn’t get to see any of his jumps. In the overall washup at the completion of the two group stages, Cedric finished in 5th position, with a leap of 2.08 metres, earning him a total of 878 points. The leading contenders in the High Jump event were Kai Kasmirek [Germany], 2.11 metres [906 pts]; Pau Tonneson [Spain] 2.08 metres [878 pts], and Jorge Urena [Spain]2.08 metres [878 pts].
After four disciplines in the Decathlon, we find the leading three to be Kevin Mayer [3581 pts], Kai Kazmirek [3472 pts], and Rico Freimuth [3472 pts] – very tight at the top, while Cedric Dubler has improved his overall position to 22nd position on 3176 points.
The Men’s Decathlon 400 Metres – there were 4 heats of the 400 metres, with the respective winners in each being Mihail Dudas [Croatia] in 48.08 secs [905 pts]; Cedric Dubler [Australia] in 48.31 secs [894 pts]; Rico Freimuth [Germany] 48.41 secs [889 pts], and Kai Kazmirek [Germany] 47.19 secs [949 pts]. The 2nd heat win by Cedric was great run which saw ,him come from the pack and surge ahead in the closing stages, and allow his overall position to improve further at the end of Day 1 of the competition.
At the conclusion of today’s Decathlon events, the leading three were Kevin Mayer [4478 pts], Kai Kazmirek [4421], and Rico Freimuth 4347 pts], followed by Daniel Warner [4347] and Trey Hardie [4313]. The Australian lad has moved up to 18th position with a total of 4070 points]. There are now 27 athletes following 8 withdrawals since the start.
Women’s Discus Qualifying
Australia had two representatives in the Women’s Discus – Taryn Gollshewsky competed in Group A, and unfortunately ended up in 14th position of the 15 position – her best throw was 54.29. In the overall competition, she finished 27th of the 30 starters. Dani Stevens competed in Group B, and her first and only throw exceeded the distance required to qualify for the Final – she threw 65.56, which was the third best qualifier of all competitors. Croatia’s Sandra Perkovic [hot favourite to win the event] had a best distance of 69.67 metres, and Yaime Perez of Cuba, threw 65.58 metres. Dani Stevens has had international success previously, including the Commonwealth Youth Champion in 2004, World Champion in 2009, and Commonwealth Games Champion in 2014, and I look forward to her performances in the Final.
As mentioned previously with other field events, we were given very little opportunity to see any of either Australian girl’s participation in the Discus, which, as probably guessed by now, I have found very disappointing.
Men’s High Jump Qualifying
With an initial qualification height of 2.31 metres, this event was conducted over 2 groups. The initial stages saw a number of fancied competitors knocked out , and at relatively low heights. In the end, we would have twelve athletes qualify for the Final, six of them achieving a height of 2.31 metres, and the other six reaching 2.29 metres. Quialified in position one was Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar. Unfortunately, we had no Australians entered in this event.
Women’s 100 metres Hurdles Heats, and Semi-Finals
For Australian supporters this event is probably [and also sadly] the only event at this competition that have any likelihood of a major medal, with Sally Pearson making her comeback appearance at the World Championships, after missing the last competition, and the Rio Olympics due to injury. Sally was of course ‘our’ Olympic hero at this very stadium one August day in 2012, when in driving rain, she won the Olympic 100 metres hurdles that year, after previously winning the event at the same title at the World Championships in 2011. After 2 years of disruption, originating with the breaking of her wrist in a race in 2015, and then suffering other injuries, followed by a decision to self-coach and virtually start over again, Sally is back!!
Meanwhile, we would also be represented in this event by Michelle Jenneke, who is recorded as being the second fastest Australian [obviously behind Sally] in this event.
The morning session saw the heats of the race, while the semi-finals were held a few hours later during the evening session. The competition had a very strong field including the current world record holder, Kendra Harrison [USA], who was expected to be very difficult to defeat, despite the fact that Sally in a recent Diamond League race at the London Stadium, ran 12.48 secs, her fastest time for five years to finish just a stride behind Harrison [12.39 that day].
The results of the five heats were as follows: Heat 1: went to Danielle Williams [Jamaica] in 12.66 secs. Heat 2 also went to Jamaica – Megan Simmonds in 12.78 secs. Heat 3 saw the appearance of Australia’s Michelle Jenneke – the heat was won by Kendra Harrison [USA] in 12.60 secs, while Michelle finished in 6th position, in a time of 13.11 secs. I thought at that stage that she would not proceed to the semi-final stage, but at the end of the heats, that time was good enough for her to qualify. Heat 5 saw the comeback of 30 year old Sally Pearson. She won the heat in convincing fashion in a time of 12.72 secs, a wonderful return to serious competition after having to completely rebuild her form. However, our British commentators continued to give her not much of a chance of actually winning the event again because of the time that has passed, the recovery phase, self-coaching project, and so on – they felt that Williams and Harrison for far above all the other runners in the race. Meanwhile, the 5th heat was won by Christina Manning [USA] in 12.87 secs. There was a disturbing fall during that race – the runner from Trinidad & Tobago [Deborah John] appeared to suffer a leg injury of some sort which caused her to crash right through the hurdle partway through the race, and she remained motionless on the track for some time after the race before being taken by stretcher for medical attention.
The Semi-finals of the 100 Hurdles followed later on in the evening program. Sally Pearson [voted as the world athlete of the year a few years ago] stepped up to the first of three semi-finals, with the first two in each race guaranteed a start in the final plus the two fastest non-qualifiers. Kendra Harrison holds the current world record of 12.20 secs. Sally came to the track, looking very serious, and totally concentrated on the task ahead of her, and when introduced to the crowd, we received a very mild obligatory smile.
Semi-final One was won by Sally Freeman in 12.53 secs, a convincing win , which certainly enhanced her credentials, and left looking a lot happier than before the race, and admitted to the English interviewers [who had given her little hope of progressing] that she had been afraid before of losing, the depth of concentration totally on avoiding that occurring. The next place-getter in that race was Nia Ali of the USA in 12.79 secs.
Semi-final 2 included Michelle Jennecke – the race was won by Christina Manning [USA] in 12.71 secs, while our girl, after a strong start in which she appeared to be running with confidence, faded in the latter stages of the race to finish back in 7th position in 13.25 secs.
Semi-final 3 was somewhat of a sensation. A false start, which appeared to involve Harrison, but ended as a ‘warning’ only to the German runner [Dutkiewicz] created a momentary ‘scare’ in the stadium. All got away at a second attempt, but then Harrison crashed through one of the early hurdles which cost her the race, and almost, a place in the final. It was won by Dawn Harper Nelson [USA] in 12.63 secs, with Harrison finishing 3rd in 12.86 secs. Harrison qualified for the Final in 8th position, one hundredth of a second ahead of Norway’s unlucky Isabelle Pederson. Almost a sensation!!!
In the overall wash-up of the event, prior to the final, Michelle Jenneke finished in 21st position of the 24 semi-finalists.
Women’s Long Jump Final
The twelve finalists included Australia’s Brooke Stratton, who had qualified in 11th position. Brooke has jumped over 7 metres in the past, but in this field, she would probably need to do that gain. In fact, she would get past the cut-off point after the first round today, and managed to legally complete all of today’s six jumps – 6.27, 6.54, 6.67, 6.55, 6.67 and 6.64 – sitting in 6th position, with her last jump, Brooke was still in a position to create an upset, if she could jump to her potential. Unfortunately that didn’t occur, and she would finish in 6th position with her best jump of 6.67 metres. Again, we only briefly saw Brooke, her final jump near the end of the event!
The winner was Brittany Reese of the USA – of her six jumps, only two were recorded, the best of those being enough to win at 7.02 metres. She was ahead of Darya Klishina [Authorised Neutral Athletes] with 6.97, and Tianna Bartoletta [6.96]
Women’s 800 Metre Semi-finals
There were three semi-finals for this event, with the first two in each race plus the two fastest losers into the Final.
The current World Record is 1.53.28.
Semi-final 1: won by Ajee Wilson n[USA] in 1.59.21 from Melissa Bishop [Canada] in 1.59.56
Semi-final 2, we witnessed the irresistible strength of the South African runner, Caster Semenya [the current Olympic champion] who powered away in the closing stages, to win in a time of 1.58.90, ahead of Angelicka Chichocka [Poland] in 1.59.32. The English girl, Lynsey Sharp finished 4th, and qualified for the final, but was then disqualified for interference near the end of the race. Her position was reinstated after an appeal by the Great Britain team.
