Olympic Daily Dispatch Day 6: Daring to Dream

What do Kenneth Rooks taking the lead in the final lap of the steeplechase and Quincy Hall coming back from the depths of hell to win the 400m have in common?

Self-belief.

A few short months ago, neither scenario seemed like a realistic possibility. Rooks was already a U.S. champ with a strong close, but he didn’t even have the Olympic auto-qualifying mark of 8:15.00, let alone anything on his resume that suggested he could kick it with a couple sub-8 guys. Hall surprised many with his bronze medal in Budapest last summer, but he was only the 8th-fastest American heading into Trials — not even accounting for his international competition.

But Olympians don’t wake up on finals day convinced of their own greatness. They trust their training, their environment, their teammates, and their goals — even when the results don’t back them up. And by the time an Olympic medalist steps up onto the podium, they’re living through a scenario they’ve played out in their heads hundreds of times.

It takes guts to make the moves Hall and Rooks made — for Rooks, to claim the lead ahead of a field far more experienced and credentialed than him, and for Hall, to let the field get out ahead and trust his strength down the homestretch. And it takes a steely mentality and an unshakeable confidence to make the daring choice when the moment comes. But greatness doesn’t come without risk. And with risk brings reward.

Rooks’s Olympic silver in the steeplechase represents an incredible ascendence for a runner that even American collegiate fans did not know by name before last year. Another surprise medalist who popped on the world’s radar only recently is Olympic discus champion Rojé Stona, who set a whole bunch of firsts with his 70.00m winning throw: the first discus medal by a Jamaican, the first 70-meter throw in Olympic competition, and Jamaica’s first gold medal in any event this Games. And he did it by dethroning world record holder Mykolas Alekna and reigning World/Olympic champ Daniel Ståhl.

As we head toward the homestretch, our CITIUS MAG crew continues to offer top-tier reporting and banter from Paris with the GOOD MORNING TRACK AND FIELD crew featuring Eric Jenkins, Mitch Dyer, and Karen Leisewicz at 8:30 am E.T. each day and the TORCH TALK podcast after the final events wrap up featuring Katelyn Hutchison and our new favorite correspondent Aisha Praught-Leer. Make sure to subscribe on YouTube and Spotify for daily reports straight from the heart of the action.

What To Watch On Day 7

Cancel your Thursday meetings, everyone, because we’ve got a BANGER day of track and field on tap.

Noah Lyles goes for one of the few titles that’s eluded him in the last 5 years — Olympic gold in the men’s 200m. But he’ll have to go through Letsile Tebogo, Erriyon Knighton, and Kenny Bednarek to do it.

Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone will seek to defend her Olympic title in the 400m hurdes — and when McLaughlin-Levrone enters a championship scenario, world records tend to fall. She’ll hopefully have a strong challenge from Dutchwoman Femke Bol to push her to a historically fast time.

The infield will be busy as Tara Davis-Woodhall and Malaika Mihambo face off in the long jump final, Neeraj Chopra looks to defend his javelin title, and the first day of the heptathlon competition kicks off. On the outside, the women’s 1500m semifinals will set the stage for a historically deep final.

And the evening wraps up with the 110m hurdles with a USA vs. Jamaica showdown, as each nation has three entrants in the finals and Olympic champ Hansle Parchment battles World champ Grant Holloway.

You can find a full schedule and live results here.

Race of the Day: Men’s 400m

So much history was made in this final.

Quincy Hall and Matthew Hudson-Smith became 4th and 5th fastest 400 runners of all time with their 43.40 and 43.44 gold and silver finish. Hudson-Smith, representing Great Britain and Northern Ireland, also reset his own European record. Behind them, Musala Samukonga and Jereem Richards set their nations’ respective records, and Samukonga’s bronze medal for Zambia was the country’s first since 1996.

It was the first time more than three runners broke 44 seconds in the same race — and five did it in this one. Last year’s World champion or 2021’s Olympic champion would’ve finished 6th by time in this field. We’ve never seen so much depth in the quarter-mile — and somehow, all three medalists had never been on the Olympic podium before. Samukonga is also only 21 years old, so the future is very, very bright.

In addition to Hall’s incredible come-from-behind victory, we’ve got to give some serious kudos to veteran sprinter Kirani James, the 31-year-old Grenadan who won gold back in 2012 and is competing in his ninth global championship. In that time, he’s come up with six global medals in the 400m — three from the Olympics, and even though he came a few tenths short of a medal here, James still ran his fastest 400m in eight years. It’s a testament to his incredible longevity in a high-impact event that he’s still in the mix 13 years after his first World title.

Athlete of the Day: Soufiane El Bakkali

Speaking of guys who just keep showing up and getting the job done… Soufiane El Bakkali.

The Moroccan has medaled in the last six global championships in the steeplechase, and the last four have been gold. El Bakkali hasn’t lost a steeplechase championship since 2019 — in an event where falls are common and the combination of jumping and distance running is very hard on the body.

El Bakkali battled injuries earlier this year and didn’t look great in the first round of running. Frankly, he didn’t look great in the final either, but El Bakkali has an uncanny ability to dig deep and find an extra gear, even when it doesn’t look pretty and certainly doesn’t look easy.

There was an shade of disappointment to this final as El Bakkali’s chief rival, world record holder Lamecha Girma, went down hard over a barrier with 200 meters to go and had to be stretchered off the track. We’ve gotten accustomed to watching Girma and El Bakkali do battle, although the last three championships before this one ended predictably.

At 28 years old, El Bakkali has more than a decent shot to extend his streak another championship or two, but assuming Rooks continues his ascent and Girma gets back healthy, he’ll have to work for it once again. But until someone can prove otherwise, World Athletics might as well start pre-inscribing his name on the gold medals before the final even happens.

Photo of the Day

Nina Kennedy silenced the haters with a gold-medal 4.90 meter leap in the Olympic pole vault final.

Social Moment of the Day

Fred Kerley called it yesterday: not one, but TWO men in the 400m final broke 44 seconds and landed off the podium.

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