Brookes and the Revival of the Olympics (part 4 of "the real story of the Olympics")

When de Coubertin, in 1890, went to Much Wenlock to visit William Brookes, he did not know anything about the ancient Olympic Games. His interest lay in general education, physical education, and sport, an interest shared by Brookes. But once in Much Wenlock, the Baron unexpectedly encountered an Olympic revival movement. Returning to France, he wrote an enthusiastic article titled “Les Jeux Olympiques à Much Wenlock”. Referring to Brookes, he wrote: “si les jeux olympiques que la Grèce moderne n’a pas su ressusciter y revivent aujourd’hui, ce n’est pas à un Hellène qu’on en est redevable, mais bien au Dr W. P. Brookes” (“if the Olympic Games that Modern Greece has not yet been able to revive still survive there today, it is due, not to a Greek, but to Dr. W. P. Brookes”). At this point, one can appreciate that de Coubertin showed complete disregard for the efforts of Soutsos and Zappas in reviving the Olympic ideal (although the latter are alluded to, indirectly, in his article). Yet de Coubertin, being the perfidious character we know, soon began to selectively forget Brookes’s contribution, later claiming that he had founded the Olympic movement singlehandedly. But this is not an article on de Coubertin. So let us return to Brookes.

William Penny Brookes was a physician born in Much Wenlock, Shropshire, in 1809. In 1840 he founded the Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society, with a special interest in the working class, collecting books for workers, farmers, and laborers to read. In 1850 he created the “Olympian Class”, a sub-section of the Reading Society, to organize annual athletic games with cash prizes for the victors. He called the sub-section “Olympian” out of admiration for the ancient Greek Games, though his own featured modern and even medieval sports alongside athletics. The games were not called “Olympic” until the end of the decade, when Brookes became aware of Zappas’s efforts. Learning about the Zappas Olympiad, he wrote to the organizers and offered a £10 prize from the “Olympian Class of the Much Wenlock Agricultural Reading Society of England”. Ironically, the prize was for “Tilting at the Ring”, a medieval event absent from the Greek Olympiads. The prize ultimately went to the winner of the 1859 distance race, Petros Velissariou, whom Brookes made an honorary member of the newly renamed “Wenlock Olympian Society.” Influenced by the Athens program, he introduced the javelin throw to the Wenlock Games.

Tilting at the Ring

In 1860, only months after the first Zappas Olympiad, it was announced that five towns in Shropshire had agreed to hold annual regional games, the “Shropshire Olympics”. Four of these Games actually took place, and they were serious athletic meetings, featuring mostly track-and-field events. In 1865 Brookes and John Hulley (who had launched the Liverpool Olympics in 1862) formed the National Olympian Association. They proposed to hold annual national Olympic Games, “in rotation in the principal cities and towns of England”, and six were held between 1866 and 1883—the first in London. However, resistance to Brookes’s movement soon built up: the “upper-class” gentleman athletes refused to compete against plebeians. They therefore formed the Amateur Athletic Club (AAC) and organized the first “amateur” championships. Still, Brookes’s Olympian Games in London were a resounding success. The AAC boycotted the Games, and did the same the following year in Birmingham. From that point, alas, things began to deteriorate. The 1868 Games had to move from Manchester to Wellington (a small town in Shropshire), and no further Games were held until 1874, when the fourth edition took place in Much Wenlock. The British National Olympic movement was practically dead.

A much older Brookes during the  Wenlock Games (third from the right)

Brookes maintained contact with Greece. On the occasion of the fifth British National Olympic Games in 1877, he requested, through the Greek ambassador in London, that King George of Greece donate a cup to the winner of the pentathlon. The King agreed, and a silver cup “from the King of the Hellenes” was awarded to the victor (a local student, since the AAC again boycotted the Games). These contacts probably inspired Brookes, in 1880, to propose an International Olympian Festival in Athens. But the Greek Olympic Committee, dominated by the anti-athletic faction, refused to organize national Olympic Games—let alone international ones. Brookes therefore continued with his Wenlock Olympian Games, now only a shadow of their former glory. The best athletes no longer competed there, as the AAC (by then renamed the Amateur Athletic Association) organized meetings across England. In 1890, the Wenlock Games took place in May, and in October Brookes received the visit of de Coubertin. To impress the Baron, he staged a special autumn “Olympian” meeting, and succeeded so well that de Coubertin decided to appropriate his idea. But that is a story for the next post in this series.