Semi-final 3 went to Francine Niyonsaba [BDI] in 2.01.11, ahead of Margaret Nyairera Wambui [Kenya] in 2.01.19, with Brenda Martinez of the USA in third spot.
Men’s 1500 Semi-finals
These races featured two Australians, who on the basis of their heat runs might have expected a better outcome than what eventuated. The first five in each race would go automatically to the Final.
In Semi-final 1, Luke Matthews [Australia] came into the race as the fastest qualifier, but with a lap to go, and running at around 5th or 6th, he found the pace too strong for him, and he would finish back in 7th place, his time of 3.40.91 not good enough to qualify for the final. That heat was won by Elijah Motonei Manangoi [Knya] in 3.41.10, ahead of Asbel Kiprop [Kenya] in 3.40.14
Semi-final 2 was won by Jakub Holusa [Cze] in 3.38.05, ahead of Timothy Cheruiyot [Kenya] in 3.38.24. Australia’s Jordan Williamsz ran a similar race to Matthews, was around 8th to 10th position for the bulk of the race, moved into 7th at the bell lap but couldn’t come on with it this time, eventually finishing in 8th position in a time of 3.38.93. In fact, had he managed a couple more strides, he could have made the final, being 25/100 behind the 7th runner, who qualified.
Men’s Hammer Throw Final
For the twelve finalists, their competition was held in vastly contrasting conditions to that experienced two days earlier in the pouring rain.
Despite a bit of seeming tight tussle evident towards the end of the competition, the eventual winner from Poland – Pawel Fajdek never really looked to be challenged, and would win his second World Championship in the event. His winning throw was 79.81 metres, ahead of Valeriy Pronkin [ANA} with 78.16, and Wojciech Nowicki [Poland] on 78.03. The Polish team are in fact fast moving up the medal tally ladder, having successes over a range of areas. As already noted earlier, the ANA nation represents the ‘Authorised Neutral Athletes’, a team consisting of 19 approved Russian athletes.
Women’s 3000 metres Steeplechase Final
There were 14 starters in this Final, including Australia’s Genevieve LaCaze, and six Kenyan runners [although not all running for their birth nation these days]. After ac lap of the race, LaCaze was back at tail of the field, and would generally remain in that area, gradually falling back to the rear of a second group later as the field spread out, with the stronger runners increasing the pace.
An amazing and costly event [for the athlete involved] occurred, I think at either or second pass over the water jump. The highly fancied and experienced Kenyan runner, Jepkemoi, came to the water jump, and in a brain fade or something, forgot to jump it, running around instead – which meant she had to turn around, retrace her steps, and create a new run-up in order to get over the water jump. That obviously cosy her 50 or 60 metres, and alternatively, the race itself. This was followed by a fall from another athlete later in the race. After four minutes, the Olympic champion, Ruth Jebet [Bahrain] took the lead and retained that role for a few laps. Meanwhile, Jepkemoi was making up ground from her mishap, and was soon back up with the leaders, but it was assumed that the effort of making up lost ground would prove too much in the end. In fact, she hit the front, temporarily as the last lap was being run, with Jebet now out of it, but was running ‘out of gas’ – in the final analysis, the two Americans would run the East Africans off their feet, in a stunning result.
The Gold Medal went to Emma Coburn [USA] in the time of 9.02.58, ahead of her compatriot, Courtney Frerichs, in 9.03.77. The luckless Hyvin Kiyemg Jepkemoi, finished third in 9.04.03, followed by Beatrice Chepkeoch [Kenya] and Ruth Jebet [Bahrain]. Genevieve LaCaze finished back in 12th position, in a time of 9.26.25, with just the Canadian runner behind her.
Women’s 200 metre final
This Final concluded the day’s program, and featured 8 starters. A top field including the defending champion, Dafne Schippers, and the Olympic champion,the US’s Deejay Stevens. The world record for the distance is 21.34 secs.
Dafne Schippers of the Nederlands, retained her title, winning the race in 22.05 secs, from the unlucky Maree-Josee Ta Lou [of the Ivory Coast, who picked second close finish to a Gold medal this week], her time was 22.08 secs, while thirds place went to Shaunea Miller-Uibo [Bahamas] in 22.15 secs. And as the British commentators bemoaned, it was ‘another 4th placing’ for a British athlete for Dina Asher-Smith.
So that leaves us with two days of competition.
Day Nine, Saturday, 11th August
On this penultimate of the Championships – a sunny day with a very healthy weekend crowd in attendance, we would witness more ‘scripts’ go astray, a former ‘winner’ resurrect herself with a brilliant victory, and Great Britain achieve greatness in a relay.
For today’s events, I’m not going to report along the lines of the normal daily chronological sequence of the program, which was again divided into a morning and evening session, but instead go first to the event that brought this Australian scribe the most pleasure and emotion of the week, shortly after 5am, on Sunday morning, my time.
The Women’s 100 Metres Hurdles Final
This event was one of a number of finals that ended Day 9, and featured Australia’s Sally Pearson, whose story is briefly summarised below, in the ABC report following the race. The World record of 12.20 secs was held by Kendra Harrison [USA], one of the 8 finalists in race. The field also included the Rio Olympic Silver medallist, Nia Ali [USA], and Holland’s Nadine Visser [who finished 7th in the Heptathlon early in the week.
As with her semi-final run, Sally, when introduced to the capacity crowd, ‘responded’ with just a weak smile, having come out to the track looking extremely concentrated, and serious [her usual pre-race demeanour].
Once again, as we waited for the starter’s pistol to send the eight girls on their way,. I would be mesmerised by the complete and utter silence in the stadium [more evident I think with the sprint events], but certainly evidence of total respect for the competitors.
The Final was over in 12.59 seconds – and the girl over the line first her resurrection complete – was Australia’s Sally Pearson. I’ll allow the ABC online reporter to briefly tell the story of Sally and her race..
From ABC news this morning [Sunday] – Sally Pearson has capped an extraordinary comeback from injury by winning gold in the 100m hurdles at the world athletics championships in London. Competing at her first major global championship since 2013 and having overcome serious wrist, hamstring and achilles injuries, the Australian powered away from the field to win in 12.59 seconds. “That was bloody hard,” an emotional Pearson said shortly after crossing the finish line. “I’ve worked so hard, I don’t know what has just happened out there. “I’m so tired but I’m sure it will sink in soon. “It’s been a long journey back from injury, but to get this moment and go and celebrate in front of my family is unreal. “My husband is in the crowd there somewhere, I’ll try and find him and give him a hug soon. “This is just so incredible, to be a world champion again.” Her long-time rival Dawn Harper-Nelson from the United States was second in 12.63 and Germany’s Pamela Dutkiewicz claimed the bronze in 12.72. World record holder Kendra Harrison from the US finished out of the medals in fourth place.
It was a third major 100m hurdles title for Pearson, who had previously won gold at the 2011 world championships in Daegu and the 2012 London Olympics. The 30-year-old joined 400m runner Cathy Freeman and 400m hurdler Jana Pittman as the only Australians to have won two world track and field titles.
Her next challenge will be winning a third successive Commonwealth title on home soil on the Gold Coast next year. After injury denied Pearson of the opportunity to defend her Olympic title last year in Rio, she decided to coach herself. It proved to be masterstroke. She became the favourite for the world title when she clocked the fastest semi-final time of 12.53 on Friday evening and carried that dominance into the final.
So there you have it – a moment, not just an emotional one for the winner herself, but also for this viewer and writer, and a popular win in the stadium at London where Sally’s rivals included four world-class Americans.
And later – it was wonderful to hear for the only time this week, to hear the Australian National Anthem played in the London stadium – it has been a lean week despite of personal outstanding performances.
Women’s High Jump Final
In the hour before the Hurdles final, a very entertaining Women’s High Jump final was in progress, and while there were no Australians in the field of 12 finalists, I thoroughly enjoyed the almost full coverage of the evenrt, with competitors including the Olympic champion [Ruth Beitia], the defending World champion [Airine Palsyte], the world youth champion of 2015 [Michaela Hruba], the Olympic silver medalist [Mirula Demireva], a junior US champion [Vashti Cunningham], and a representative of the Authorised Neutral Athletes team [of 19 Russians], Maria Lasitskene who had achieved the 5th highest jump in history of 2.06 metres.
With the height bar starting at 1.84 metres, that height would not be reached today, but the winning jump was not far behind, after nine of the contestants had gradually being eliminated from the event, we had a tense battle between Lasitskene, nthe Ukraine’s Levchenko and Poland’s Cicwinko.
