By the midway point things were not looking good. From the first 35 athletes in competition, 25 did not qualify from their opening heats, those that did producing a single top-eight placing in six finals, with another two did not finish in the heptathlon and 20km walk.
This being the opening show for German athletics at the World Championships in Eugene, Oregon, the once-upon-a-time superpower of the sport.
Remember the first championships in Helsinki in 1983, where former East Germany topped the medal table with 22 in all, including 10 gold, the former West Germany winning eight in all, including two gold. Combined that made for 30 medals, far above what the USA and the old Soviet Union could produce.
In Eugene over the past 10 days, Germany won just two medals, the well-fancied Malaika Mihambo winning the women’s long jump to go with her Olympic title won in Tokyo last summer, before the women’s 4x100m relay won bronze on the penultimate day, running a season best of 42.03 seconds.
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The times they are a changing. Germany is hosting next month’s European Athletics Championships in Munich, and some of their top athletes are targeting that, still the race for medals on the global stage is becoming increasingly tough.
Oregon drew just over 1,700 athletes from 179 countries, plus the Athlete Refugee Team, and by the end of Sunday’s last session the record for the number of countries winning gold medals at one championship was broken: 29 countries won gold, compared with 26 in 2017. In all 45 countries won a medal of some colour.
Better still perhaps more countries than before had athletes reach the finals: the list of 81 countries is up from 76 in Doha in 2019, with Liberia, Niger, Pakistan, Samoa, Philippines and Guatemala reaching a final for the first time in World Championships history.
Underlying the diversity and global reach of track and field, every continental area features at least two world champions, while Peru, Kazakhstan and Nigeria won their first ever gold medals, and India and Burkina Faso also had their best ever medal performances (silver).
The USA team broke the record for the most medals at a single championship, earning 33 in total, 13 of them gold. Oregon also produced three world records — the American Sydney McLaughlin in the 400m hurdles (50.68), the Nigerian Tobi Amusan in the semi-final of the 100m hurdles (12.12) and Mondo Duplantis from Sweden in the pole vault (6.21m), which suitably concluded events on Sunday.
Among the rare few to win two medals was Norway’s Jakob Ingebrigtsen, still only 21, who avenged his silver medal defeat in the 1500m earlier in the week with a ruthlessly dominant display, taking gold in 13:09.24 ahead of Kenya’s Jacob Krop and Uganda’s Oscar Chelimo. Double wow.
In all there were 13 championship records and 30 world-leading performances, 92 national records, with the American Allyson Felix extending her record medal total to 20 after gold in the women’s 4x400m and bronze in the mixed 4x400m
What about Ireland?
For the Irish team of 21 athletes who travelled to Eugene it was unquestionably a mixed bag of results. Athletics Ireland, in their latest high-performance strategic plan, was targeting one medal although few if anyone could say there was a live chance of that happening.
They’re also targeting one medal at next year’s World Athletics Championships in Budapest, and again at the Paris Olympics in 2024: while not outside the realms of possible progression the more immediate target might be to target more finalists. After that, we all know anything can happen.
As it turned out Ireland’s sole final representation was in one of the opening events, the mixed 4x400m relay, where after being anchored by Rhasidat Adeleke in the heats, the team ended up eighth.
Adeleke however didn’t race the final, the 19-year-old feeling unwell and wisely saving her best efforts for the individual 400m later in the week. There, despite a long and tiring season of races for the University of Texas — breaking Irish records at 60m, 200m, 300m and 400m — she again underlined her world-class potential, cruising through her heat before lining up alongside Shaunae Miller-Uibo, the Bahamian who has two Olympic titles to her name and would win gold here too, Adeleke clocking 50.81 to come up just 0.16 away from making the final.
Ninth best in the world at 19. “The competitor in me still wants more,” she said, “and wants a world final. I’ll hopefully go into next year with a new mindset and hope to achieve big things.”
Mark English came encouragingly close too, running 1:44.76 in his heat, the fastest of any Irish 800m championship performance, before bowing out in the semi-final after running 1:45.78, ranked 10th best overall.
Sarah Lavin also produced her “best run ever” to finish fifth in the 100m hurdles semi-final on Sunday, the Limerick athlete clocking 12.87, though in that event only 12.50 made the final.
Without more finalists, however, the prospects of Irish medals remain some distance away.
