EUGENE, Oregon — The first world track and field championships to take place in the United States got underway Friday at Spaceship Hayward Field with three distinct threads. The question is which of the three will be the most memorable, will have the longest-lasting effect, when this show comes to its end in 10 days.
One, the weather is great (not baking at 110 Fahrenheit, like it was at the U.S. Trials last summer) but, as the kids would say, and all Olympic sports but especially track and field are trying to reach young people in the language they speak, Eugene does not have, not even remotely, BDE. Surprise! Not. Eugene is a remote college town and thus unsuitable for an event of this level. Bluntly, and as the world is now discovering, perhaps to its considerable dismay, it is Nowheresville, USA.
American Christian Coleman winning his men’s 100 heat Friday evening. Note the sparse crowd in the eastern Hayward stands
Two, athletes from a lot of different countries are having trouble getting to Eugene. To be precise, getting into the United States. Surprise! Not. This is the result of a variety of different factors. Then, when they get here, they’re housed in crummy college dorms. While the American team is in a hotel. All of this will resonate badly, and for a long time, elsewhere around the around. Guaranteed.
Three, the athletic performances surely will be world-class. What will the attendance figures be? Much more critically, the TV numbers? World Athletics and USA Track & Field are seeking to use this meet as a springboard to revive interest in the sport across the United States with an eye toward the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. Will it? Can it?
Taking each, in turn:
First, for years I have been arguably the only one in the American press to say that Eugene was not suitable for an event of this magnitude. The locals all but called me a jerk. OK, cool.
Let’s take a 25-minute walk Friday through one of America’s Finest Downtowns on the way to Spaceship Hayward. By the Lane County Courthouse, we meet a gentleman who seems to be familiar with time at 4:20 at all hours, sporting a shirt in need of laundry services that reads, “F—, I’m high.” A nice lady on a bicycle stops at a crosswalk to say, “Are you part of that sport thing?” A clerk at a 7-Eleven with three studs on her lower lip advises that fans at that sport thing tend to buy a lot of beer and have a penchant for buying travel-sized toothpaste, too.
Meet Olaf Brockmann, arguably the only journalist who has been to every world championship since Helsinki in 1983. “Eugene completely [unsuitable] as a world [championship] place — no infrastructure and high prices!” he wrote. In another post, he called Eugene “boring.”
Then there’s Kevin Borlee, the Belgian 400-meter standout. He ran for Florida State, so it’s not like he doesn’t understand American ways. He told one of Belgum’s French-language radio outlets:
“Frankly, it’s disrespectful and unworthy of an event like this — world championships that are still aimed at top athletes. All year round, we make effort to take care of recovery, sleep, these important little things that make the difference in the life of an athlete. And there, we land in the United States, we expect everything is big and on top and we find ourselves in a tiny room with uncomfortable mattresses. Fortunately, we are all housed in the same boats, except the team from the United States who live elsewhere.”
The same article said other Belgian athletes, unnamed, wrote on social media of the conditions: “Prison break.”
Note the subtheme.
We Americans don’t need to give friends from elsewhere, especially in a post-Trump world, reasons not to like us. They already have lots. And yet we keep finding new and imaginative ways to unimpress. Why do we do this?
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Second, visas and more:
World Athletics officials said Thursday there were 374 problematic cases involving athletes or officials that organizers — Oregon22, World Athletics and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee — had been working on in consultation with the U.S. government.
About three-quarters had been resolved. That left, they said, about 100.
There are roughly 2,000 athletes here. About 3,000 more support people. You can do the math: 100 over 5,000 is 2 percent.
The problem is that 2 percent is too many, which everybody knows, particularly in an era of social media. Consider: on Friday, the British marathoner Chris Thompson put on Twitter a long explanation about how he’s sad to miss running on Sunday. Who looks bad? Him? Or the American machine that’s making him miss out?
Or when Kenyan sprinter Ferdinand Omanyala, a genuine medal contender, makes the start line in Friday’s heats of the men’s 100 by just hours, it’s — well, that’s a story. Omanyala has a 9.77 lifetime best; he made it to Eugene with just hours to spare; slotted into the seventh of Friday evening’s seven heats, he ended up being the 17th fastest qualifier of 22, running 10.10.
