Olympic Daily Dispatch Day 7: This Is Getting Ridiculous

If you’re not a big fan of Team USA, you must be thinking to yourself, “Okay, enough already!”

That’s because the American track and field contingent has gone on a historic medal tear that’s only gotten more impressive as the Paris Olympics have gone on. A few days ago, we were oohing and aahing over the U.S. picking up 5 medals in the space of an hour… and then last night, the athletes clad in red, white, and blue one-upped themselves, grabbing eight medals across four events.

Sure, you may have expected Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone to win the 400m hurdles in world-record fashion (more on that below). And you may have hoped — or even expected — Grant Holloway to fill the Olympic-gold sized gap in his cabinet with a 110m hurdles title. You probably didn’t envision a COVID-stricken Noah Lyles to be relegated to bronze in the 200m, but no matter — Team USA still picked up two medals in the event thanks to Lyles’s pulling through and Kenny Bednarek’s incredible reliability.

But a U.S. 1-2 in both the men’s 110m hurdles and women’s 400m hurdles was quite the surprise, as Daniel Roberts and Anna Cockrell picked a great time to step up and deliver even shinier hardware than expected. Cockrell especially impressed, joining the exclusive sub-52 second club (there are now four members) and beating world #2 Femke Bol head-to-head. And Tara Davis-Woodhall has been on one all year in the long jump, but she still had to dethrone Olympic champ Malaika Mihambo to get on top of the podium.

To round out the night, the incredible Jasmine Moore accomplished a feat only one other woman in Olympic history has — medalling in both the long jump and the triple jump. Moore now has two bronzes after only finishing 23rd in the triple jump in Tokyo.

We shouldn’t let Team USA’s dominance, however, distract from two other historic firsts from yesterday’s competition. Letsile Tebogo became the first African Olympic 200m champion at 21 years old in a phenomenal 19.46 run after missing the podium in the 100m, and Arshad Nadeem became Pakistan’s first Olympic champion in any track and field event. Nadeem’s winning throw, an amazing 92.97m haul, was over 3 meters longer than Neeraj Chopra’s second-place showing and moved him to #6 on the all-time list.

Yesterday, instead of Good Morning Track and Field, YouTube viewers got something even better: sit-downs with Paris Olympic medalists Cole Hocker, Yared Nuguse, and Valarie Allman. And the gang still sat down for the daily TORCH TALK podcast after the final events. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify for daily reports straight from the heart of the action.

What To Watch On Day 8

Tomorrow, we get the exciting conclusion to the women’s heptathlon, where there’s a heated battle on for gold and silver between Olympic champion Nafi Thiam and World champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson, as well as a heated battle for the last podium spot between American Anna Hall and Belgian Noor Vidts. Currently, Hall and Vidts are separated by only 5 points through 4 events, so it should be a thrilling finish.

Speaking of thrilling battles, the “Big Three” of the 400m hurdles are fighting for the medals once again with Rai Benjamin, Karsten Warholm, and Alison dos Santos all in the final. Kenyan Beatrice Chebet will try to execute the 5000m/10,000m double if triple-entrants Sifan Hassan and Gudaf Tsegay can’t stop her first.

There will be a new Olympic 400m champion crowned by the end of the day as Marileidy Paulino, Salwa Eid Naser, and more look to fill the void left by Shaunae Miller-Uibo. A wide-open men’s triple jump will be fascinating to watch play-out on the infield, as well as not-so-wide open 4×100m relays, where if all goes smoothly, Team USA is favored in both events.

You can find a full schedule and live results here.

Race of the Day: Men’s 200m

Now that all the flag-waving is out of the way, we have to reckon with the hard reality that Noah Lyles’s triple-gold campaign is over, his status on the relay is uncertain, and one of the biggest stars of the Paris Olympics has been sidelined by illness.

But let’s not let Lyles’s tough day distract from Letsile Tebogo’s incredible win. Tebogo looked phenomenal through all three rounds in the 200m, even after failing to win a second global medal in the 100m final, and his 19.46 winning time was also the fastest mark in the world this year. At 21 years old, Tebogo has shown incredible resilience and mental fortitude after losing his mother in May and his ability to perform under pressure is equal to Lyles’s at his best.

Silver medalist Kenny Bednarek also deserves his flowers. For the last four years, Bednarek has grappled with the unfortunate reality that he’s a generational talent surrounded by other generational talents — Bednarek is #10 on the all-time list over 200m but only #4 among active athletes. But the quiet, unassuming American gets the job done when it counts, clocking his third sub-19.7 of the year in the final and earning silver from the outside lane.

You’ve also gotta feel for someone like Liberian Joe Fahnbulleh, the former NCAA champ who’s been in every final since 2021 and, while he runs well, just keeps getting beat by historically-great performances. Fahnbulleh’s future is as bright as anyone else’s in the final, but considering that Lyles is the grandpa of the field at 27 years old, his competition isn’t going anywhere either.

Athlete of the Day: Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

What is there to say about Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone that hasn’t already been said?

For starters, although breaking the world record in the 400m hurdles is nothing new (this is her sixth time lowering the mark), no woman in history had ever successfully defended a 400m hurdle Olympic title. So add that to her already historically-impressive list.

McLaughlin-Levrone’s accomplishments aren’t just stellar at their peak; they’re consistently amazing. Sydney hasn’t lost any of the last 40 400m hurdles races she’s started, and she also has 6 of the 10 fastest marks ever run in addition to her spot at #1. She hasn’t lost a global championship event — open or relay — since her silver in 2019, when she was still a teenager.

What’s perhaps most amazing about McLaughlin-Levrone, however, is that it’s clear she hasn’t peaked. Her 400m hurdles victory was the fastest performance of all time, but it wasn’t flawless — she’ll be the first to say that. Often times, McLaughlin-Levrone’s biggest weakness is that she runs too fast for her hurdle pattern, and last night was no exception. She nearly stuttered the second hurdle because it came up quicker than expected as she raced Femke Bol out of the first turn, and she had to adjust her lead leg as a result.

A world record that comes with a “needs improvement” asterisk doesn’t happen to… well, almost anyone else. And it makes it all the more exciting for Sydney’s next big race to know the next big record is already within her reach.

Photo of the Day

No one is a bigger fan of long jump gold medalist Tara Davis-Woodhall than her husband, Paralympian Hunter Woodhall.

Social Moment of the Day

“These people don’t care about field events in Jamaica.”

After failing to advance out of the qualifying round in the Olympic shot put, Danniel Thomas-Dodd had some choice words for the Jamaican athletics federation and Olympic committee, expressing frustration that she and other field athletes were not able to get their coaches credentialed for the competition. As Thomas-Dodd notes, four of Jamaica’s five medals in Paris 2024 have come from field events.

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