The end of a decade naturally brings with it a slew of “best-of” lists.
When it comes to the Olympics, there’s really only one best-of from 2010 through 2019. It’s easy, actually.
It’s Kenya’s David Rudisha winning the men’s 800 on the track at the London 2012 Olympics. It was, and is, the single greatest performance amid the single greatest race in Olympic history from the past 10 years.
Maybe ever. Discuss. (Ever: Jason Lezak in the men’s 4x100 freestyle final in Beijing in 2008 — right up there.)
David Rudisha after the men’s 800 at the London 2012 Games // Getty Images
There are also two champions who, in the spotlight that was relentlessly trained on Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, deserve more.
First, there is Teddy Riner, the judo great from France in the men’s plus-100 kilogram category. Riner is the gold medalist in London and, as well, in Rio 2016. Riner has not lost in 10 years, since Sept. 13, 2010.
Next, there is Ashton Eaton, the American decathlon champion, gold medalist in London and Rio. (This recitation hardly does him justice because, like Riner, it doesn’t include his world championship titles and more. A special shout-out here to his wife, Brianne Theisen-Eaton, bronze medalist in the heptathlon in Rio, and their coach, Harry Marra.)
Suffice it to say about the Eatons, both of them, and Riner — these people are not just great champions but, in a world that sorely needs more of them, role models. Marra, too.
To be clear about the Rudisha race in 2012:
One of the points of an Olympics is to produce great moments, and from 2010 through 2018 there were plenty. At the risk of leaving any number out, take your pick:
— Sidney Crosby’s game-winner that gave Canada gold in men’s hockey in overtime at the Vancouver Games.
— Same Games, Lindsey Vonn’s downhill run.
— Same Games, Yuna Kim’s ethereal free skate.
— London, Serena Williams at Wimbledon.
— London, Phelps and Bolt doing their thing. But here’s the thing about both, and this is the farthest thing from criticism, just a historical observation: Phelps did his eight-for-eight in Beijing in 2008. Bolt ran 9.58 seconds in the 100 meters at the world championships in Berlin in 2009. This is a column about what happened from 2010 through 2019.
— London, Katie Ledecky winning the women’s 800 in the pool. In London, Ledecky was just 15.
— Sochi, Bode Miller’s bronze in the super-G and Mikaela Shiffrin’s slalom gold. In Sochi, Shiffrin was just 18.
— Rio, Phelps, Bolt, Ledecky. Also, let’s give credit here to Justin Gatlin. The man is the 2004 Athens Games 100 gold medalist. He ran third in London in the 100, then second in Rio, behind only Bolt. He finally — finally — defeated Bolt at the 2017 world championships in London.
— Rio, Majlinda Kelmendi winning Kosovo’s first Olympic medal, gold, in judo.
Now, back to Rudisha.
I was there in the press tribunes to witness the race in the press tribunes with my NBC colleague and good friend Joe Battaglia. We were geeked to the max in anticipation. Everyone knew what Rudisha wanted — not only victory but a world record.
Heading into the race, Rudisha was already the world-record holder. He had run 1:41.09 in Berlin in 2010, then a week later in Rieti, Italy, 1:41.01.
That’s where the record stood: 1:41.01.
To underscore the difficulty of the 800, two laps around the track, and the almost super-human effort it takes to break the record:
Rudisha had taken down Wilson Kipketer’s marks. That is deliberate — marks.
Kipketer, representing Denmark, ran 1:41.11. He had run that time in a race on Aug. 24, 1997 in Cologne, Germany. So 1:41.11 lasted some 13 years.
Like Rudisha in 2010, Kipketer had gone on a streak in 1997.
The 800 record had stood for roughly 16 years, 1:41.73, set in 1981 at a race in Florence, Italy. Kipketer ran exactly — exactly — that same time at a race in Stockholm in July 1997. A month later, in Zurich, he went 1:41.24. Two weeks later, in Cologne, 1:41.11.
The guy who had run that first 1:41.73, in 1981?
That guy was Sebastian Coe, who since 2015 has been president of World Athletics, which until recently was called the IAAF.
In 2012, Coe was head of the London Games.
That day, Coe was assuredly there watching.
It seemed the whole world was.
In the lead from the start, Rudisha ripped through the first lap in 49.28.
Joe and I bolted up from our seats. Holy you-know-what! we both said.
This was exactly what Rudisha was after — world-record pace.
Now the second lap — could he do it?
He could.
He ran the second lap in 51.63, his final 200 in 26.61, crossing in 1:40.91.
A new world record — by two-tenths of a second — and Olympic gold make for merely the start of what Rudisha did that day.
By force of his own enormous will and supreme talent, Rudisha made everyone in the race that day better.
Indeed, their best.
This — this — is what you want — but we so rarely get — at the Olympics.
Just some facts (and a thanks as ever to Let’s Run for this article from the day-of) to help illustrate:
Six of the seven other guys ran a personal-best time.
The one who didn’t PR set a new seasons best time, seventh-place finisher Abukaker Kaki of Sudan in 1:43.32.
In finishing second, Nijel Amos of Botswana crossed in 1:41.73 — the exact same time Coe had run in 1981, and Kipketer had matched in 1997.
That time, 1:41.73, made for a new world junior record.
Every place — to reiterate, every place, one through eight — set an all-time record for place. That is, Amos’ 1:41.73 for second was faster than Kaki’s previous-fastest second-place 1:42.23 in Oslo in 2010. And so on, down to Andrew Osagie in eighth, whose 1:43.77 was faster than Yuri Borzakovsky’s previous-fastest eighth-place 1:44.20 in Brussels in 2002.
The two Americans in the race became just the second and third Americans to run under 1:43 — and ended up out of the medals, Duane Solomon fourth at 1:42.82 and Nick Symmonds fifth in 1:42.95. And both ran spectacular races, obviously.
On the BBC broadcast, Steve Cram, the 1984 LA Games silver medalist in the 1500 meters, summed it all up. He said, “What a privilege to be here.”