Jonathan Liew's Blog, page 21
August 9, 2024
Nafi Thiam pushed to last drop of sweat by Katarina Johnson-Thompson
A classic clash between two giants of the heptathlon who deserve more recognition than they get from their most gruelling event
Nafi Thiam looks worried. Katarina Johnson-Thompson looks worried. It’s a little after 8.30pm and the final race of the heptathlon is about to start, but really these are largely incidental details. There is a pretty good chance that at any randomly chosen moment in their week, Thiam and Johnson-Thompson can be found mid‑frown, wearing the grave and harried expression of someone constantly fretting that they’ve left the front door unlocked.
Perhaps this is simply the heptathlete’s condition. There are never enough training hours in the day. There is always something that needs fixing, some injury niggle that won’t go away. The heptathlete cannot strut their way around the arena, strike a pose for the cameras, ease down towards the end of their heat. Every second, every fraction of that second, every last joule of energy in their body, needs to be directed towards those seven gruelling events, and the margins that decide them.
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August 8, 2024
Thierry Henry may have found second calling as he chases new golden goal | Jonathan Liew
Goalscoring legend has built the France team from scratch and they are 90 minutes from Olympic glory against Spain
It was Thierry Henry’s eldest daughter who ended his playing career. Téa was nine years old and one day in their New York home she tapped him and said: “You’re it.” Henry wanted to chase after her, but couldn’t. The pain in his left and right achilles was simply too acute and agonising. Henry, by then a largely totemic striker for the New York Red Bulls, retired soon after.
So there was an emotional moment at the end of France’s comeback win in the Olympic Games semi-final against Egypt in Lyon on Monday. As Jean-Philippe Mateta put France 2-1 up in extra time, Henry turned to the stands, spread both arms and gazed up at the stands in a reverential, almost religious, ecstasy. Afterwards, video emerged of Henry dancing jubilantly with his players in the tunnel.
Continue reading...Paris 2024 Olympics day 12: GB’s Hudson-Smith beaten by USA’s Quincy Hall in 400m final – as it happened
Quincy Hall of USA pipped Matthew Hudson-Smith of Great Britain to the men’s 400m gold, while Nina Kennedy of Australia won the women’s pole vault
But the Australian track cycling team are ready to make their mark after a few olympiads in the wilderness.
The Australians are no longer underdogs. That changed over two quick-fire evenings at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome. On Monday, the Australian squad of Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien, surprised the field to qualify fastest, in a time of 3:42.958 – barely a second away from the world record. Just 24 hours later, in Australia’s first round encounter with Italy, the team not only set a new world record, but smashed the old one – finishing in a time of 3:40.730.
It has been five years since Australia were world champions in the men’s team pursuit. It has been two decades since the Australians were last Olympic gold medallists in the discipline, at Athens 2004.
In a one-sided final, Great Britain’s sprint trio of Jack Carlin, Hamish Turnbull and Ed Lowe, were valiant but powerless, as Lavreysen and teammates, Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg led almost from the first bend.
As the Dutch, having already broken the world record earlier in the competition, sped to a world-record time of 40.949sec, Carlin, Turnbull and Lowe could only look on as Lavreysen and his two teammates raised their arms in celebration.
Continue reading...August 7, 2024
Paris 2024 Olympics day 12: track cycling records fall, skateboarding, golf and athletics – live
But the Australian track cycling team are ready to make their mark after a few olympiads in the wilderness.
The Australians are no longer underdogs. That changed over two quick-fire evenings at the Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines Velodrome. On Monday, the Australian squad of Oliver Bleddyn, Sam Welsford, Conor Leahy and Kelland O’Brien, surprised the field to qualify fastest, in a time of 3:42.958 – barely a second away from the world record. Just 24 hours later, in Australia’s first round encounter with Italy, the team not only set a new world record, but smashed the old one – finishing in a time of 3:40.730.
It has been five years since Australia were world champions in the men’s team pursuit. It has been two decades since the Australians were last Olympic gold medallists in the discipline, at Athens 2004.
In a one-sided final, Great Britain’s sprint trio of Jack Carlin, Hamish Turnbull and Ed Lowe, were valiant but powerless, as Lavreysen and teammates, Jeffrey Hoogland and Roy van den Berg led almost from the first bend.
As the Dutch, having already broken the world record earlier in the competition, sped to a world-record time of 40.949sec, Carlin, Turnbull and Lowe could only look on as Lavreysen and his two teammates raised their arms in celebration.
Continue reading...August 6, 2024
Hocker has last laugh after Kerr and Ingebrigtsen’s tiresome war of words | Jonathan Liew
You may have been led to believe that this 1500m final was a two-man showdown. We apologise for any confusion
A humble statement, on behalf of the media and the entire athletics establishment. In light of the surprising events at the Stade de France on Tuesday, we wish to make a few minor clarifying amendments to some of the coverage you may have seen over the last 12 months.