The High Jump was eventually won by Maria Lasitskene [ANA] with a leap of 2.03 metres – she did make three attempts at 2.08 metres after victory was assured but was unsuccessful on each occasion. Second place went to Yuliia Levchenko [Ukraine] 2.01 metres, followed by Kamila Cicwinko [Poland] 1.99 metres. The 4th to 6th placings achieved 1.95 metres, 7th to 11th, 1.92 metres, while the first competitor to go out was the Olympia champion, Ruth Beitia [Spain] jumping only 1.88 metres.
As the winner was not officially representing Russia, the Anthem for that nation could not be placed – instead we had a short but inspiring piece of Russian classical music [which this classical music lover must admit to not actually recognising].
Men’s Decathlon Final: Disciplines 6-10 [110 m Hurdles; Discus; Pole Vault; Javelin; and, the 1500 metres run.
We left yesterday’s Decathlon events, with the three leading competitors being Kevin Mayer [4478 pts], Kai Kazmirek [4421], and Rico Freimuth [4347 pts], with Australia’s Cedric Duble 18th position [4070 points]. There were 27 athletes of the original 35 left at that point – by the time we got to the 1500 final event, there would be just 20 Decathlon athletes remaining in the competition.
The 6th discipline today was the 110 metre Hurdles – consisting of four laps which resulted in wins for Janek Oiglane [Estonia] in 14.56 [906 pts] ; Pau Tonnesen [Francwe] 14.57 [902 pts]; Jorge Urena [Spain] 14.15 [955 pts]; and Damian Warner [Canada] 13.63 [1023 pts]. Cedric Dubler ran in Heat 3 where he finished 6th in 14.92 secs, earning him 859 points.. Leaders after 6 events were Kevin Mayer [France]: 5485 pts; Rico Freimuth [Germany] 5377; and Damien Warner [Canada] 5370, while Cedric Dubler was sitting in 18th position with 4929 pts. As a rough estimate, each additional gain of half a second is worth approximately 65 points.
The Discus event was divided into two groups. The topthree performances in this vent were Rico Freimuth [Germany], with a best throw of 51.17 metres [895 pts]; followed by Oleksiy Kasyanov [Ukraine] with 48.79 [845 pts], and Martin Roe [Norway] with 48.24 [834 pts]. Cedric Dubler finished in 19th position with a throw of 40.85 metres [worth 682 pts].
The leaders after 7 events – 1. Kevin Mayer [6296 pts]. 2. Rico Freimuth [6272 pts]. 3. Oleksiy Kasyanov [6095 pts], while Cedric Dubler fell back to 20th position with 5611 pts.
The Pole Vault discipline would prove more difficult for some, with by this stage, at the end of which we would see the field reduced to 23 competitors. Undertaken in two groups, Cedric Dubler finished in 6th position in Group A, with a best vault of 4.90 metres – overall in the event, he finished in 9th position, earning 890 points. The three leading pole vaulters were Pau Tonnesen [Spain] 5.40 metres [1035 pts], followed by Zach Ziemek [USA] 5.10 [941 pts], and Janek Oiglane [Estonia ] 5.10 [941 pts].
The leaders after eight events – 1. Kevin Mayer [7237 pts]. 2. Rico Freimuth [7121 pts]. 3. Kai Kazmirek [Germany] on 7021 pts. Cedric Dubler improved his position to 15th position with 6491 pts.
The Javelin throw, the penultimate event in the Decathlon competition followed. This was obviouslky not Cedric’s strong event – he finished down in 20th position with a throw of 52.10 metres [earning him 620 pts]. The three leading Javelin throws came from Janek Oiglane [Estonia] 71.73 [916 pts]; Adam Sebastian Helcelet [Cze] 71.56 [913 pts] and Ashley Bryant [GBR] with 67.97 [858 pts].
The leaders after nine events – 1. Kevin Mayer [8067 pts]. 2. Rico Freimuth [7894 pts]. 3. Kai Kazmirek [7796]. . Cedric Dubler’s position continues to move up and down – now in 19th spot on 7111 pts.
At this stage, we now have just 23 competitors in the competition, but by the start of the final event, that number had been reduced to 20 men.
The Decathlon 1500 metres final. This event would normally be divided into two or more heats, however, it was decided to run all remaining competitors in the one race. Essentially, Kevin Mayer simply needed to complete the race in retain his lead in the event based on the various 1500 metre capabilities of those nearest to him on the leader’s board. In terms of 1500 metres, it was a very mundane and slowly run race, with the exception perhaps of the Japanese winner, who would finish almost 4 seconds ahead of anyone else who was no challenge to the event leaders because of his overall position near the tail of the board. The result of that race saw Akihiko Nakamura [Japan] win in 4.22.62 [794 pts], ahead of Jorge Urena [Spain] 4.26.46 [768 pts] and Ashley Bryant [GBR] 4.27.15 [763 pts]. Kevin Mayer earned 701 pts for his 8th position, sand Rico Freimuth, 641 pts [17th in the race]. Cedric Dubler finished in 19th position, earning 617 pts for his time of 4.50.31, with only one runner behind him – with half a lap to go, Cedric was to be seen looking behind him to make there was at least one other who would come in after he did, having been near the rear of the field for much of the race.
Decathlon Final results – 20 competitors completed the 10 discipline program, with the predicted winner from early in the competition being Kevin Mayer [France] on 8768 points, followed by Rico Freimuth [Germany] on 8564 pts, and Kai Kazmirek [Germany] on 8488 pts. The Brits Ashley Bryant finished in 11th position on 8049 pts, while Australia’s Cedric Dubler finished 18th on 7728 pts. There were a total of 20 competitors completed the 10 discipline event..
The Men’s Javelin Final would be the last field event for the day.
The usual 12 finalists going for the medals, with 8 of those men progressing to the final round.
The three medal winners were Johannes Vetter [Germany] winning Gold with a best throw of 89.89 metres, which was in fact his 1st attempt, of 6 throws. The Silver went to Jakub Vadlejch [Cze] with a best throw of 89.73 metres, while the Bronze was collected by Petr Frydrych [Cze] with 88.32 metres. Australia’s Hamish Peacock, who narrowly missed the final, finished in 14th position overall, with a throw of 82.46 metres.
The Men’s 5000 Metres Final – eagerly looked to, another swansong for the great Mo Farah, winner of the 10,000 and expected to complete the double today. However, as with other ‘scripts’ throughout the week, something turned out differently. Farah was actually going for four championships in a row, in this final of around 12 ½ laps, with 14 starters lining up. The 5,000 metres world record stands at 12.37.35. One of those finalist was Australia’s Patrick Tiernan – he had run a very disappointing and out of character race in the 10,000 metres, but showed vast improvement and commitment in the heat of this event. We’d not see this race in its entirety due to the ongoing coverage of the closing stages of the Women’s High Jump, and the Men’s Javelin.
Unusually, Mo Farah went up towards the front of the field early, and would stay around that area for the bulk of the race. Tiernan was 7th at the end of the 1st lap, then with 8 laps to go was in 8th position. With Mo in front after 6 minutes of the race, there seemed to be a lot of indecision, with no-one prepared to commit to take the field on
Eventually, the man who took that challenge was the Australian – we came back from the high jump, at the 3,000 metre mark, to find Tiernan in front of the field by about 10 metres, and he would retain that position for about 1200 metres, with Mo leading small of runners behind him. Sadly it was not expected that Patrick would be able to withstand the finishing speed of Mo and the other African runners – as a viewer, one just had a faint hope that he might be able to hold on. However, from the 800 metre mark, he has ‘done his dash’ and quickly seems to be swallowed by a number of runners. In the final lap, it is Mo against three Ethiopian runners, and the African born American, Chelimo, and as we come to 50 metres from the line, Farah appears to be struggling – will he get there with the line approaching far too quickly. Well, to the shock of the British crowd, the Ethiopian obviously hadn’t read the British script, and the GBR runner was beaten into 2nd place, by Muktar Edris, in a time of 13.32.79, well outside of the world record [not that Edris was concerned by that]. Mo Farah’s time was 13.33.32, while Chelimo of the USA took the Bronze medal, in 13.33.30, a very tight finish, with Mo just surviving for the Silver medal.
Meanwhile, Patrick Tiernan, after what I considered to have been a brave attempt to take on the field, dropped right back in that final lap, top finish in 11th position, in a time of 13.40.01, a commendable performance.
