By Asian Athletics Correspondent
The blue-riband sports in any Olympics, athletics, begins on Thursday (Aug 1) with racewalking events in both men and women’s sections.
There is plenty to look forward to, as usual, in the one championship that everyone wants to participate in, if not win. The pre-Games build-up has witnessed high-voltage stuff, a flurry of world and continental records and the shaping of a few one-to-one duels that provide the edge-of-the-seat drama in athletics.
The championships will be held at the Stade de France, St. Denis, on the outskirts of Paris. It has a capacity of more than 77,000 and is mainly used for football and rugby. For the Olympics, it has received a new, purple Mondo track that is expected to be faster than what we had in the Tokyo Olympics three years ago. The likes of Noah Lyles of the US and the new Jamaican sprinting sensation, Kishane Thompson, must be keenly looking forward to better their personal bests.
What stakes Asia has in the Olympics, considered the toughest stage in any individual sport, with the most coveted and prestigious title on offer?
The main characters for Asia in this global contest are the same this time as those who brought glory to the continent at Tokyo. Three years ago, Neeraj Chopra brought unprecedented success to India with the javelin gold that sent the country to renewed interest in Olympic sports and gave a fresh thrust to athletics, bogged down by doping charges.
The expectations are similar to those three years ago, with the belief that Chopra, though not hundred per cent fit in the run-up to the Games, and having had only limited number of competitions in fine-tuning his undoubted talent, would deliver once again. He has said he is fully prepared to take up the challenge and knows the expectations of the home fans following his success in Tokyo and Budapest. The pressure, even if back-breaking, is something that Chopra has got used to.
Chopra has had only two international competitions this season, the Doha Diamond League and the Paavo Nurmi Games at Turku, Finland. At Doha, he was second by mere two centimetres to Czech Yakub Vadlejch (88.38m), the man in form this season and who is second in the season lists going into the Games, with 88.65m. Chopra is fourth at 88.36m.
Such statistics have hardly ever mattered to the 26-year-old Indian. He is now the defending Olympic champion and World champion without having touched 90.0m. He does mention the elusive mark in his interactions with the media that peppers him with the question related to it, but probably knows that it would come one day, no matter that he throws less in global championships and still wins.
Vadlejch has been tipped as the favourite this time. Second in the Tokyo Games and third in last year’s World championships, he must be hoping to get the pattern changed this time. He has a career-best of 90.88m, achieved in Doha in 2022, has five marks over 85.0m this season but has not won a global title yet.
Season leader Max Dehning of Germany (90.20m), only 19, has not crossed 82 metres since posting his best in February. He might not be a serious threat to the leading contenders who should include German Julian Weber, Pakistani Arshad Nadeem and two-time world champion Anderson Peters of Grenada.
Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar and Italian Gianmarco Tamberi had shared the high jump gold in a memorable moment at Tokyo, after a tie at 2.37m for the top two spots. Tamberi is in form again this season with a 2.37m clearance for at Rome that fetched him the European title, while Barshim has managed 2.31m twice. Both have competed sparingly this season and they have said that should there be another tie that might not be breakable, they would go for jump-off instead of sharing the gold.
Barshim, one of the greatest stars that Asia has produced, has said this would be his last Olympics. The 33-year-old Qatari is second on the all-time lists behind World record holder Javier Sotomayor of Cuba (2.45m) with 2.43m set in 2014. He is a big-stage performer who has time and again overcome injuries and setbacks to make light of pre-meet predictions. American JuVaughn Harrison (2.34m in 2024) and New Zealander Hamish Kerr (2.33m) are the other major contenders in men’s high jump.
Paris will mark the fifth straight Olympics for Chinese shot putter Gong Lijiao. She is defending her title won in Tokyo (with a PB 20.58m), but may not be a strong claimant for the gold as she was three years ago. The 35-year-old Shijiazhuang-born Gong Lijiao has a season best of 20.00m, fifth in the lists.
Canadian Sarah Mitton, World silver medallist last year, leads the season with 20.68m. She has four marks in all above 20.0m, indoors and out, this season when she has competed an impressive 17 times.
However, it is neither Gong Lijiao nor Mitton who starts as the favourite in Paris. It is the American, Chase Jackson, who has won the last two World titles. She did not make the US team for the last Olympics but came out strongly in the next two years to clinch World championships gold medals. A seventh-place finish was her best in the Worlds in 2019. She has a season best of 20.10m. Gong could still be in with a medal chance. If she wins one it would be her fourth in five appearances. She was fourth in 2016, won a bronze in 2008 and silver in 2012. Truly a legend.
China provided a surprise at the last Olympics with Liu Shiying taking the javelin gold. She did not make the ‘Olympic cut’ this time, leaving the field for the likes of Haruka Kitaguchi of Japan, the current world champion and Flor Dennis Ruiz of Columbia, who is leading the season lists with a continental record of 66.70m. Ruiz is the silver medallist from the last World championships.
Also in the fray would be Australian Mackenzie Little, who was the bronze medallist at Budapest last year. She has done a personal best of 66.27m this year.
Amidst a clutch of leading performers, Kitaguchi’s 65.21m to win the Monaco Diamond League leg might look rather modest, but make no mistake, the 26-year-old Japanese would still be a hot contender for her first Olympic title which, if she wins, could be added to the World crown. Kitaguchi had done poorly in the Olympics at home with a 55.42m that placed her 12th.
