Usain Bolt makes his 9.92 clocking look easy in the 100m quarter finals (© Getty Images)
Day Two of the Athletics programme begins at 9 a.m. with the Men’s 20km Race Walk, with the winner expected to complete the course in about 1 hour, 20 minutes. That’s a long way to go in the intense Beijing sun, which made its first appearance of these Games on Friday.
Three Russian walkers lead the 2008 world list, but because of doping violations only one of them, 21-year-old Valeriy Borchin, is entered here. A late addition to the RUS team was 36-year-old Ilya Markov, who at age 24 won the silver medal in this event in Atlanta. Since comparative times can be deceptive, it is more sensible to look at the past records of today’s entrants.
All three medalists from the 2007 Worlds are here: in order, Jefferson Perez (ECU), Francisco Fernandez (ESP) and Hatem Ghoula (TUN), who staged a close finish in the hot muggy Osaka weather. Also present are 1-2-3 Olympic medalists from Athens: Ivano Brugnetti (ITA), Fernandez, and Nathan Deakes (AUS). And you can’t talk the walk without mentioning at least one Mexican, and the one who’s hottest right now is Eder Sanchez.
While they are out on the road, the morning session inside the Bird’s Nest will include qualifying competition in the women’s Shot Put, Pole Vault, 100 metres and 400 metres, and the men’s 3000-metre steeplechase and Discus Throw.
The women’s Heptathlon winds up today, starting with the Long Jump in the morning. After the first day, there appear to be seven women in the medal hunt. Hyleas Fountain of the U.S. has a 64-point lead over Natalia Dobrynska (UKR) 4060 points to 3996, but the next five women are all within 200 points of Fountain. Fountain may well increase her lead in the Long Jump (her PB is 6.88) but her Javelin is ordinary at 48.15, and she is vulnerable in the final event, the 800 metres. By the way, she pronounces her name as ‘High-LEESE’.
The big event of the day is definitely the men’s 100 metres final – and we won’t know for sure who will be in it until after the semi-finals early in the evening program. That means we’ll see THREE great 100s! Right now. Usain Bolt (JAM) looks like the man to beat; in his quarter-final he eased up in the final 40 metres and still ran 9.92!
Asafa Powell, Bolt’s fellow Jamaican, is hard to read. He has started well in both of Friday’s races, but then he slowed so drastically that one can’t really gauge his full-race potential. Tyson Gay, the 2007 World champion, was only the third fastest of the three American entrants in the quarter-finals, running 10.09 compared to Darvis Patton’s 10.04 and Walter Dix’s 10.08. Two others, both of whom ran 9.99 in the quarters, were Churandy Martina (AHO) and Richard Thompson (TRI).
The first two rounds of the women’s 100 metres will also be run today. Unlike the men’s 100, there is no Usain Bolt to threaten a runaway. Instead, it looks like a dual meeting between three Jamaicans and three Americans. All six have run 10.90 or better this year, and no other entrants have. The first two rounds should help us get an idea of who’s hot and who’s not in mid-August.
The other final tonight will be in the women’s Shot Put. Like the men on Friday, the women have to qualify in the morning and come back for the final 12 hours or so later. There are four leading contenders: 2005 World champion Nadezhda Ostapchuk and Natalia Mikhnevich, both from Belarus and 1-2 in the season list with 20.90 and 20.70 respectively; Valerie Vili (NZL), 2007 World champion, at 20.13; and Nadine Kleinert (GER), 2004 silver medalist, with a season’s best of 19.89.
There are two events which have semi-finals this evening: the women’s 800 metres and the men’s 400-metre hurdles. The women’s 800 semis are extra-tough: three races with the first two in each to qualify plus the next two fastest. They’re almost more exciting than the final, and I’m not kidding. This is racing at its finest, requiring a strategy which takes in the other races in your semi, the ability to execute the strategy, the flexibility to adapt to unexpected situations, AND sheer racing guts.
The 400-metre hurdles semis will be hot, too – buts with just two semis and four to qualify it’s a lot more relaxing for the runners. Judging from the heats, there is a real chance for U.S. sweep by Angelo Taylor, Kerron Clement and Bershawn Jackson.
James Dunaway for the IAAF
