Memorable Track and Field Events at the Olympic Games
Track and Field is the Queen of Sports and the 2008 Olympic Games had witnessed truly memorable results in men’s sprints. Usain Bolt’s two world records, that he had since broken, 9.69 in 100m and 19.30 in 200m, were simply unbelievable and made the Olympic track and field events stand out.
But it was not just Bolt, but the fact that six sprinters ran the hundred in Beijing under ten seconds and three sprinters did the two hundred under twenty seconds and you realize the two events were truly phenomenal.
Although the hundred was always big at any games, in my book Usain Bolt’s times at the Beijing Olympic Games was the most memorable hundred since Armin Harry of Germany ran a World Record at the Olympic Games in Rome in 1960. I was just a kid then but I remember that to run a hundred at ten flat at that time was as unbelievable time as it was to break the ten second barrier number of years later.
I recall the 1960 sprints at the Rome Olympics also on the women’s side because they were dominated by Wilma Rudolph, an American sprinter. It was not just that she won three gold medals and that she was the fastest woman at the time but that she achieved what she did having overcome a serious bout of polio in her early childhood that resulted in her having to wear a brace for a number of years.
The Rome games are well rooted in my mind also on account of Abebe Bikila of Ethiopia. Few people ever took close notice of that country at the time but Bikila not only won the 1960 Olympic marathon in a world record time, he also did it running barefooted. Great documentaries have been made of his legendary run which undeniably had sown the seeds of Ethiopia having since become the cradle of many world’s best long distance runners.
Speaking of the long distance events at the Olympics, the 5,000 meters, 10,000 meters and the marathon, one must recall the dominance of Emil Zatopek. Nicknamed “the Czech locomotive,” Emil Zatopek, at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, was the first runner to win all three events at one Olympic Games, something that has not been done since.
But the sprinters seemed to have always stolen the show at the games, including Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis, so I wonder what will 2012 games in London bring in sprints and how about the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio? Can the Jamaican continue to dominate this far into the future?
