Your World Championships hangover⏱

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The sun sets on WCH Oregon 22 🌅

And just like that, you wake up the day after the World Championships have concluded and everything’s back to normal.

For the past week and a half, my life’s felt like Groundhog’s Day — except each very similar day featured a different inspiring performance. If I’m this tired (and suffering from a minor existential crisis) afterward, having had no part in the competition, then the athletes must be an entirely other level of exhausted.

For a year, this moment in time was circled on their calendars with every thought and action building towards peak performance when it counts most. And now, whether their results met expectations or not, life pushes forward, and everybody’s gotta look to what’s next.

But how does one recalibrate after such soaring highs and heart-smashing lows? Personally, I’m already trying to contextualize the significance of what just took place — let’s start cementing Eugene22’s legacy before the dust even settles.

That starts with those who played a pivotal role in bringing the World Championships to Eugene. What began with a conversation almost a decade ago between Vin Lananna and Phil Knight actually came to fruition. The memories made will live on and the record books have been rewritten, but the true ripple effect of a domestic event of this scale may not be felt for years to come.

Perhaps this meet’s greatest impact will be on the kids who watched and have been inspired to begin their journeys to becoming the stars of tomorrow. It’s fun to think about which events will be won by athletes we haven’t even heard of yet at upcoming World Champs!

Maybe it will be a major corporation that sees a marketing opportunity in investing in the sport ahead of LA2028. An infusion of cash would sure help the sport grow.

Or maybe it’s the lessons learned about what can be improved by the stakeholders and decision-makers surrounding how to present the sport in an even more captivating manner. I’ve heard from friends watching at home that this was an especially fun meet to follow from afar — how can we do even better?

And worst case scenario — which isn’t a bad outcome! — is that the lasting impact of the first World Champs on American soil was capturing the attention of a few new fans who previously had no interest in track.

How do you measure the success of the World Championships? In sunsets? In medals? In TV ratings? In records? In tickets sold? (Editor’s note: any of these seem reasonable, except for sunsets. I don’t think we should measure success in those.)

From talking points floating around during the lead-up, it felt like the expectation was that when July 25th finally arrived, there would be a new generation of fans knocking down doors to fill stadiums. If that’s not the outcome, was it a failure? I don’t think so. Because fundamentally, the product on display was fantastic, and that’s the most important aspect of a championship. As it always should be, the athletes led the way — their performances will incrementally move the needle forward.

It’s a struggle to find the proper balance between criticism (or suggestions) and praise. Is it counterproductive or unhelpful to talk about the ways we can make things better? Or in doing so are we merely highlighting the sport’s weaknesses to an already bought-in audience that either doesn’t notice them or doesn’t care if they exist?

This tendency comes from a place of passion: because we love the sport so much, it feels wrong and shocking that others should not be sharing the same emotional experiences. Ultimately passion is contagious. And even if its manifestation here can be occasionally detrimental to the health of the sport, I think it’s still a worthwhile exercise.

Before my small bits of cynicism override any excitement, let me first focus on the magic of what I witnessed. All non-athletics fans should be made aware of the action, stories, and excellence that they missed out on. For ten days the greatest athletes in the world filled the dorms of a small college town to put on a show — and it was the best I have ever seen.

50 seconds of greatness 🤯

To make it a fair fight, Sydney McLaughlin’s hurdles should probably be raised a few inches, and realistically, let’s toss a couple of extra hurdles into her lane, for good measure.

Down the back straightaway, McLaughlin split 11.99 and the crowd was in such disbelief that someone next to me loudly proclaimed, ‘What is she doing!’ It felt like when an older, taller, more skilled sibling decides it’s time to stop being cute in a game of one-on-one after letting things stay close for a bit.

While it’s fun to speculate about what a closer race (from a yet-to-be-discovered, almost factory-built-to-hurdle 16-year-old at the next Olympics, perhaps?) might mean for further lowering the world record, it’s even more fun to sit back and watch the Syd Show unfold in real-time, and give in to the sense of awe felt by the whole world.

This record has been in the works for a long time. Remember when we were scratching our heads a couple of years ago as Sydney purposely ran indoor hurdle races with her ‘bad’ leg? The reason why was revealed here — she effortlessly switched legs off of an extended stride pattern. That level of talent and vision has essentially broken the event, not just the WR. To pick up the clumsy basketball analogy from earlier: Sydney dunked on… no, posterized every 400m hurdler in history. Her time of 50.68 is now such an outlier, that the only logical next step is to move to a new event and chase a different world record.

It helps put into perspective just how dominant this performance is when you consider her hurdle time would have placed 7th in the flat 400m final. Or that it was good for the 19th fastest flat 400m time of the year. She returned to anchor the winning 4x400 all by herself in 47.9 — the second fastest split ever behind only Allyson Felix. The current flat 400m record of 47.60 is largely considered one of the most untouchable, and also eyebrow-raising on the books. And am I wrong in suggesting that McLaughlin seems capable of taking it down?

