Noah Lyles

Here we go: back to LA, the one place a Summer Olympics should always be in the United States

Here we go: back to LA, the one place a Summer Olympics should always be in the United States

News alert: the Games famously were in LA in 1932 and 1984 and will be back in 2028. If you think Paris was the best ever, and it’s right up there with London, with the proviso that all Games have backstage glitches, and on TV you lived none of that, none of the Olympic Village food drama, the COVID cases or, anywhere, the signage that would send you on trips to nowhere — LA formally now has next.

To be clear, the bar is set high, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach calling these Games, which came Sunday to a close, a “love story.”

India still with no individual female gold medalist, ever: 'Everyone here is feeling as if someone in the family has died'

India still with no individual female gold medalist, ever: 'Everyone here is feeling as if someone in the family has died'

PARIS – In India, the female wrestler Vinesh Phogat is something of a national hero. She seemed on the edge Wednesday of becoming one of the great stories – anywhere – of 21st century Olympic history, one you would make a documentary about, or even a feature film with soaring background music.

In her case, since her family has already been the subject of one movie – a second Bollywood blockbuster.

The script, please, because as her Twitter/X bio reads, “One day, all of your hard work will pay off,” and as of Tuesday night, Vinesh Phogat had put herself in position to maybe be India’s first female individual Olympic gold medalist.

And then, Wednesday morning, she did not make weight.

Noah Lyles wins men's 100, and as he falls into her embrace, his mom says, 'I'm so proud'

Noah Lyles wins men's 100, and as he falls into her embrace, his mom says, 'I'm so proud'

Other races, other events, surely command attention. But it is the men’s 100 that produced track and field’s biggest name, Usain Bolt. It is the men’s 100 for which the stadium went dark Sunday night. The crowd went ooh and ahh for a light show.

Then the bright lights came back up.

All eight guys settled into the blocks.

And on this Sunday night, Noah Lyles would silence – after one of the great hype campaigns in American history – every critic.

By five-thousandths of a second.

Scattergories bordering on idiocy: too many track meets, and in 2024, only two matter

Scattergories bordering on idiocy: too many track meets, and in 2024, only two matter

Attention, track and field nerds. This past weekend featured:

1/ the LA Grand Prix, on Friday and Saturday, at UCLA

2/ another Continental Tour Gold meet, in Tokyo, Sunday

3/ a Diamond League meet in Marrakesh, Sunday

4/ the Atlanta City Games, Saturday

5/ World Athletics Combined Events Tour (decathlon, heptathlon) in Götzis, Austria, Sunday

6/ and for the true specialists, World Athletics Race Walk Tour Gold meet in La Coruna, Spain, Saturday

The purist may say, look at the robust nature of the sport.

Anyone else says, this is scattergories bordering on idiocy.

Track and field has an 18-to-34 problem. It is not the long jump

Track and field has an 18-to-34 problem. It is not the long jump

The problem with track and field is not the long jump. 

To be honest, if you know who Miltiadis Tentoglou is, you are a real junkie and ought to be attending Track and Field Anonymous Meetings. With me, maybe.

The problem with track and field is that it is both anchored in tradition and traditionalists, and while traditionalists love the sport, and that’s all good, track and field is dying a very noticeable death with the audience it needs to resonate with, 18 to 34 year olds.