High and low hurdles: a record explosion

It happens from time to time: performances stagnate and, all of a sudden, everything changes, with records falling one after another. This is the year of the hurdles, with three world records already, and the season is still under way, with two major competitions to come.

But let us start at the beginning, with the one record that was not set this year: the women's 400 m hurdles record. The current world record, held by Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, stands at 50.37 s, set at the Paris 2024 Olympics. To illustrate the point about stagnation, let us go back to the pre-Muhammad and McLaughlin era. The previous world record belonged to Yuliya Pechonkina, who ran 52.34 s at the 2003 Russian Championships. (Pechonkina won the 2005 World Championships in a time under 53 seconds, but had finished eighth at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where her semi-final time would have guaranteed her the silver medal). And then, for 16 years, nothing happened. At the 2019 US trials, Dalilah Muhammad broke the record with 52.20 s and improved it further at the World Championships, with 52.16 s. On both occasions, Sydney McLaughlin was not far behind. The positions were going to change when competitions resumed after the pandemic. McLaughlin first shocked the world with 51.90 s at the US trials, then improved the record again in the Tokyo Olympic final, running 51.41 s, with Muhammad just behind in 51.58 s. It was the best 400 m hurdles race I have ever watched. Three more world records followed, culminating in the current 50.37 s mark. (McLaughlin-Levrone took a year off from the hurdles and went on to challenge Marita Koch's 400 m flat record with 47.78 s. She then took another year away from competition to give birth to her daughter). Just to put things in perspective, Y. Lituyev broke Hardin's men's world record with 50.4 s in 1953. Muhammad continues to compete and remains among the best in the world, in a discipline temporarily deprived of McLaughlin-Levrone and Femke Bol (Bol has moved towards the 800 m, a distance in which Muhammad ran 2:03.71 this year).

The men's 400 m hurdles also experienced a period of stagnation. Edwin Moses reigned practically unchallenged for more than ten years, taking the world record from John Akii-Bua's 47.82 s to 47.02 s in 1983. Then came Kevin Young's stunning 46.78 s at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, followed by almost 30 years of silence. The first hurdler to go under 47 seconds again was Abderrahman Samba, who ran 46.98 s at the Meeting de Paris in 2018. Plagued by injuries, Samba never managed to threaten Young's record (although he was a world bronze medallist in 2019 and again in 2025). That honour was reserved for an ex-decathlete who had converted to the low hurdles, Karsten Warholm. He had run under 47 seconds in both 2019 and 2020, but reached the summit in 2021, first running 46.70 s at the Bislett Games and then producing the astonishing 45.94 s at the Tokyo Olympics. (After all, the first official sub-46 performance in the flat 400 m came only in 1955; the best times of the 1950s were still above 46 seconds). Over the last years I have been following Alison dos Santos, who, like all athletes, had his ups and downs because of injuries, but had established himself among the leading figures in the event. Following his victory at the 2022 World Championships, I wrote:

"Dos Santos has progressed to a level at which I will not be astonished if, barring injury, he goes for Warholm's record. What he is technically doing, passing the first three hurdles in 12 strides, has never been attempted before, with most hurdlers struggling with the 13-stride rhythm".

Dos Santos can sustain the 12-stride rhythm because he is at ease with both legs over the hurdles, something Warholm has never mastered. And he can finish the race in 13 strides, while almost everybody else has to switch to 15. So the fact that he ran a 45.80 s world record in Zürich is not such a big surprise.