Like Usain Bolt, after his 100 metre loss, Mo Farah seem to get more of the crowd adulations following the race, but I guess they regarded him in the same way as the British commentators were speaking of him – as a living legend, certainly, though African born, and apparently living in the US these days, the British regarded him as theirs!! Fair enough.
And now to the relays!! Always a source of excitement, although unlike our swimmers, Australia seldom has much if any of a role in athletic relays these days!
Women’s 4 x 100 Metre Relays
The two Heats of this race were run during the morning session today. Australia did not have a representative team.
Heat 1 was won by the USA [41.84 secs] from Great Britain & NI, Switzerland and the Netherlands [those four teams qualified for the Final] – the losers in the heat were France, Ghana, and Ecuador with Nigeria not finishing..
Heat 2 was won by Germany [42.34secs] ahead of Jamaica, Brazil, and Trinidad & Tobago. Ukraine and Kazakhstan did not qualify, China was disqualified, and the Bahamas failed to finish.
The Final was held at the end of the evening session – The Gold Medal went to the team from USA in 41.82 secs [Aatiyah Brown, Allyson Felix, Morotake Akinosun, and Torie Bowie] ahead of Great Britain [42.12] and Jamaica [42.19]. Other teams in order were Germany, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, Brazil and the Nederlands.
Men’s 4 x 100 Metre Relays
Australia had a team of runners in this event, again run with two heats in the morning, and the final at the end of the evening program,
Heat 1 was won by the USA [37.70], ahead of Great Britain & NI, Japan and Turkey [those four teams going through to the final] while out of the action were Trinidad & Tobago, Netherlands, Australia and Barbados. The Aussies finished in 7th position, in 38.88 secs, their four runners being Trae Williams, Tom Gamble, Nicholas Andrews and Rohan Browning, their appearance at the Championships being rather short lived.
The final of the Men’s event – to say the least, another sensation. Jamaica went in as the world record holders, the team unbeaten in ten years, while Usain Bolt in his last ‘official’ race was going for his 12th world title. Although the Jamaican team had not had the success of past years at these championships, they were still [with Bolt at the helm] expected to win. Again, somebody didn’t read the script. Before the race, Bolt was performing his usual crowd entertaining antics, nothing unusual for his bubbling personality. In the final, all changes of the eight seemed to go okay, but as we came to the last leg, it was obvious that Jamaica, under Bolt in that last 100 metres, were going to struggle to beat the British and/or the Americans who were both running extremely well. Then disaster struck – soon after taking the baton from Yohan Blake, Bolt faltered, the stopped and fell to the track clutching his leg – the race was over for Jamaica, and a career for Usain Bolt.
And to the joy of the British crowd, it was a second Gold medal at the championships [finally, in their eyes] with the Great Britain & Northern Ireland team winning the event in 37.47 secs, ahead of USA [37.52] and Japan [38.04]. The GBR team consisted of Chijinda Wah, Adam Gemili, Daniel Talbot and Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, while the US team was made up of Mike Rodgers, Justin Gatlin, Jaylen Bacon and Christian Coleman. The other teams in finishing order were China, France, Canada, Turkey, while Jamaica did not complete the race. As Bolt seemed to be walking much better after the race, it seems his problem was largely one of cramp.
Women’s 4 x 400 Metre Relay Heats
Australia fielded a team in this event, competing in the first heat – Anneliese Rubie, Ella Connelly, Lauren Wells, and Morgan Mitchell. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to see this race, but the Australians failed to qualify for the final, finishing 0.43 of a second behind the 4th placed team.
Heat 1 saw victory go to the USA in 3.21.66, from Great Britain & NI, Botswana and France, while the other non-qualifying places were filled by Australia and Canada, while India and the Netherlands were disqualified.
Heat 2 was won by Jamaica in 3.24.64, from Nigeria, Germany and Poland [those teams qualified for the final], followed by Italy, Ukraine and South Africa, with the Bahamas team failing to finish.
The two 4 x 400 Meter Finals were scheduled to be the final two events on the championship program in the early hours of Monday morning, Australian time.
Day Ten, Sunday, 12th August
An early start today, with the entire morning, going into the afternoon devoted to the walking racesa
50 Kilometre Walk for Men and Women
We have two separate races, but taken place together, although the women would finish a considerable time behind the men. In the Men’s event, we had a starting field of 48 walkers, while for the Women’s event – which was the first running of the event, there was a very disappointing field of just seven walkers. The best of central London was opened up for the event, with some of the principal on the 2 kilometre route [of 25 laps each], included St. James Park Lake, Buckingham Palace, The Royal Park, Trafalgar Square, the Admiralty Arch, and other sites.
Men’s 50 Kms Walk. As I watched the start of this event, I soon realised that the Australian entrant, Jared Tallent was not included amongst the competitors, and yet he had been listed to compete. It seems I had missed the news of a few days ago, on the 9 August – Australia’s champion race walker and perennial medallist, Jared Tallent, had been forced to pull out of the world championships, with a hamstring strain. Australia’s performances [at that stage, a few days ago] had been underwhelming, so losing the Rio Olympic Silver Medallist from the 50 Km race walk was a setback to Australia’s limited medal hopes…”. That was certainly a disappointment, as he had always been a reliable and consistent competitor for Australia, and on numerous occasions had missed medals coming in behind Russian athletes who were later found to have cheated – in fact there were no Russian walkers in this race, because that area of their athletes program had proved to be extremely toxic, in respect to drug use.
In any case, today’s race would be dominated by the French holder of the world record for the vent, Yohan Diniz, who would go to the front very early in the race, and soon dominate it for most of the journey. Some of his time splits as the race progressed were 48 mins.47 secs at 11 kms; 1hr.8mins,.51 secs at 14 kms; moving at 8-9% faster than the rest of the field; at the 20 km point he was in front of the chasing pack by 2 mins, 10secs; a time of 1hr.48 mins.24 secs at 25 kms [the halfway mark], and so on. At the 2 hour point, he appeared to slow briefly, but after a kilometre or so, quickly picked up the pace again, with a lead of 3mins 7 secs at the 29 km mark. His 30 kms came up in 2.09.81, and at 37 kms, it was 2.39.10, not on world schedule, but nevertheless, still moving at a fast pace, while holding one red warning against him [incurred around the 25 km stage] for much of the distance up to then. Certainly, it was an aggressive walk by Diniz,
This question of disqualification was discussed on a number of occasions by the commentators, with reference to new technological advancements been made to improve the credibility of the sport, such as sensor pads and shoes, to constantly monitor walking styles and adherence to the rules, etc; there was even the proposal to introduce a sin bin system in preference to the straight out disqualification which at times seems severely. They made reference to an occasion I witnessed at the Sydney Stadium during the 2000 Olympics, when Australian walker Jane Saville, walked into the stadium, to potentially win the Gold medal, only to be disqualified as she came through the stadium tunnel, a moment I will never forget, watching her approach on the big screen!!
Anyway, at 46 kms, Diniz’s average km time was 4 mins 10 secs, and was leading his two nearest challengers [both Japanese] by 17 seconds, although they themselves were being challenged for one of the medals by a Ukranium walker who was at that stage the fastest walker on the road, apart from Diniz. But that challenge was negated in the last lap, as the Ukranian realised he could not catch the Japanese walkers. Meanwhile, Diniz goes into the 40th km at 3 hrs 25 mins 1 sec, by now certain of the Gold, and surviving the walk, in contrast to his Rio Olympic event, where he was severely affected by heatstroke, yet still managed to finish 8th before being hospitalised. Om this occasion however, there were no ‘hiccups’, and Diniz would go on to a convincing win, smiling as he did so, and draping the French flag around his neck over that last 100 metres or so.
Yohan Diniz won the Walk in a time of 3.33.12, which was the second fastest in history [behind his own world record], about 8 minutes ahead of the two Japanese walkers [Hirooki Arai and Kai Kobayashi, who had walked together for the bulk of the race, with Igor Glavan of the Ukraine next to finish, 23 seconds later.
Of the 48 actual starters, 33 would complete the course, 9 were disqualified, and another 6 did not complete the course.
Women’s 50 Kms Walk. As indicated above, just seven starters for this race, and before 10 kms had been covered, the field was reduced to just 6, with the disqualification of one of the three Americans [the former US record holder in the event, Erin Talcott. Another two of the women would not complete the course, because they were beyond the required time limit at the end.
