Woe, Canada!
by Mark Cullen
from Seattle
After a week in which:
Our genteel neighbors to the north spied on opponents of the Canadian women’s soccer team with drones;
Salt Lake City was simultaneously awarded the 2034 Winter Games and told to back off on holding the International Olympic Committee and WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) responsible for hiding positive test results of Chinese swimmers, some of whom are competing in Paris;
The men’s triathlon was postponed by a day because even 1.5 billion dollars couldn’t get the sewage ecoli count low enough to be safe on the competition’s scheduled day (would you have jumped into the Seine a day later when it was ruled safe?);
And worst of all, it took only three hours of Opening Ceremonies to turn every one of us into art experts and critics…
Wasn’t it time for the kids to take over?
Take over they did, and now it’s time for the track and field athletes to do their part in righting this Olympic ship, just as archers, gymnasts, BMXers, swimmers, and horses and their riders have done before them this week.
The men’s 20 kilometer walk led off the track and field portion of the 33rd Olympic Games. But not before a postponement due to thunder and lightning, which begs the question: would you rather be a racewalker or a triathlete?!
The humidity reached 90%, and even after only 27 minutes of racing, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s brilliant color commentator, Lisa Bentley, observed, “We’re starting to get a little bit of carnage.”
An hour into it, there was a pack of ten left at the lead, and Canada’s Evan Dunfee was 11th. With one lap to go, Massimo Stano of Italy was in what was now a pack of four contending for three medals.
Suddenly, Stano lurched upwards as if he had a cramp, but could not afford too many steps for working it out under the watchful eyes of the judges.
“The rules don’t change just because you got a cramp,” said Bentley. Stano would miss a medal by one second.
As he passed the one lap to go mark, Brian Pintado of Ecuador took off as if shot out of the proverbial cannon. He walked his last kilo in 3:31; that’s 10:33 pace for running the steeplechase. His winning time was 1:18:55, with Brazil’s Calo Bonfim 2nd in 1:19:09 and Spain’s Alvaro Martin 3rd in 1:19:11. Dunfee also had a brilliant finish and moved into 5th over the course of the final lap.
Pintado joined Jefferson Perez in Ecuador’s pantheon of great racewalkers. In a country in which this sport is wildly popular, Pintado need not ever buy dinner again.
China’s Yang Jiayu won the women’s 20k racewalk by a comfortable 25 seconds over Spain’s Maria Perez, 1:25:54 to 1:26:19; she sustained a margin throughout the race built on her early breakaway. Australia’s Jemima Montag set an Area Record of 1:26.25 in 3rd, while Lorena Alenas set a Colombian national record in 1:27:03.
Yang Jiayu of China
Tomorrow (Friday, 8/2), track and field ramps up with numerous preliminary qualifying rounds, and one final – the much anticipated men’s 10,000m.
Here’s the timetable:
https://worldathletics.org/competitions/olympic-games/paris24/timetable
You can adjust the timetable for your timezone. Interesting that World Athletics calls Friday Day 2. Those of us watching the walks before midnight on Wednesday coulda sworn that that was Day 1. Not in Paris!
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