The other world record set in Zürich was in the women's 100 m hurdles. Going back in history, we find that Yordanka Donkova's 12.21 s record stood for almost 30 years, until Kendra Harrison ran 12.20 s in 2016. (It is remarkable to see a world-record holder achieve so little success when it comes to honours at major competitions. Harrison has just one world title, in the 60 m hurdles at the 2018 World Indoor Championships, one Olympic silver medal, from 2021, and one world silver medal, from 2019). Tobi Amusan broke Harrison's record with 12.12 s in the semi-finals of the 2022 World Championships, followed by a wind-assisted 12.06 s in the final. But this year belonged to Masai Russell. She had announced her intentions last year, when she ran 12.17 s during the Grand Slam Track competitions. (That may have been too early in the season, which could explain why she was not in top shape at the World Championships). In Zürich she ran a flawless 100 m hurdles in 12.09 s, beating Amusan, who could manage only 12.23 s.

The men's high-hurdles record was also improved in 2026. Renaldo 'Skeets' Nehemiah was the first man under 13 seconds, with 12.93 s. Unfortunately, he turned to professional football (the American version) and when he returned to athletics it was too late. Pat Connolly, who coached him, believed that if he had concentrated on athletics he could have broken the 400 m hurdles record as well. In any case, the world record progressed thanks to several great champions, like Roger Kingdom, Colin Jackson, Xiang Liu and Dayron Robles, and had been in the possession of Aries Merritt since 2012, with 12.80 s. People expected Grant Holloway to break it, but he was sidelined by injuries, and the record survived for a few more seasons. The spotlight then moved to C. Tinch, the 2025 world champion, but that was not to be. Finally, it was the 2024 world under-20 champion, Ja'Kobe Tharp, who erased the long-standing record, running 12.75 s in the semi-finals of the NCAA Championships in June. Given that Tharp is only 21, one can hope that this will not be the last record set by this talented athlete. (To achieve that, he will need to become more consistent and avoid blunders such as the one at the Lausanne meeting.)

The two world records were the icing on the cake of the superb Zürich Diamond League. (I enjoyed the meeting in the company of my friend P. Motis at his 'Cacti House' estate on the island of Kythira, where I was spending a week enjoying his hospitality).

The meeting was truly exceptional. Imagine two pole vaulters, Duplantis and Karalis, still competing at a world-record height and finally settling for the highest one-two finish in history: 6.25 m and 6.20 m. There was a women's 800 m in which A. Werro dispelled any doubts I may have had after the Europeans by winning in 1:53.70, the third-best performance of all time, followed by F. Bol in 1:54.71, which places her ninth on the all-time list.

And what about the men's long jump, in which just 2 cm separated two world champions, M. Tentoglou and T. Gayle, with 8.45 m and 8.43 m? It was a contest that barely missed my quality criterion, 'eight jumpers over 8 m', since only seven athletes cleared eight metres. J. Alfred edged M. Jefferson-Wooden in the 100 m, but only just: 10.693 to 10.698.

A. Cockrell ran a world-leading 52.13 s in the 400 m hurdles, just ahead of D. Muhammad, while F. Diallo once again broke the Portuguese record, following her bronze medal at the Europeans, with 53.30 s. N. Olyslagers cleared 2.02 m, I. Gerashchenko 2.00 m and M. Vuković 1.98 m, relegating Mahuchikh to fourth place in the women's high jump. H. Moll cleared a personal best of 4.90 m in the pole vault. R. Pathirage won the javelin with a throw of more than 92 m. E. Wanyonyi ran a world-leading 1:41.76 in the 800 m, while K. Bednarek did the same in the 200 m, with 19.62 s. F. Cherotich won the women's 3000 m steeple with 8:55.82 just ahead of D. Lemngole 8:55.94 and P. Chemutai 8:58.28.