After 25 kms, the time was 2.02.18 for the two leaders from Portugal and China, however the Portugese soon took the race on, and after three hours of walking, she had a 10 minute lead, which would eventually end up at around 3 minutes of the race. Inez Henriques [Portugal] commanded the second half of the race, with a powerful performance, and from a long way out, she was heading for a world record, even though women had not been walking this distance for very long [the original record was 4.08.26]. Henriques eventually won in the time of 4.05.56 [the first World Record of these championships], ahead of the two Chinese walkers – Hang Yin [4.08.58] and Shuqing Yin, a lap further behind in 4.20.49. America’s Kathleen Burnett was the only other to complete the race, in 4.21.51.
Women’s 20 Km Walk Final
This race was held over the same course as the 50 km races, and would have 61 starters, including three Australian girls – Claire Tallent [wife of Jared Tallent, who’d withdrawn from the 50 km walk due to injury], Beki Smith and Regan Lamble. Unfortunately, apart from some early ‘glances’ we would not see anything of our three girls throughout the race coverage, they simply got too far back, after beginning the race early in the second group behind the main pack, and then gradually drifting further and further behind. At around the 5 kms mark, Lamble appeared to be the best placed Australian but she soon disappeared. The appearance of the speed of the early group almost seemed as though they were jogging, rather than walking – it certainly is a fine line for judging purposes on that score alone!
At 32 minutes, there was a clear breakaway pack of 10 walkers, and as the race progressed, that number would gradually dwindle to 8, then 5, and finally a race between just four possible medallists. It was towards the end of the race that we saw a couple of the oft-repeating tragedies of the walking competition – a few kilometres from the finish, the Russian walker [representing the ANA, Afanseva] who had looked to be suffering under extreme duress for much of the race after being a part of the original leading group of 10, was disqualified some kilometres from the finish, and her distress was evident. But worse was to come. The leading quartet going into the last 2 km lap were two Chinese, a Mexican and an Italian walker, although the latter seemed the most likely to miss a medal. Both of the Chinese girls has one red card against [three cards meant disqualification]. With less than a km to go, a Chinese competitor received two more red cards, but she did not realise, nor was officially told initially – it was even possible, in a close finish, that she would cross the line first. As the quarter reached the last 200 metres, an official waved the disqualification flag at her – she either didn’t notice, or ignored him, and kept going – until another official step out in front of her, as she was about to enter the final 50 metres in a minor medal position. One can barely imagine the reaction that would have had on her [Xiuzhi Lyu], it can be a very cruel sport sometimes.
While all this was about to occur, that battle for the medals took place as the leaders lapped Australia’s Claire Tallent [almost the first sign we’d had of a former champion walker].
The race was eventually won by Jiayu Yang [China] in 1.26.18, one second ahead of Maria Guadalupe Gonzalez [Mexico] with Italy’s Antonella Palmisano a further 15 seconds back. The win for Yang would have been tempered a little as soon as she realised that her fellow Chinese competitor who had walked with her for almost the entire race, had been pulled out just before the finishing line.
Of the 60 starters in this race, 52 completed the course, 6 girls were disqualified, and 2 did not complete the race. The three Australians were placed as follows – Regan Lamble, 22nd, in 1.31.30; Beki Smith, 38th, in 1.35.31, and Claire Tallent, 43rd, in 1.37.05. The television had initially indicated that Regan had been disqualified, but that appears to have been incorrect. It should be noted, that Claire Tallent gave birth to her first son, less than three months ago, so to even have entered today’s race, was something of an achievement.
Men’s 20 Km Walk Final
This race followed on from the women’s event, but certainly as far as Australia was concerned, there was no television coverage of it, which I found disappointing, as we had Australian competitors in the race. They were Dane Bird-Smith and Rhydian Cowley. There were a total of 64 starters, of whom 58 would finish the race, 3 were disqualified, and 3 failed to complete the course.
From SBS online news, the following report of the race must suffice for now……..Australian Dane Bird-Smith was happy with a personal best, but not so much with the way the men’s 20km walk panned out at the world athletics championships. The 25-year-old stripped nine seconds off his PB, clocking one hour 19 minutes and 28 seconds on Sunday, which ended up being good enough for sixth spot in a race won by Colombian Eider Arevalo in 1:18:53. The minor medals went to Russian Sergei Shirobokov, competing in London as an affiliated athlete, and Brazil’s Caio Bonfim.
Having claimed a breakthrough bronze medal at last year’s Rio Olympics, Bird-Smith arrived in London confident of another podium finish. But it wasn’t to be. “I can’t be disappointed with sixth in a PB but it wasn’t the race I wanted to race and I am a bit disappointed in that,” said Bird-Smith, who received two cautions from the judges during the race on a hot, sunny day on The Mall in central London. “I had a lot more to give and I could have raced it better on my own, but I was influenced by what the other guys were doing around the track. “I just couldn’t find the rhythm and I was a target in that pack.”
Fellow Australian Rhydian Cowley was 56th in 1:30:40.
In fact looking at the final times of the top place-getters, Bird-Smith finished just 24 seconds behind the bronze medallist, and 35 seconds behind the Gold Medallist, so I think we can regard his performance as outstanding.
And so began the final session of the Championships, that would start and finish with a number of medal ceremonies, which included a number of British athletes, after a very lean week for the host nation. Meanwhile, the Championship mascot, which I think was a ‘hedgehog’ proved to be a very active and popular ‘character’ throughout the week, and seemed to be as well accepted by the athletes, as he [?] was by the large crowds each day.
The Men’s High Jump Final got this session underway, and proved to be quite entertaining – no Australians involved, but I enjoyed the competition nevertheless.
With 11 starters [the Chinese finalist, Wang Hu,. Having withdrawn from the event], the bar was set initially at 2.20 metres The field include former world champion, Bohdan Bondarenko [Ukraine], Britain’s former 2012 medal winner, Robert Grabarz, and Bryan McBride [2017 US champion]. All would manage to clear the opening level [eventually], but we saw four men go out at 2.25 metres, three at 2.29 metres, while the Bulgarian competitor [Ivanov] withdrew due to injury after his first attempt. One of the happiest men on course, was the Bronze Medallist, from Syria, Majd Eldin Ghazal – there was not much representation from his homeland, for obvious reasons, so he was obviously ecstatic to have reached that level.
The battle for Gold came down between the Russian competitor, Dail Lysenko [competing under the ANA banner], and Qatar’s brilliant high jumper, Mutaz Essa Barshim, who would eventually take the title with a final leap of 2.35 metres, with Lysenko on 2.32. Barshim did make three unsuccessful attempts at 2.40 metres, after the win had been secured.
Women’s Discus Final
Like yesterday’s Women’s Hurdles final, this would be one of the few events, that as an Australian supporter, one could get particularly excited about. The field of 12 discus throwers in the final included Australia’s Dani Stevens. Formerly Dani Samuels, she had won this event in 2009 in the Berlin championships. Writing the other day in Melbourne’s media, Scott Gullan said “Two months after a heart-breaking fourth at the Rio Olympic Games, the Australian discus champion decided she had to watch footage from the event. It confirmed what she thought had happened. ’I had a look at the footage and in the qualifying that was really, really tough, but you can kind of see it on my face, I was determined, you would have guessed that I was going to do it then. Then in the final, I was red in the face. You could see it on my face that I was throwing out of fear, not out of aggression or happiness and those things that work for me. I made it my mission this year not to throw out of fear of fouling or failing’. The new motto certainly worked in qualifying in London, where Stevens automatically qualified for the final with her first throw, an impressive 65.56m.”
Well, there was no evident fear today, despite the fact she was up against the holder of two Olympic titles, unbeaten in 2016 and red hot favourite, Sandra Perkovic of Croatia, whom nobody expected it would be possible to defeat. Dani Stevens legal throws were 64.23m, 65.46m, 66.82m, 66.59m, and 69.64m. Against that, the Croation champion had four recorded throws at 69.30m, 70.31m, 70.28m, and 69.81m. No other competitor came near to either Stevens or Perkovic, and Australia would gain only its second medal of these championships, a wonderful Silver to Dani Stevens, with the Gold of course going to Sandra Perkovic. The Bronze medal went to France’s Melina Robert-Michon, with a best throw of 66.21m. While we didn’t have our Anthem played, it was great to see an Australian on the medal rostrum.
Five more track events to complete the program – and once again, scripts would be thrown out the door, and some unexpected results thrown up.
Women’s 5000 Metres Final
There were 15 starters in this 12 ½ lap race, where the world record, set back in 2008 was 14.11.15.
