Great
Moments at the Worlds
James Dunaway for the IAAF
26 July 2001 - In the seven IAAF World championships held since 1983, there have been many memorable moments… Here are five I won’t forget:
Tokyo,
August 31, 1991: men’s long jump
Carl Lewis was in the best shape of his life. Five days earlier he had won the
100 metres championship in 9.86, a new world record.
He hadn’t lost a long jump competition in 10 years, including both
previous World Championships and the 1984 and 1988 Olympics. In Tokyo, King Carl’s
only real challenger was fellow-American and 1988 Olympic runner-up Mike Powell, who was
0-15 lifetime against Lewis.
Powell’s opening jump was a weak 7.85m; Lewis’ was 8.68m, 2 cm better than Powell’s lifetime best. And, although Powell posted a respectable second-round jump of 8.54, in Round Three Lewis soared to a wind-aided 8.83, the third-longest jump ever, wind or no. Round four saw Powell foul, while Lewis extended his lead with a startling 8.91, a centimetre past Bob Beamon’s 22-year-old world record. But the wind gauge read +2.9, so it was merely the longest jump in history.
But not for long. In Round Five, Powell for once hit the take-off board perfectly, and sailed high and far into the 8.90 range. Waiting for the measurement, he paced up and down like a nervous father, noting that the wind gauge read +0.3. Then the event board flashed: 8.95. A world record!
Lewis’ two remaining jumps were excitingly close – 8.87 and 8.84 – but Powell ended the day not only as world champion and world record holder, but also as the first man to defeat Lewis since January 27, 1981.
Helsinki,
August 9 and 10, 1983: women’s 400 and 800 metres
Before these first World Championships, people wondered whether Jarmila
Kratochvila would run the 400 metres (on July 23
she had run 48.45, the second fastest ever), or the 800 (on July 26 she had set a new
world record of 1:53.28). To do both at the Worlds, the experts said, would be “impossible”
- the semifinals of the 400 were only 35 minutes before the 800 final. No way.
Somebody forgot to tell Jarmila: she decided to run both! The first two days were tough enough - heats and quarter-finals of the 400, heats and semi-finals of the 800 - but on August 9 came the moment of truth. Fortunately for her, nobody pressed her in her 400 semi, and she cruised to a relatively easy win in 51.08. Easy, except that the 800 final was barely half an hour away - her sixth race in three days. Could she do it?
Two Soviet runners, Yekaterina Podkopayeva and Lyubov Gurina, set a fast early pace (27.6, 57.5), with Kratochvilova running third. Around the turn, Gurina took the lead, and on the backstretch Kratochvilova moved alongside. Then, with 200 metres to go, the Czech exploded. She quickly built a 5m lead, and was 10 ahead when she hit the finish. Her time? 1:54.68, third fastest 800 of all time.
Next day, she put the icing on the cake, winning the 400 final by a huge six metres from her fellow-Czech, Tatiana Kocembova. Kratchochvilova’s time? 47.99 – a new world record!
Gothenburg,
August 7, 1995
There is nothing quite like the excitement of seeing a long jumper or triple
jumper hit the sand past the marker board which tells spectators approximately how far
each competitor has jumped. Jonathan Edwards did it twice on the same day.
The 29-year-old, prematurely gray vicar’s son had flirted with the elusive 18-metre mark all year. He had actually bettered 18m on four occasions, but all were wind aided. His closest “legal” effort was a new world record of 17.98 on July 18. It lasted less than three weeks - until Edwards’ first jump in the Championships.
From where I sat on the homestretch side, most of the landing pit was hidden by the marker board, which indicated distances up to just past 18 metres. On that first jump – the hair still stands on my neck as I write this – Edwards landed visibly past the end of the board, a sure 18 metres, and a legal +1.3 wind. After an endless moment for measurement, the new record was posted: 18.16 metres.
But Edwards hadn’t reached the take-off board, so he knew there must be more. On his second jump, he did everything right, and again broke the sand where I could see it. This time it measured 18.29 metres, the second jump in history past 18 metres, and the first past 60 feet. Edwards passed three of his last four jumps and didn’t come close on the one he took – but who could ask for anything more?
Gothenburg,
August 11, 1995 – Women’s 400-metre hurdles
The 400 hurdles has produced some of the most exciting races in the World
Championships, and this was the most exciting of the women’s 400 hurdles. It was all
the more exciting because it was completely unexpected. The two fastest women of all time,
1993 winner and world record holder Sally Gunnell (52.74) and 1993 silver medallist Sandra
Farmer-Patrick (52.79), were not in the field. Gunnell was injured, and Farmer-Patrick had
had a baby earlier in the year. So when Tonja Buford-Bailey won the first semifinal in a
tepid 55.30, and fellow-American Kim Batten ran hard to take the second semi in a no more
than moderate 54.15, the final was expected to be as exciting as a mashed-potato sandwich.
It was anything but. With Goteborg’s chancy, swirling winds in mind, Batten shot out of the blocks, determined to build a lead quickly. At 200 metres she was clearly in front, a couple of metres ahead of Jamaica’s Deon Cummings, with Buford-Bailey another metre or so back. Running the second turn hard,
Bailey went past Hemmings and inched closer to Batten. By the ninth hurdle they were even, and they stayed that way, stride for stride and neither giving an inch, for the final 75 metres. Perhaps Buford-Bailey edged a centimetre or two ahead as they neared the tape, but Batten timed her finishing lean and shoulder turn perfectly, while Buford-Bailey crossed the line running almost erect. Neither knew who had won until the result was announced: 1, Batten 52.61, world record; 2. Buford-Bailey, 52.62; 3, Hemmings, 53.48.
Rome,
September 1, 1987 – men’s 400-metre hurdles
This was one of the most-anticipated races of all time. As they lined up for the
final, 32-year-old American Edwin Moses, 1976 and 1984 Olympic gold medallist, defending
world champion and world record holder at 47.02, was in lane 3. In lane 4 was 29-year-old
Harald Schmid, 1984 Olympic bronze medallist, European champion and record holder at
47.48, second fastest of all time. And in lane 5, American Danny Harris, the 23-year old
1984 Olympic silver medallist who had broken Moses’ string of 107 consecutive
victories in June, and whose 47.56 in that race made him the fourth fastest of all time.
Now that Moses had been beaten for the first time since 1977, many felt Harris or Schmidt,
or both, could beat him in a major championship.
The race was everything it promised to be. Moses, who over the years had won many important races by opening a big early lead and discouraging his opponents, charged out of the blocks. At the end of the backstretch he was two metres up on Schmidt, with Harris another metre back. Around the turn, Harris pulled even with Schmidt, but Moses still led by the same two metres. Down the home straight and over the final two hurdles Schmidt and Harris cut the tiring Moses’ lead centimetre by centimetre, until they were side-by-side, stride for stride in the final steps as they dived for the line. The finish was so close that every time it was replayed on the giant scoreboard screen, a different runner seemed to win.
Finally, Moses was announced as the winner, with a time of 47.46, with Harris second in 47.48, and Schmidt third, also in 47.48. As if to emphasize the superiority of the medallists, Sven Nylander of Sweden, who finished fourth, was eight metres behind the three winners. Yes, I said “winners,” because they were all winners that day. And so were those of us who watched.