For example, when we described the Olympic men’s 1500m final as a head-to-head showdown between Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen we should of course have pointed out these two men would end up finishing second and fourth. When we thrust microphones in front of Kerr and Ingebrigtsen and asked them to take pot shots at each other, we in fact misspoke when we actually meant to be asking them both to trash talk Cole Hocker.
Continue reading...‘Fight until the end’: high jump gold medallist Mahuchikh’s call to Ukraine
Itinerant life since fleeing Russia’s invasion did not prevent Olympic victory in Paris
In between jumps, Yaroslava Mahuchikh returns to her bench, crawls under a sleeping bag she always brings with her into the arena, rests her head on her backpack and lets her eyes drift closed. She lets her thoughts wash over her. Sometimes, she opens her eyes and stares up at the night sky. In the cauldron of an Olympic final, among a crowd of 80,000: this, ironically, is the only place Mahuchikh can find peace.
She doesn’t actually fall asleep. “But I close my eyes,” Mahuchikh says. “I have a camping blanket that’s cool for any temperature. It can be hot or cold and it will be good. It’s my relaxation before jumps, trying to think only about jumps, noticing how I feel comfortable.”
Continue reading...August 5, 2024
Duplantis achieves new heights after pole vault world record adds to gold
Finally, Mondo Duplantis has the spotlight. The formalities on the track have been dispensed with, Keely Hodgkinson has won her gold medal, Noah Lyles has been awarded his, and for the first time this evening all eyes are on a 24-year-old from Sweden via Louisiana, the bar suspended 6.25m high and the still, warm air between them.
Duplantis has already won his gold medal, his second in a row. Nobody really cares about that part very much. He had to jump four times to win the competition, and it turns out it didn’t really need to do the first two, or the fourth. It’s a little like the bit at the end of Eurovision where the winner gets to play again, except the winner is The Beatles, and the winning song was Octopus’s Garden, and now they’re going to play the whole of Sgt Pepper as an encore.
Continue reading...August 4, 2024
Athletics has been searching for the new Bolt – Lyles has grabbed the baton | Jonathan Liew
The maverick American sprinter delivered on his fighting talk to win battle with Kishane Thompson in 100m final
Perhaps the greatest tribute you can pay to Noah Lyles is that he really is as good as he says he is. First comes the vision. Then comes the pledge, almost as if he is trying to speak the vision into reality. Finally the delivery, the nuts and screws of cashing the cheques his words have already written for him. And in about the time it takes you to read this paragraph, he becomes the Olympic 100m champion.
The new undisputed king of men’s sprinting is a kind of tortured genius, a manga and anime fan who likes painting his nails and his skateboards, who mentioned his therapist in his press conference, who understands better than most that the glory and the despair are basically two halves of a whole. Perhaps nothing captures this better than a final won by five-thousandths of a second, the breathtakingly cruel difference between Lyles and Kishane Thompson of Jamaica.
Continue reading...August 3, 2024
Katie Ledecky holds off Ariarne Titmus to win fourth Olympic 800m gold in row
Katie Ledecky lay flat on her back in the Olympic pool, pain still written on her face, trying to suck the air back into her lungs as fast as she could manage. The crowd were going wild on all four sides of the arena and yet for a few moments she simply stared at the roof, at the cameras and the scaffolding and the lights. For Ledecky, the pool has always been her freedom and her safety. It was as if she was enjoying one last moment of alone time.
Then, as smoothly as a tumble turn, she flipped upright, smiled into the galleries and waggled four fingers at the crowd. Until this point, only Michael Phelps had ever won four gold medals in the same event. The event that started it all, back in London when she was only 15 years old, when everyone was expecting a Rebecca Adlington coronation and nobody noticed the kid from Bethesda, Maryland, who would ultimately destroy them all.
Continue reading...Ornate chaos of Montmartre delivers pain and pleasure in men’s road race
Evenepoel claimed gold but the chance to see the best cyclists actually race – for free – is far from the only delight
Ticket to watch Simone Biles at the Arena Bercy: €648 (£550). Ticket to watch the men’s 100m final at the Stade de France: €980. Ticket to watch some of the world’s greatest cyclists racing around one of the world’s great monuments in one of the world’s great cities: gratuit. No QR codes. No searches. No private security sentinels checking your bag and asking you to drink your water to make sure it is, in fact, water.
Which is not to say that your admission to the men’s cycling road race on the Butte Montmartre is going to be painless. For one thing, there are the hundreds of steps you will have to negotiate from Abbesses metro station, a physical trial that will have you reaching at frequent intervals for Jens Voigt’s favourite maxim (“shut up, legs”). Then there are the queues and the crowds, the countless extra minutes that Google Maps does not calculate. But – after a fashion – here you are, on the slopes of the Sacre-Coeur basilica, ready for a feast of pain and pleasure.
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