It was a great competition, and I am telling myself that I should not set my expectations too high for the Brussels DL final. As for the famous Ultimate Championship, the one with the curtailed, arbitrarily fixed programme, my expectations are definitely lower. (I would, however, be glad to be proved wrong).

Track events at the Birmingham Europeans

I have mixed feelings about this year’s European Athletics Championships. On the one hand, the standard was very high, as it usually is when the Europeans do not coincide with the Olympic Games. When the two competitions are held in the same year, many (perhaps most) of the leading athletes prefer to save themselves for the Olympics and the European Championships consequently become somewhat watered down.

On the other hand, this year’s organisation was far from entirely satisfactory, both in the decisions made before the championships and in those taken while they were under way.( We shall come to those in due course). Take, for instance, the absurd rule concerning qualification races. It was decided that the 12 fastest entrants in the sprint events would proceed directly to the semifinals, while the remaining athletes would have to run in qualifying heats, from which the 12 fastest times would advance. This sounds perfectly reasonable on paper. But reality turned it into a disaster. Birmingham was plagued by strong and changing winds throughout the competition. The three qualifying heats of the women’s 100 m, for example, were run with winds of 3.2, 1.8 and 0.0 m/s respectively. So how exactly are times obtained under such different conditions to be compared? It is hardly surprising that the fastest time of the championships was recorded in the first of those races.

Amy Hunt was the queen of these championships, winning four gold medals: two individually and two in the 4 × 100 m relays. In the 100 m, after a sluggish start, she had to chase Ewa Swoboda all the way to the finish line, winning 11.00 to 11.02, with the surprising Delphine Nkansa third in 11.06. Hunt was more at ease over her speciality distance, the 200 m, which she won in 22.19. 

Rhasidat Adeleke made a last-minute comeback from injury, too late to be fully prepared for her speciality event, the 400 m. Nevertheless, she won silver in the 200 m, finishing ahead of Dina Asher-Smith, 22.28 to 22.29, thanks to a powerful finish.

As expected, Great Britain won the women’s 4 × 100 m in 42.05, well clear of Switzerland, in 43.12, and Poland, in 43.15. For the first time in European Championship history, a mixed 4 × 100 m was also held, with a direct final involving the eight best teams. Great Britain took no risks and fielded its strongest possible quartet: Jeremiah Azu, Dina Asher-Smith, Zharnel Hughes and Amy Hunt. They won in a European record of 39.97, becoming only the second sub-40 team in the world. Hunt’s split was an impressive 9.86. Germany and Spain followed in 40.11 and 40.42 respectively.

Marcell Jacobs entered the men’s 100 m final as the clear favourite after recording the fastest semifinal time. Alas, 50 m into the race he had to withdraw because of yet another hamstring injury. R. Glave and J. Azu produced a British one-two, 10.06 to 10.16, with the bronze medal going to O. Ansah in 10.19. Ansah was to demonstrate his superiority in the 200 m, which he won in 19.95, finishing two metres ahead of Hughes, who ran 20.16. A long wait followed while the judges examined the photo-finish. In the end, the bronze medal was shared by E. Desalu and T. Mumenthaler in 20.26, as it proved impossible to separate them even to millisecond precision: both were given 20.251. The 100 m was interesting for another reason: it was the first time I had seen the new replacement rule applied. Hinchliffe had qualified for the final but withdrew because of injury. He was replaced by D. Kopec, who had finished ninth in the semifinals.

Great Britain won the men’s 4 × 100 m in 38.45, ahead of Germany, in 38.64, and Belgium, in 38.70. The Greek team also managed to qualify for the final, finishing sixth in the earlier round.

The women’s 400 m was a very high-level event. Five athletes ran under 50 seconds in the semifinals, with N. Bukowiecka recording a season’s best of 49.57. (Had Mawdsley not injured herself a few weeks before the Europeans, it might have been an excellent opportunity for her to break the 50-second barrier). The final, however, was an entirely different race. H. Jaeger crushed the opposition with a devastating sustained sprint, winning in 49.04, ahead of Bukowiecka, in 50.04, and L. Klaver, in 50.15. L. M. Manuel was a disappointing fourth in 50.86, despite having run 49.81 in the semifinals.