As McLaughlin’s status as an international star has grown she is unquestionably the greatest 400m hurdler of all-time and this performance is certainly one of the most impressive the sport — and maybe any sport — has ever seen.

The next challenge is adding to the legacy.

5th race, best race 📈

The Olympic 1500m champion’s best event may not be as obvious as you’d think.

Earlier in the week, Jakob Ingebrigtsen was outkicked by Jake Wightman in what is largely being considered the greatest upset of the World Championships. The 1500 was not some tactical affair, either, that would maybe give the individual with a three-second faster 800m best (Jake) a slight advantage. With a winning time of 3:29, it is hard to argue against Wightman being the best 1500m runner in the world — at the very least on that day.

Fortunately for Jakob, his range allowed him to come back with a vengeance. Despite perhaps suffering from a slightly bruised ego, he skated effortlessly through the prelims and even took time to acknowledge the crowd while doing so. After that round, he demonstrated no concern over warm racing conditions and declared it “happy weather” to a crowd full of amused reporters. The final then played into his favor with temperatures around 90 degrees and half the track baking in the sun.

During the action, Ingebrigtsen baffled everyone at Hayward by treating the early stages of a World Championship 5000m final like your uncle might treat a local 5k while nursing a minor hangover. On two occasions he swung into the outside lanes to grab a cup of water.

At the time, this may have seemed worrying to Jakob fans, but as the race progressed it was a display of supreme confidence. In a field featuring the Olympic champion and WR holder, the Olympic 10000m Champion, and a pair of Kenyans with season’s best of 12:46, Jakob commanded the end of the race with a final lap of 53.9 seconds, putting enough room between himself and Jacob Krop to salute the Hayward faithful.

Jakob’s first world title came in the same place he first announced his presence on the international stage — back in 2017 he was just a 16-year-old kid who became the youngest person to ever break four minutes in the mile at the Pre Classic.

Did this week mark the unofficial passing of the torch from his place as a miler to becoming a 5000m runner? After all, he only ran 1:47 for an 800 a few days before running 3:46 for the mile. His strength is quite literally his strength, thanks to a healthy diet of threshold running and hills. But as the 1500 evolves and other athletes are ready to go sub-3:30 in championships, maybe running away in the 5000m is where his future lies.

In the mixed zone afterward, I asked him if there were any records, in particular, he was going to chase this summer — could it be the 1500, mile, or 5000?

“I am chasing everything,” he replied.

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 Make people think clocks are wrong ⏰

For a moment I blacked out — wait, what is a good 100m hurdle time again? When I came back, I remembered that the bar was previously set by Keni Harrison. The same Keni Harrison who had just finished second in the heat, and whose time of 12.20 in 2016 broke a world record that had stood for 28 years. Admittedly, my experience viewing Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan running 12.12 (+0.9) came via television because it was ‘just the semi-finals.’ (My plan was to go to the stadium shortly after, but now I have learned a valuable lesson.) But it still shook me to my core — and it basically shook the core of every other track fan alive.

It wasn’t only the time that sent shockwaves across the world, it was who did it. Amusan entered the championships with a personal best of 12.41. That was a good mark, and one that made her the fourth fastest woman in the world this year. So it’s understandable that if you suspected anyone was going to break barriers, it would have been the defending Olympic champion from Puerto Rico, Jasmine Camacho-Quinn, who had a wind-legal 12.26 to her name.

But in doing so, you likely forgot a crucial flashback that will definitely get included in whatever biopic gets made about Amusan’s life. It’s the 2017 NCAA Championships, and a UTEP-repping Amusan has just narrowly out-leaned then-Kentucky’s Camacho-Quinn to go 12.57… Now cut back to the starting line in Eugene!

What happens when a semi-final heat includes a WR, two other national records, two other personal bests, and three season’s bests? People question it. The clock malfunctioned, the wind gauge was wrong, her spikes were unfair, five hurdles were missing — everyone had a reason to discredit it.

Something Amusan is accustomed to as a 5’1” hurdler.

Despite the performance of her (or anyone’s!) lifetime and receiving a $100,000 bonus, there was only one way to silence the doubters and that was to do it again. As the old saying goes, you’re only as good as your second best time — so she did it again. Less than two hours later, Amusan ran 12.06 to win the World Championships. Although the wind read a non-record legal +2.5 m/s, it certainly validated her hours-old world record run.

The craziest part? Her start was kinda mediocre.

Here’s a thing or two about the 800

When Athing Mu made breaking the American record and winning the Olympic gold medal look easy, it was a foregone conclusion that the next ten years of her career would replicate that level of dominance. Because that’s always how things work, right?

Mu’s year began unceremoniously, with a DNF in the Wanamaker Mile with a lap left to run, which gave a rare glimpse into what middle distance running’s most envied strides looks like when beatable. Then in the spring, Mu was a late scratch from the Pre Classic due to Covid-related symptoms. At the US Championships, Ajee Wilson pushed her to the line and we saw grit and determination on Mu’s face like never before as she held off the late charge.