It should be a titanic battle when Olympic champion Valerie Allman meets Feng Bin in the women’s discus contest. Allman has the edge with an unbeaten record this season. Even as the American looks unbeatable, the Chinese who won the World championships gold in 2022, has projected herself as no push-over with a series of 67-metre-plus performances. Allman has crossed 67 metres in all her eight competitions this season while Feng Bin has done so six times.
Cuban Yaime Perez, a former World champion leads the season lists with a continental record of 73.09m but that was recorded at a windy Ramona, USA, in April, and it is doubtful whether she could beat Allman if not both her nearest competitors for the title.
Sandra Elkasevic (nee Perkovic), two-time Olympic champion, is very much there in the discus field and even though she has a season best 67.04m while winning the European title, the Croatian may not pose much threat to the top-two contestants.
In the last edition of the World championships, Winfred Yavi of Bahrain (formerly Kenyan), took the gold, beating the world record holder Beatrice Chepkoech of Kenya, and Peruth Chemutai of Uganda, the Olympic champion who faded to the sixth place.
Chepkoech and Chemutai are once again strong contenders in Paris where Jackline Chepkoech, a junior to Beatrice, would also be a challenger to the Bahraini. Add to this the 20-year-old Kenyan Faith Cherotich, the bronze medallist from Budapest, one gets an idea about the formidable task in front of Yavi. There could always be someone not so prominent as the top Kenyans or Ugandans who could come up with a surprise.
China and Japan are no longer the force they used to be in racewalking, leaving the stage for the Europeans. Alvaro Martin of Spain won the World championships title in Budapest followed by Swede Perseus Karlstrom. In the Tokyo Olympics where the Italians swept the racewalking gold medals in both sections, Massimo Stano was the men’s winner and Antonella Palmisano the women’s.
The Asian racewalkers could still be in contention in the Olympics, with Koki Ikeda of Japan, the 2021 silver winner, being the top man in the world lists this season with 1:16:51 for the 20km distance. No. 2 is Chinese Zhang Jun followed by Stano who set a national record of 1:17:26 in Taicang, China, in March this year.
The women’s field is open with possibilities. World champion Maria Perez of Spain is likely to make a strong bid to add the Olympic title while Australian Jemima Montag, second at Budapest, could be expected to put up a stiff fight. Also in the fray is Kimberly Garcia of Peru, who won the 20k-35k double in the 2022 World championships.
Asia’s challenge would be mounted probably by the Chinese Ma Zenxia and Yangjiayu who head the season lists if one were to leave out the Russians. But it is the entry of veteran Liu Hong that has come as a surprise. If she does compete it would be her fifth Olympics beginning with the one at home in 2008 when she finished fourth. In every other edition she won a medal including the gold in 2016. She has also won four World title from 2011 to 2019. Now 37, she is only No. 6 in the season lists with 1:26:47.
One man about whom not much has been heard this season has been Ernest John Obiena of the Philippines. In the background of the relentless assault on the world record by the incomparable Swede, Mondo Duplantis, the likes of Obiena and Sam Kendricks (US) are often pushed into the background.
Obiena has the credentials to grab a medal in Paris. He was a finalist at the last Olympics and then won a bronze in the 2022 World championships and followed that up by getting the silver in the 2023 edition. He has cleared 6.0m twice, the first Asian to have that distinction. His last 6-metre vault was for the silver at Budapest last year.
Quarter-miler Salwa Eid Naser has staged a comeback this year following a two-year suspension for an anti-doping rule violation in 2021 that ruined her Tokyo Olympics chances. The former world champion from Bahrain has done a 49.66s this season for the one-lap event, but she may find it hard to fight for another global medal.
The women’s 400m is filled with intriguing possibilities after Jamaican Nickisha Pryce scorched the tracks for a world-leading 48.57s in the London Diamond League on July 20. (Sydney McLaughlin who was leading till then with her48.75s was not going to compete in the 400m flat and was concentrating on the hurdles)
World champion Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic could be expected to challenge the two season leaders, Pryce and Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek (48.90s) though she is only sixth in the season lists. In fact, Mariliedy with a sustained progress this season in which she has remained unbeaten could be the favourite. Kaczmarek finished second in Budapest and could be expected to pose the stiffest opposition to the world champion. Naser has her task cut out in this midst.
India’s Avinash Sable and Japan’s Ryuji Miura would be hoping that they can make the final at least if not place among the top-four or six in the 3000m steeplechase.
World record holder Lemecha Girma of Ethiopia has been given the top billing by some of the commentators. That is only because the undoubted expert of the hurdles and water jump, Soufiane El Bakkali had an injury and has only competed once in his pet event this year. If he is fit, the Moroccan, world and Olympic champion, would be unbeatable in a field that also contains a pack of talented and accomplished Kenyans.
Japanese Shunsuke Izumiya would be hoping that he could finish better than the fifth place he got in the 110m hurdles in the 2023 World championships. The 24-year-old has a season best of 13.10s clocked in Tokyo on July 21 which showed he was in form.
The Japanese who have had success in the Olympic and World championships in the past should also be hoping that their men’s 4x100m relay team would be able to click for a podium finish though it would be tough to displace the US, Jamaican and Italian teams from the top three positions.
The Asian medal tally had dwindled from 15 recorded in 2012 to 13 in 2016 and ten in 2021. China had won two gold medals last time and with India and Qatar contributing one each, the gold tally was the same for Asia as in Rio. Chopra, Barshim, Feng Bin, Kitaguchi and Yavi have to rise up to their full potential to better that tally.