The field included three Kenyans, three Ethiopans, three Americans, and two each from Great Britain and the Netherlands. The run-away winner of the 10,000 metres event a few days ago, Almaz Ayana, was anticipated as a likely winner, with her main opposition being Kenya’s Obiri, who had a child in 2015. The Brits big hope was the luckless Laura Muir who after a not very promising start, would finish strongly.
The race began at a painfully slow pace., where the runners appeared to be almost jogging [described by one of the commentators as ‘pathetic’]. Eventually, Ayana tires of this, and goes to the lead, but she is a reluctant pacemaker on this occasion, and there is no evident surging going on, except that the three Kenyans and three Ethiopians are dominating the leading group. At around the 1600 metres mark, Ayana appears intimidating as the gap widens with the rest of the field, with only Obiri willing to take up the challenge. They are 50-70 metres in front of the others, but one wonders if Obiri has got more in her legs – this is a real spectacle watching these two African runners, a brilliant exhibition of powerful distance running in what is now a ‘two-horse’ race. Ayare can’t shake Obiri off, who is stalking her constantly – gets in front of the little Ethiopian in the back straight on the last lap, but Ayana responds, and one anticipates that she will soon burst away from her ‘stalker’ – but suddenly, Obiri has hit the front, and while Ayana tries to respond, the former streaks away in the last 100 metres, burning Ayana off, literally thrashing the Ethiopian in that final 8o metres or so.
It is a wonderful effort by Kenya’s Hellen Onsando Obiri, to win in 14.34.86, ahead of the vanquished 10,000 winner, Almaz Ayana [14.40.35], with the European runner, Sifan Hassan [Netherlands] snatching the Bronze medal away from the next group of Africans, in 14.42.73. A courageous run by Britain’s Laura Muir saw her finish close up in 6th position, in 14.52.07.
Women’s 800 Metres Final
There were 8 finalists in this race, for which the existing world record was 1.53.28. The field included the sometime controversial South African runner, Caster Semenya, who has won 28 races t the 800 metre level, but it was felt might be suspect today as it was her 6th race in 10 days. The commentators made reference of the fact that Semenya still had her doubters, and they were never likely to be silenced. Her problems arose after winning the 2009 championships. From one of the Wikipedia sites, we read that “Following her victory at the world championships [in 2009], questions were raised about her sex. Having beaten her previous 800 m best by four seconds at the African Junior Championships just a month earlier, her quick improvements came under scrutiny. The combination of her rapid athletic progression and her appearance culminated in the IAAF asking her to take a sex verification test to ascertain whether she was female. The IAAF says it was “obliged to investigate” after she made improvements of 25 seconds at 1500 m and eight seconds at 800 m – “the sort of dramatic breakthroughs that usually arouse suspicion of drug use”. The sex test results were never published officially, however some results were leaked in the press and are widely discussed, resulting in claims about Semenya having an intersex trait.
Irrespective of that controversy, she lined up today with a strong field of 800 runners – including Niyonsaba [Burundi], Wanbui [Kenya], Chichocka [Poland], and the USA’s Ajee Wilson. At the end of the first lap, Semenya was sitting 5th behind the leading group headed by Niyonsaba – in fact that last 100 metres looked like it would be an all-out battle for the medals between up to five runners. But in the final straight, Semenya took over and powered to the front, and there was no chance of the others taking back the lead. She won in the time of 1.55.16, ahead of Francine Niyonsaba [Burundi] in 1.55.92, and Ajee Wilson [USA] in 1.56.65. The Brit in the field, Lynsey Sharp finished back in 8th in 1.58.98. Kenya’s Margaret Nyairera Wambui came in 4th position.
Men’s 1500 Metres Final
There were 12 finalists in this most prestigious race of all athletic championship, in which Australia, in past years has had much success, though not in recent times.
The world record was 3.26.00, and today’s field included three Kenyans who have shared the Gold and Silver in two of the past three championships. The three Kenyans would run together for much of the race, including the winner of the last three titles, Asbel Kiprop, and with 800 metres to go, they filled the first three spots and looked as though they would share the spoils. However in the closing 200 metres or so, challenges came from the competitors from Norway, Spain and the Czech Republic, and in the rush to the line, while his two fellow countrymen finished in the top two positions, Kiprop faded back into 8th position. A partial ‘coming together’ of the Norway and Spanish runner just prior to the line may have been cause for an appeal, but nothing came of it, so the Norwegian, Filip Ingebrigtsen, gained the Bronze medal in 3.34.53, behind Elijah Motonei Manangoi [Kenya] 3.33.61 and Timothy Cheruryot [Kenya] in 3.33.99. The 3rd Kenyan, Kiprop finished in 3.37.24.
Women’s 4 x 400 Metres Relay Final
Eight countries to compete in the second last event of the program, for which the existing world record is 3.15.17, achieved by the USSR back in 1988.
By the third leg of the relay, the USA team were well ahead, and easily dominating the field. There was another disaster for the Jamaican team, with their second runner breaking down soon after she started to run with a hamstring injury. Has been a very unsuccessful Championships for Jamaica, with only four medals won, including the Gold Medal in the sprint hurdle race.
The USA team [of Quanera Hayes, Allyson Felix, Shakima Winbly and Phyllis Francis] won easily in the time of 3.19.02, from Great Britain & NI [3.25.00], and Poland in third place [3.25.41]. The other teams followed in order of France, Nigeria, Germany, and Botswana, with Jamaica unable to complete the relay.
It’s interesting to note that America’s Allyson Felix has won 16 world championship medals, and yet she is not spoken off, nor received the broad fame of athletes such as Usain Bolt, or Mo Farah – for one reason or another, she had not received the real credit deserved from her successes, certainly on an international basis anyway.
Men’s 4 x 400 Metres Relay Final
This final to be completed by teams from France, Belgium, Cuba, Trinidad & Tobago, Spain, Poland, USA, and Great Britain & NI. The existing world record belongs to the USA, from 1993 of 2.54.29, and was not considered to be under any real threat. The USA have won this event on five previous occasions, and lost it a couple of times due to disqualification or baton mishaps, and went into this race as hot favourites.
At the end of the first leg, the US held a narrow lead, while at the end of laps 2 and 3, the US, Trinidad & Tobago and Great Britain had cleared away from the other teams, and they would not be caught in the final lap.
We saw a close finish, but once again, the script of the likely outcome was ignored by one of the US’s opponents, with a brilliant effort by the 4th Trinidad & Tobago runner, as he ran down the American, defeating the USA in the closing metres of the relay.
The final result saw Trinidad & Tobago first in 2.58.12, ahead of the USA [2.58.61], and Great Britain & NI [2.59.00. The medal winners were followed by Belgium, Spain, Cuba, Poland, and France. The members of the winning team were
The remark was made after the race by one of the English commentators that ‘USA have the quality of runners, but do they have the heart as a quartet?”, He was suggesting that Trinidad & Tobago had the heart, they were able to place pressure on the Americans proving it could be done. Perhaps a little harsh, but it was certainly good to see another nation win a prestige relay race.
Brief reflections
The host nation completed the competition with just the six medals – four in the relays, and two to Mo Farah – they had expected much more of their athletes. As for Australia – our team was described as the biggest team ever, with the worst result yet it has been noted that prior to these championships, Australia had won 21 medals since the Beijing Olympics of which 11 were shared between Jared Tallent and Sally Pearson – a fact that should set off alarm bells about the rest of the track and field team. A total of 62 went to London, and its planned to ensure the full quota of 90 athletes is entered for events at the Gold Coast in next year’s Commonwealth Games. We need to be looking for some successors to those two athletes, and certainly both Australia and Great Britain will be looking for more favourable results and outcomes next April, particularly in light of the absence of the big non-Commonwealth nations.
In the meantime, one of the final activities held at the London Stadium on Day 10, after the final set of medal ceremonies were conducted, was a special tribute ceremony held for Usain Bolt, described as the greatest sprinter in history. He gave the sport a huge boost, not necessarily as the saviour of athletics, but certainly a wonderful ambassador. Anyway, he completed a ‘lap of honour’, mainly in the form of a walk, but it was a much more sedate and contemplative Usain Bolt out on the track tonight – almost emotional scenes, he looked much more subdued than usual as he walked around to the applause of the crowd, as we brought down the curtain on a great track and field athlete. Bolt looked almost sad, I guess because the week had not turned out the way he had assumed it would as he’d planned and hoped for. He was certainly not as upbeat as he would have been had he won the 100 metres or relay, having got so used to winning, the whole show didn’t end the way he wanted to bow out. It was wondered whether his response to this week’s disappointments might encourage him to ‘come back’.