And we saw Mu face a legit challenge again in Eugene when fellow prodigious middle distance star Keely Hodgkinson tried taking advantage of a gap on the inside. But again, Mu responded

It should be appreciated when someone is talented enough that wins and records fall right into their lap. But this past month we saw a quality in Athing that we hadn’t really ever seen her have to tap into before — she can fight too.

On the men’s side, there is simply no Athing Mu right now. Yet going into the Championships, there were only three fellas that I could envision winning the men’s 800m: Max Burgin, because he’s been running fast, Bryce Hoppel, because he’s American, like me, or former NCAA champion Emmanuel Korir, because he is the best half-miler in the world. Once Burgin scratched and Hoppel was wrongfully not advanced after getting tripped up in his prelim, the race was no longer wide open.

With an opening 400m split of 52.29 — Korir continued to ride the coattails of Canada’s Marco Arop until he effortlessly pulled away from the field to negative split a final time of 1:43.71. With that victory, he joins a very short list of men who have won both the Olympic and World Championship 800m — the other guy? David Rudisha.

Mondo Du-i-land-dis?

Why do I continue to think more about Mondo Duplantis’s front flip celebration than his 6.21m clearance? Because I knew he could clear the latter, while the former came as a bit of a surprise. But every world record, even if by a centimeter, is worth a bonus and one helluva celebration.

The over/under for world records coming into the meet was unofficially 2.5, but how would you rank them? The World Athletics scoring tables give the nod to Mondo.

What’s a repechage heat?

I didn’t want to post a picture of someone failing to make the finals to summarize this section so here is a cool, unrelated photo by Johnny Zhang

There is no shame if you had to Google “repechage” when World Athletics dropped its latest press release with some new vocabulary. Upon learning its definition I regretted investing the time to scan the definition.

There are tentative plans beginning in Paris to add an additional qualifying round after the first for all events from 200 to 1500m. Rather than relying on time qualifiers to advance runners, there will be an additional round for athletes who did not receive a big Q to compete for the final few spots. Essentially, this is a play-in game.

Assuming the faster runners all qualify rather easily with a big Q, can you imagine a bigger disadvantage heading into the semi-final than having an additional race in your legs while also probably not being as good, even fresh? The most likely scenario is that the runners who are added to the semi-final via repechage round are then knocked out (again), rendering the entire process meaningless.

It is solving a problem that does not exist. We should be catering schedules and the presentation of the event towards the stars, not those who are struggling to finish in the top 24.

If there is one thing that our sport does not need, it is more races, especially races that I will embarrass myself mispronouncing repeatedly during post-race live podcast tapings.

Rapid Fire Highlights 🔥

• The Guardian Mile returned to the Hope Memorial Bridge in Cleveland and the defending champ, my friend and yours, Johnny Gregorek, ran 3:46 to win the damn thing. On the women’s side, Josette Norris took it home in 4:19.

• On the topic of great rustbelt road miles, at the Liberty Mile, it was all about cruising the streets of downtown Pittsburgh and no one did it better than Vincent Ciattei (4:03) and Nikki Hiltz (4:28).

• Heading north in our tour of the midwest, we visit the Riviera of Lake Michigan, where at the Ryan Shay Mile, Ben Flanagan ran 3:53 and Abby Kohut-Jackson went 4:26.

• The New York Times wrote about the value of the team sponsorship model to shoe companies.

• US Decathlon champion Garrett Scantling joins American 400m star Randolph Ross with a provisional suspension for tampering.

• Chattanooga and Orlando are two cities that have shown interest in hosting the 2024 US Olympic Marathon trials.

• Ethiopia’s Gudaf Tsegay followed her 1500m silver with a remarkable sub-60 final lap to out-sprint the field in the 5000m. Following the race, a fan with a Tigray flag ran onto the track to kiss her and Gidey’s feet and pick them up.

• Four years after setting an NCAA 400m record, Michael Norman returned to Eugene to win his first world title.

• Four-time Olympian and now World Championship silver medalist Kara Winger became the first American woman to win a global medal in the javelin. She is retiring after this season.

• The US women responded to the Jamaican 100m sweep with a 4x100 gold medal. And then the Canadian men responded to the American 100m sweep with a 4x100 gold of their own.

• Noah Lyles broke Michael Johnson’s American record running 19.31. Kenny Bednarek and Erriyon Knighton rounded out the medal stand for another American sweep.

• Jamaica’s Shericka Jackson ran 21.45 for the second fastest 200m ever.

• TV ratings were the highest they’ve been in 15 years for a World Championships — maybe track is back? The time slot doesn’t hurt.

Thank you so much to Correct Toes for sponsoring this week’s newsletter! I wore toe separators religiously during my athletic career and believe they kept my feet and lower legs healthy. If you’re suffering from post-Worlds depression, then I highly recommend checking out all the CITIUS coverage you may have missed.