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News21 Aug 2004


Dunaway's Athenian Column - Day Two

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Heptathletes celebrate their participation in the Athens Olympic Games (© Getty Images)

Jim Dunaway who has attended every Olympic Games since Munich in 1972 brings his own weathered eye on what’s been happening in and around the Athletics events at the Games of the XXVIII Olympiad.

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I HAVE a confession to make. I didn’t go to the Olympic Stadium this (Saturday) morning for the early session of athletics.

That’s because last (Friday) evening’s session wore me out. The second heat of the women’s 5000m finished around midnight, and by the time I finished writing, managed to find a taxi after 2 a.m. and then snuggled into bed it was almost 3 a.m.  So, I must confess, I watched the heats of the women’s 400m and 400m Hurdles on Greek television, and then went back to sleep for another couple of hours.

I should have felt guilty. But I didn’t; the old body can only take so much.    

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Whistling past the graveyard?

Four of tonight’s five men’s 100-metre quarter-finals were won in times of 9.89, 9,93, 9.93, and 9.96 seconds. The other heat was won in 10.02, and second in that heat in 10.05 was last year’s 100-metre World champion, Kim Collins.

Perhaps working on the theory that ‘if you have lemons, make lemonade’, Collins commented thusly on the faster heats, “Everybody is running too fast, too early.”

We’ll know if he’s right about 11:10 tomorrow (Sunday) evening.     

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I doubt if it made tonight’s TV telecast of the track, but watching the officials try to cope with various athletes’ victory celebrations offered some amusing moments.

First, after Carolina Kluft finished the Heptathlon 800m, she waved the other heptathletes to join her in a victory lap. About 20 of them set out to circle the track en masse, pausing to stop before each section of the stands to enjoy the applause.

Meanwhile, the first section of the men’s 3,000m Steeplechase was on the starting line, ready to run, so the officials, many in dark grey business suits, started waving their arms at the heptathletes to stop the parade and get off the track, which they eventually did, allowing the steeplechasers to run.

A few minutes later, though, women’s discus gold medalist Natalya Sadova took off for her lap of honour, waving a huge Russian flag. When she was joined by Anastasia Kelesidou, the surprise Greek silver medalist, the crowd went wild. By this time, the second steeplechase heat was on the line, but the officials threw up their hands and yielded to the inevitable; they had the runners step aside while the two very large, very happy, very patriotic ladies went on to complete their victory lap.     

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IF there’s one thing that really bugs me at a major athletics meeting, it’s fans doing the ‘Mexican wave’.

Here in Athens at the Olympics I’ve seen more than enough of it in the first two nights of athletics.

After all, there’s plenty of excitement in the stadium. One way you find out that something’s going on is that suddenly a section of the stadium breaks out in wild cheering. Here that usually means that a Greek athlete is in the race, or about to jump or throw or if it’s really loud, a Greek athlete has won a medal or set a record.

But with the damn wave, you hear it start and you turn your attention to where the noise is coming from, and then you realize it’s just a bunch of fans with short attention spans.

Okay, so I’m a misanthrope (my friends say, “Jim, they’re just having fun”) but what really bugs me is that the wave is insulting to the athletes who are out there competing.

I wish that whenever the wave starts in the stands, the athletes would just sit down on the track or the infield and refuse to compete until the wave stops.

Jim

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