The dominance of running sports came to the fore when Ryan Crouser’s historic Olympic victory was confirmed, writes Atte Husu from Stade de France.
Atte Husuurheilhu reporter
Paris Olympics on channels 26.7.–11.8. Go to the competition website here. You can find the entire program of the games here.
PARIS. Let’s name the track and field athletes who had won three consecutive Olympic gold medals in their individual sports before the Paris Games. The list is not long.
Ray Ewry (in place of long jump and high jump 1900–1908), John Flanagan (moukari 1900–1908), Al Oerter (ice hockey 1956–1968), Viktor Saneyev (triple leap 1968–1976), Carl Lewis (length 1984–1996), Robert Korzeniowski (50 kilometer walk 1996–2004), Usain Bolt (100 and 200 meters 2008–2016) and Anita Wlodarczyk (moukari 2012–2020).
When the US shot putter Ryan Crouser got his three straight on Saturday, in the name of athletic culture, the Parisian audience could have immediately shown their popularity by standing. Didn’t show.
In the arch of the stands near the shot put, only a few backs got off the bench – and even the majority of them were the work of the US supporters.
Throwing sports as second fiddlers
The status of the throwing sports among athletics people has been declining year by year, even though they – especially the men’s shot put – have produced even the best gold fights in the last games.
The position of the second violinist became shockingly clear in the middle of Crouser’s celebration. After the American sprinter had celebrated the back curve in front of the crowd for just under a minute, the crowd stood up to show their approval during the track presentation of the 4×400 meter medley relay.
The Summer Olympics have grown to new dimensions in the 21st century. New sports and forms of competition spring up like mushrooms in the rain. The 4×400 meter medley relay in athletics is an example of the latter, without which the sports family would do more than well.
It is a second-level competition in the true sense of the word. An example is the US team, which finished behind the Netherlands in silver, where not a single athlete cleared the Olympic qualification for their country in their bread sport. Their Olympic journey was realized only because none of the runners in the first category were interested in spending their energy on the number one filler sport of athletics.
In the following games, the situation is different
The behavior of the crowd underlined that the 31-year-old Crouser is one of the most underrated stars in athletics.
Al Oerter and Carl Lewis stand out among the three Olympic winners mentioned at the beginning, as their winning streak stretched to the length of four consecutive Olympic victories.
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Los Angeles, USA, which Crouser named right after the Paris final as the end point of his career.
If Crouser crowns his career in front of his home crowd by standing alongside Oerter and Lewis, it’s a certainty that not a single spectator at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be sitting when Crouser wins.