Nothing declares the track and field season open for business quite like the arrival of Usain Bolt. He is the Atlas that carries the sport on his shoulders, and in many ways the only man still up to the task.
“I think, personally, I pretty much have four more years in the sport,” Bolt announced in Rome, earlier this week, ahead of Thursday’s Diamond League meeting, and his first serious 100 metres of the season. “Now it’s all about dominating for those four years.”
He is, in other words, entering the last of his so-called Olympic cycles. It’s either pure coincidence or entirely fitting that Bolt will celebrate his 30th birthday on the last day of the Rio Olympics, in 2016 – the age when the sprinter’s handbrake will naturally start to stick. There are no guarantees he’ll even be in Rio, although such is the utter saturation of these sporting pages it’s impossible to imagine how the sport will flaunt itself after his eventual departure from the world stage.
Rome certainly wasn’t ignoring his arrival: the city centre streets were boldly decorated all week by giant posters of Bolt clothed in king’s regalia, his pre-event press conference at the lavish Villa Pamphili in the old hills demonstrating all the airs and graces of pure royalty.
Bolt’s actual performance – where he was beaten by 0.01 seconds by American Justin Gatlin – inside the old Olympic Stadium may have given his rivals some hope of removing his crown as the fastest man on earth: he’d won in Rome twice before, in 2011 (in 9.91 seconds) and 2012 (in 9.76 seconds), although what matters more is that he made it his business to be there.
There is also the added motivation of regaining his world 100m title, surrendered in Daegu two years ago, for the still incomprehensively illegal splitting of a second on his starting blocks.
“Are you going to Moscow,” I’ve been asked, at least five times in the last week. Truth is it may not be the ideal choice of venue, but the World Championships in Moscow – just two months from this weekend – are, strictly speaking, the biggest sporting event on the planet this year: more participating countries, more live television audiences, and more all round global interest than any of the ball games or two-wheeled tours or four-legged carnivals. No wonder Bolt is so eager to start picking up where he left off at the London Olympics, and he’s not alone.
Rome boasted eight Olympic champions, 21 medallists, and 53 finalists. Sadly, although not surprisingly, there wasn’t one Irish athlete among them, the reality being they’re following a very different track to the likes of Usain Bolt. This time last year all the fuss was about qualifying Irish athletes for London, and the same goes for Moscow. Believe it or not the qualifying standards are actually more difficult, and must also be achieved in the current calendar season (with the exception of the 10,000m, walks and marathon).
On that basis, Athletics Ireland has just pre-selected five athletes: Robert Heffernan, Colin Griffin, and Brendan Boyce in the 50km walk, and Paul Pollock and Maria Cambridge in the marathon, all on performances carried over from last year.
Heffernan will be typically fearless, but I would fear a little for the others – especially given the not ideal decision of staging the marathons in the middle of the afternoon. Do they not realise how hot it gets in Moscow in August?
Fionnuala Britton has effectively booked a place in Moscow too, her 10,000m qualifying time still valid from 2012, her top-15 position at the World Cross Country in March also considered an A-standard. Again, running a 10,000m on the track at the height of the Russian summer is not ideal, as John Treacy can well attest, having collapsed at the bell of his Olympic heat in Moscow, back in 1980.
Anyway, everyone else has until July 29th to qualify, although this time there is also the added incentive of aiming for the B-standard, which Athletics Ireland will consider, should the age profile support the cause. With Olive Loughnane retired, Paul Hession and Joanne Cuddihy gone back to their medical careers, David Gillick still battling hard to regain some sort of competitive edge, and worrying injury reports on Ciarán Ó Lionáird and Deirdre Ryan, Moscow is essentially about the next generation, up to and beyond the Rio Olympic cycle.
That’s not dismissing Derval O’Rourke, even at age 32, nor indeed Ó Lionáird, if he can just stay injury free, but the expectation for Moscow right now is not about medals or even finalists but about securing qualifiers – Steven Colvert in the 200m, Brian Gregan in the 400m, Mark English and Ciara Everard and Laura Crowe in the 800m, Paul Robinson in the 1,500m, Jessie Barr in the 400m hurdles, and maybe even our fastest schoolboy of all time, Marcus Lawler. If some or all these athletes can make it to Moscow then that will be important progress on the road to Rio.
For them, this is the business end of the season already, the chasing of those qualifying times a valuable and viable prize. Because for others, and Usain Bolt in particular, once Moscow comes round it will almost certainly be business as usual.