“My body feels heavy now,” he said afterward. “But even if I did not make it from the heats, the journey would be worth coming here. I really feel I have something to offer.”
This same sort of visa story played out over the past few days in Birmingham, Alabama, at what’s called the World Games. It didn’t get the same attention because the World Games are not the track and field championships. The World Games, which are sort of a farm league for the International Olympic Committee, with sports such as tug of war and more, drew thousands from all over the globe, and despite the best effort of organizers, their 374 number was roughly 100; they ended up being successful with maybe half of those 100. Meaning roughly 50 couldn’t take part.
The reasons for track and field having to confront 374 visa cases for an event in the United States, and the World Games 100, are many and varied: national federations not being on the ball; national Olympic committees not understanding what to do; agents and managers not on the job; athletes themselves not being aggressive (or being lazy, let’s face it); and, this is a fact, U.S. embassies and consulates being understaffed, particularly in our pandemic-driven world.
“International sporting events in America are going to have to deal with this,” said Jay Kasten, chief operating officer of the World Games.
Back to the same subtheme, because the other thing international sporting events in America are going to have to deal with: no matter the reason, it’s easy to blame Uncle Sam whenever and whatever anything goes wrong. Around the world, there are already so many reasons — to reiterate, post-Trump especially — for so many people to not like the United States. It’s problematic to afford any more.
The World Games and these track championships should serve as a blaring wake-up call for the USOPC and LA28. This can’t happen again.
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Third, the showing.
Organizers were confident the stands would be full, especially after dismal crowds in preceding weeks at Hayward for the U.S. nationals and the NCAAs. The half-full east stands Friday evening suggest some concern.
At any rate:
The first weekend of this meet features both the men’s and women’s 100. Typically, this makes for great theater.
In Friday’s men’s heats, American Fred Kerley ran a 9.79. That would have won last year’s Tokyo Games, by one-hundredth of a second. The Olympic gold medalist, Italy’s Marcell Jacobs, suffering from a groin injury, ran a season’s best 10.04 to move on but clearly is not at his 2021 peak, and walking out of Hayward later said as much, shaking his head.
Fred Kerley after a casual 9.79 in the heats // Getty Images
In the fifth heat, Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, last year’s under-20 world champion, turned in a 9.94. That was two-hundredths faster than his under-20 world record, set in April — which, in turn, had broken the 9.97 American Trayvon Bromell set in 2014 here at old Hayward.
To close the circle, sort of, Bromell, running Friday in heat three, ran 9.89. He and Kerley are one-two going into the semis. Tebogo is four. Jamaica’s Oblique Seville, running in the same prelim as Jacobs, is three; he went 9.93.
Friday’s closer, the mixed 4x4 relay, saw Allyson Felix run the second leg for the Americans in what was said to be her final competitive race on the international stage. The U.S. took bronze; the Dominican Republic won; Holland got second.
Allyson Felix Friday evening after the mixed 4x4 // Getty Images
Felix’s career medal lines:
Olympics: seven gold, three silver, one bronze.
Worlds: 13 gold, three silver, three bronze.
More math: 30, in all.
Afterward, she said, “I am at peace stepping into this next stage and have tremendous gratitude for this sport.”
Having been there for every single one of her Olympic and world championship medals along the way — Allyson Felix has been an exemplar of talent, grace and class. It has been a privilege to have shared even just a little bit of the journey with her, and her circle, for these years.
Outside of track nerds, meanwhile, is the story people are most likely to be talking about as Friday heads into the television weekend — Allyson Felix? Or Tiger Woods and his not-very-good performance at St. Andrews?
Even without Woods, the first weekend of this track championship goes up on television against golf’s British Open. Hate to be a downer but it’s easy enough to look up where Mike Tirico is this weekend. Ask if that doesn’t offer a sense of priorities.
Would love to be proven wrong but can this track meet beat golf in the ratings? If it can’t do that … this springboard gets started … how?