In my view, the ‘ambassador’ connotation is an accurate reflection of his influence on the sport and his attitude to the sporting public – something I feel that a couple of high profile Australian male tennis players could take serious heed of.
This has been an interesting project – aimed at compacting the overall week’s program into a consolidated summary, if not for the benefit of readers [though I hope what I’ve done is of value to interested readers] but for my own benefit and record. Like Sydney 2000, I would have loved to have offered my services as a volunteer at next April’s Commonwealth Games at the Gold Coast, in Queensland, but 17 years down the track, the energy levels to undertake such a role are sorely missing. I’m sure there will be another writing project undertaken.
[Bill Kirk – 13th August, 2017]
SUMMARY OF MEDAL RESULTS [including Australian participation]
MEN’S EVENTS
Men’s 10,000 Metres Final
1.Mo Farah [Great Britain]: 26.49.51
2.Joshua Cheptegie [Uganda]: 26.49.94
3.Paul Kipagatich [Kenya]: 26.50.60
22.Patrick Tiernan [Australia]: 29.23.72
Men’s 100 Metres Final
1.Justin Gatlin [USA]: 9.92
2.Christian Coleman [USA]: 9.94
3.Usain Bolt [Jamaica]: 9.95
4.Yohan Blake [Jamaica]: 9.99
5.Akani Simbine [RSA]: 10.01
6.Jimmy Vicaut [France]: 10.08
7.Recie Prescod [Germany]: 10.17
8.Bingtran Su [China]: 10.27
Men’s Discus Final
1.Andrius Gudzius [LTU]: 69.21
2.Daniel Stahl [Sweden]: 69.19
3.Mason Finlay [USA}: 68.03
21.Ben Harradine [Australia]: 60.95
- Mitchell Cooper [Australia]: 57.26
Men’s Long Jump Final
1.Luvo Manyonga [RSA] : 8.48
2.Jarrion Lawson [USA]: 8.44
3.Ruswahl Samaai [RSA]: 8.32
11.Fabrice Lapierre [Australia]: 7.91
14.Henry Frayne [Australia]: 7.88
Men’s Marathon Final
1..Geoffrey Kipkour Kirui [Kenya]: 2.08.27
- Tamirat Tola [Ethiopia]: 2.09.49
3.Alphonce Felix Simbu [Tanzania]: 2.09.51
45.Jack Colreavy [Australia]: 2.21.44
60.Brad Milosevic [Australia]: 2.25.14
DNF.Josh Harris [Australia]
Men’s Shot Put Final
1.Tomas Walsh [New Zealand]: 22.03
2.Joe Kovacs [USA]: 21.66
3.Stipe Zunic [Croatia]: 21.46
20.Damien Birkenhead [Australia]: 19.90
Men’s 110 Metres Hurdles Final
1.Omar McLeod [Jamaica] 13.04
2.Sergey Shubenkov [ANA] 13.14
3.Balazs Baji [Hungary] 13.28
27.Nicholas Hough [Australia] 13.61
Men’s Pole Vault Final
1.Sam Kendricks [USA] 5.95 metres
2.Piotr Lisek [Poland] 5.89
3.Renaud Lavillenie [France] 5.89
7.Kurtis Marschall {Australia] 5.65
Men’s 400 Metres Hurdle Final
1.Karsten Warholm [Norway] 48.35
2.Yasmani Copello [Turkey] 48.49
3.Kerron Clement [USA] 48.52
Men’s 3000 Metres Steeplechase Final
1.Conseslus Kipruto [Kenya] 8.14.12
2.Soufiane Elbakkali [Morocco] 8.14.49
3.Evan Jagger [USA] 8.15.53
40.Stewart McSweyn [Australia] 8.47.53
Men’s 800 Metres Final
1.Pierre-Ambroisse Bosse [France] 1.44.67
2.Adam Kszczot [Poland] 1.44.95
3.Kipyegon Bett [Kenya] 1.45.21
38.Peter Bol [Australia] 1.49.65
Men’s 400 Metres Final
1.Wayde Van Niekerk [South Africa] 43.98
2.Steven Gardiner [Bahamas] 44.41
3.Abdalelah Haroun [Qatar] 44.48
38.Steven Solomon [Australia] 46.27
.Men’s Triple Jump Final
1.Christian Taylor [USA] 17.68
2.Will Claye [USA] 17.63
3.Nelson Evora [Portugal] 17.19
Men’s 200 Metres Final
1.Ramil Guliyev [Turkey] 20.09
2.Wayde Van Niekerk [South Africa] 20.11
3.Jereem Richards [Trinidad & Tobago] 20.11
4.Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake [Great Britain] 20.24
5.Ameer Webb [USA] 20.26
6.Isaac Makwala [Botswana] 20.44
7.Abdiu Haken Sani Brown [Japan] 20.63
8.Isiah Young [USA] 20.64
Men’s Hammer Throw Final
1.Pawel Fajdek [Poland] 79.81
2.Valeriy Pronkin [ANA] 78.16
3.Wojciech Nowicki [Poland] 78.03
Men’s Decathlon Final
- Kevin Mayer [France] 8768 pts
- Rico Freimuth [Germany] 8564 pts
- Kai Kazmirek [Germany] 8488 pts
18.Cedric Dubler [Australia] 7728 pts
Men’s Javelin Final
1.Johannes Vetter [Germany] 89.89 metres
2.Jakub Vadlejch [Cze] 89.73
3.Petr Frydrych [Cze] 88.32
14.Hamish Peacock [Australia] 82.46
Men’s 5000 Metres Final
1.Muktar Edris [Ethiopia] 13.32.79
2.Mohamed Farah [GBR] 13.33.22
3.Paul Kipkemoi Chelimo [USA] 13.33.30
11.Patrick Tiernan [Australia] 13.40.01
20.Morgan McDonald [Australia] 13.30.73
24.Sam McEntee [Australia] 13.31.58
Men’s 4 x 100 Metre Relay Final
1.Great Britain & Northern Ireland 37.47
2.USA 37.52
3.Japan 38.04
4.China 38.34
5.France 38.48
6.Canada 38.59
7.Turkey 38.73
Dnf. .Jamaica
Men’s 50 Kilometre Walk Final
1.Yohan Diniz [France] 3.33.12
2.Hirooki Aria [Japan] 3.41.17
3.Kai Kobayashi [Japan] 3.41.19
Australia’s Jared Tallent withdrew from the event due to injury.
Men’s 20 kilometre Walk Final
1.Eider Arevalo [Colombia] 1.18.53
2.Sergei Shirobokov [ANA] 1.18.55
3.Caio Bonfim [Brazil] 1.19.04
6.Dane Bird-Smith [Australia] 1.19.28
56.Rhydian Cowley [Australia] 1.30.48
Men’s High Jump Final
1.Mutaz Essa Barshim [Qatar] 2.35
2.Damil Lysenko [ANA] 2.32
3.Majd Eddin Ghazal [Syria] 2.29
Men’s 1500 Metres Final
1.Elijah Motonei Manangoi [Kenya] 3.33.61
2.Timothy Cheruiyot [Kenya] 3.33.99
3.Filip Ingebrigtsen [Norway] 3.34.53
– Jordan Williamsz [Australia] 3.38.93
– Luke Matthews [Australia] 3.40.92
– Ryan Gregson [Australia] 3.43.28
Men’s 4 x 400 Metre Relay Final
1.Trinidad & Tobago 2.58.12
2.USA 2.58.61
3.Great Britain & NI 2.59.00
4.Belgium 3.00.04
5.Spain 3.00.65
6.Cuba 3.01.10
7.Poland 3.01.59
8.France 3.01.79
WOMEN’S EVENTS
Women’s 10,000 Metres Final
1.Almaz Ayara [Ethiopia]: 30.16.32
2.Tirunesh Dibaba [Ethiopia]: 31.02.69
3.Agnes Jebet Tirop [Kenya]: 31.03.50
22.Eloise Wellings [Australia]: 32.26.31
26.Madeleine Hills [Australia]: 32.48.57
Women’s Marathon Final
1.Rose Chelmo [Bahrain]: 2.27.11
2.Edna Ngeringwong Kiplagat [Kenya]: 2.27.18
3.Amy Cragg [USA]: 2.27.18
9.Jessica Trengove [Australia]: 2.28.59
20.Sinead Diver [Australia]: 2.33.26
24.Milly Clark [Australia]: 2.35.27
Women’s Pole Vault Final
1.Ekaterini Stefanidi [Greece]: 4.91
2.Sandi Morris [USA]: 4.75
3.Robeilys Peinada [Venezuela]: 4.65
3.Yarisley Silva [Cuba] 4.65……………………….Two Bronze medals awarde
15.Liz Parnov [Australia]: 4.35
Women’s Heptathlon Final Result
1.Nafissatov Thiam [Belgium]: 6,784 pts
2.Csarolin Schafer [Germany]: 6,676 pts
3.Anouk Vetter [Netherlands]: 6,636 pts
Women’s Hammer Throw Final
1.Anita Wlodarczyk [Poland] 77.90
2.Zheng Wang [China] 75.98
3.Malwina Kopron [Poland] 74.76
Women’s 100 Metres Final
1.Tori Bowie [USA]: 10.85
2.Marie-Josee Ta Lou [Ivory Coast]: 10.86
3.Dafne Schippers [Netherlands]: 10.96
4.Murielle Ahoure [Ivory Coast]: 10.98
5.Elaine Thompson [Jamaica]: 10.98
6.Michelle-Lee Ahyr [Trinidad & Tobago]: 11.01
7.Rosangela Santos [Brazil]: 11.06
8.Kelly-Ann Baptiste [Trinidad & Tobago]: 11.09
Women’s Triple Jump Final
1.Yulimar Rojas [Venezuela] 14.91
2Caterine Ibarguen [Colombia] 14.89
3.Olga Rypakova [Kazakhan] 14.77
Women’s 1500 Metres Final
1.Faith Chepngetich Kipyegon [Kenya] 4.02.59
2.Jennifer Simpson [USA] 4.02.76
3.Caster Semenya [RSA] 4.02.90
17.Zoe Buckman [Australia] 4.05.44
27.Georgia Griffith [Australia] 4.08.99
33.Linden Hall [Australia] 4.10.51
Women’s Javelin Throw Final
1.Barbora Spotakova [Czech Rep] 66.76 Metres
2.Lingwei LI [China] 66.25
3.Huihui LYU [China] 65.26
10.Kelsey-Lee Roberts [Australia] 60.76
25.Kathryn Mitchell [Australia] 57.42
Women’s Shot Put Final
1.Lijiao Gong [China] 19.94
2.Anita Marton [Hungary] 19.49
3.Michelle Carter [USA] 19.14
Women’s 400 Metres Final
1.Phyllis Francis [USA] 49.92
2.Salwa Eid Naser [Bahrain] 50.06
3.Allyson Felix [USA] 50.08.
Women’s 400 Metres Hurdles Final
1.Kori Carter [USA] 53.07
2.Dalilah Muhammad [USA] 53.50
3.Ristananna Tracey [Jamaica] 53.74
25.Lauren Wells [Australia] 56.49
Women’s Long Jump Final
1.Brittney Reese [USA] 7.02
2.Darya Klishina [ANA] 7.00
3.Tianna Bartoletta [USA] 6.97
6.Brooke Stratton [Australia] 6.67
22.Naa Anang [Australia] 6.27
Women’s 3000 Metres Steeplechase Final
1.Emma Coburn [USA] 9.02.58
2.Courtney Frerichs [USA] 9.03.77
3.Hyvin Kiyeng Jepkemoi [Kenya] 9.04.03
12.Genevieve LaCaze [Australia] 9.26.25
33.Victoria Mitchell [Australia] 10.00.04
Women’s 200 Metres Final
1.Dafne Schippers [Netherlands] 22.05
2.Marei-Josee Ta Lou [Ivory Coast] 22.08
3.Shaunae Miller-Uibo [Bahamas] 22.15
36.Riley Day [Australia] 23.77
43.Ella Nelson [Australia] 24.02
Women’s High Jump Final
1.Maria Lasitskene [Authorised Neutral Athletes] 2.03 metres
2.Yuliia Levchenko [Ukraine] 2.01
3.Kamila Cicwinko [Poland] 1.99
30.Nicola McDermott [no height]
Women’s 100 Metres Hurdles Final
1.Sally Pearson [Australia] 12.59 secs
2.Dawn Harper Nelson [USA] 12.63
3.Pamela Dutkiewicz [Germany] 12.72
4.Kendra Harrison [USA] 12.74
5.Christina Manning [USA] 12.74
6.Alina Talay [Belarus] 12.81
7.Nadine Visser [Ned] 12.83
8.Nia Ali [USA] 13.04
21.Michelle Jenneke [Australia] 13.25
Women’s 4 x 100 Metre Relay Final
1.USA 41.82
2.Great Britain & NI 42.12
3.Jamaica 42.19
4.Germany 42.36
5.Switzerland 42.51
6.Trinidad & Tobago 42.62
7.Brazil 42.63
8.Netherlands 43.07
Women’s 50 Kilometre Walk Final
1.Inez Heniques [Portugal] 4.05.56 [World Record]
2.Hang Yin [China] 4.08.58
3.Shuqing Yang [China] 4.20.49
Women’s 20 Kilometre Walk Final
1.Jiayu Yang [China] 1.26.18
2.Maria Guadalupe Gonzalez [Mexico] 1.26.19
3.Antonella Palmisano [Italy] 1.26.36
22.Regan Lamble [Australia] 1.31.30
38.Beki Smith [Australia] 1.35.31
43.Claire Tallent [Australia] 1.37.05
Women’s Discus Final
1.Sandra Perkovic [Croatia] 70.31
2.Dani Stevens [Australia] 69.64
3.Melina Robert-Michon [France] 66.21
27.Taryn Gollshewsky [Australia] 54.29
Women’s 5000 Metres Final
1.Hellen Onsando Obiri [Kenya] 14.34.86
2.Almsaz Ayana [Ethiopia] 14.40.35
3.Sifan Hassan [Netherlands] 14.42.73
19.Madeline Hills [Australia] 15.13.77
27.Eloise Wellings [Australia] 15.25.92
29.Heidi See [Australia] 15.38.86
Women’s 800 Metres Final
1.Caster Semenya [South Africa] 1.55.16
2.Francine Niyonsaba [Burundi] 1.55.92
3.Ajee Wilson [USA] 1.56.65
28.Brittany McGovern [Australia] 2.02.25
38.Georgia Griffith [Australia] 2.03.54
41.Lora Storey {Australia] 2.07.17
Women’s 4 x 400 Metres Relay Final
1.USA 3.19.02
2.Great Britain & NI 3.25.00
3.Poland 3.25.41
4.France 3.26.56
5.Nigeria 3.26.72
6.Germany 3.27.45
7.Botswana 3.28.00
DNF Jamaica
-Australia [5th in heat] 3.28.02
| Position | Nation | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE | TOTAL | |
| 1 | United States of America | 10 | 11 | 9 | 30 | |
| 2 | Kenya | 5 | 2 | 4 | 11 | |
| 3 | Republic of South Africa | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 | |
| 4 | France | 3 | 0 | 2 | 5 | |
| 5 | China | 2 | 3 | 2 | 7 | |
| 6 | Great Britain & Northern Ireland | 2 | 3 | 1 | 6 | |
| 7 | Ethiopia | 2 | 3 | 0 | 5 | |
| 8 | Poland | 2 | 2 | 4 | 8 | |
| 9 | Authorised Neutral Athletes [ANA] | 1 | 5 | 0 | 6 | |
| 10 | Germany | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | |
| 11 | Bahrain | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| 12 | Czech Republic | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | |
| 13 | Australia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 15 | Colombia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 14 | Turkey | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | |
| 16 | Jamaica | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | |
| 17 | Netherlands | 1 | 0 | 3 | 4 | |
| 18 | Croatia | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 19 | Norway | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 20 | Portugal | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 21 | Qatar | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 22 | Trinidad & Tobago | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 23 | Venezuela | 1 | 0 | 1 | 2 | |
| 24 | Belgium | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 25 | Greece | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 26 | Lithuania | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 27 | New Zealand | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | |
| 28 | Japan | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | |
| 29 | Ivory Coast | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | |
| 30 | Hungary | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 31 | Bahamas | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 32 | Burundi | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 33 | Mexico | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 34 | Morocco | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 35 | Sweden | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 36 | Uganda | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 37 | Ukraine | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | |
| 37 | Brazil | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 38 | Cuba | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 39 | Italy | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 40 | Kazahkhan | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 41 | Syria | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 42 | Tanzania | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | |
| 48 | 48 | 49 | 145 | |||
| Note: two Bronze medals awarded in the Women’s Pole Vault Final | ||||||
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