    

    

Matthew Hudson-Smith was the favourite for the men’s 400 m title and duly won in 44.17. In the semifinals, however, I had noticed M. A. Kounta, who won his heat in a personal best of 44.38, and I was expecting something good from him in the final. He did not disappoint—one of the rare French athletes to surpass himself—winning silver in 44.40, ahead of J. Phijffers, in 44.41.

Italy won the men’s 4 × 400 m relay after resisting a late assault from Great Britain, 2:59.16 to 2:59.19. Perhaps putting Hudson-Smith on the first leg rather than the anchor was a tactical mistake by the British team. The Netherlands managed to push Belgium out of the medals, 2:59.49 to 2:59.51, thanks to a 43.59 anchor leg by Phijffers. The Dutch did not take any risks in the women’s 4 × 400 m relay, entrusting the anchor to Femke Bol, who ran 49.50. Klaver had also run 49.50 on the second leg. In the end, the Netherlands won in 3:21.10, ahead of Great Britain, in 3:21.68, and Italy, in 3:23.57.

The mixed 4 × 400 m relay was also run as a direct final, with the eight best teams. Once Warholm had completed the first leg for Norway, the Netherlands took the lead through Klaver, despite a superb 50.8 leg by A. Iuel. But on the anchor leg nobody could resist Jaeger’s finish. She brought Norway to gold in 3:09.62, while Great Britain snatched silver from the Dutch, 3:10.47 to 3:10.77.

M. English set a new championship record of 1:43.49 in the men’s 800 m semifinals. Those semifinals also saw the reigning champion, G. Tual, eliminated. English went on to win the final, in which M. Burgin did not participate because of injury and was not replaced—probably because his withdrawal came too late.

I was going to title the paragraph on the women’s 800 m “The Audrey Werro scandal”. On reflection, however, it is clear that Werro herself is not to blame. She fell in the semifinals, and, to my mind, that should have meant that she could not participate in the final. The claim that contact with Bourgoin’s hand caused her fall sounds like a justification invented after the event. (I will not include any link to the several existing videos. You can track them down yourselves and shape your own opinion). 

The matter is quite simple. Lord Sebastianhas made it clear that commercial opportunities, broadcasting and sponsorship agreements are of great importance to him. He therefore could not afford to deprive the championships of the race that perhaps everybody was waiting for. (On the other hand, excluding Russian athletes from Athletics, being prepared to oppose the IOC’s decisions concerning their reinstatement, and fighting the Russian appeal before the Court of Arbitration for Sport (all while rejecting the suggestion that this policy is politically motivated, which it plainly is) is something he tries to present as a defence of “the integrity of competition”). Well, I think that the integrity of the competition suffered a serious blow in Birmingham. Werro was allowed to run in the final, Keely Hodgkinson could not respond, and they finished in 1:54.81 and 1:55.01 respectively. Femke Bol was third in 1:55.54. (And, frankly, I wonder whether Bol’s decision to move up to the 800 m was the right one. Admittedly, she was not the winner of the 400 m hurdles. But will she ever win the 800 m? For the time being, she occupies 20th place on the all-time list).

The 1500 m races were rather uneventful. S. Nillessen, wearing a ridiculous nose clip, prevailed in a tactical men’s race in 3:35.70. Two world champions, Josh Kerr and I. Nader, finished sixth and 12th respectively. Georgia Hunter-Bell won the women’s race in 4:07.78, while the reigning champion, A. Guillemot, finished fourth.

The 5000 m marked Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s return to competition, and he did not disappoint. He let the other runners set the pace and, when they all reached the final straight, unleashed his familiar sprint to win in 13:15.29. Gressier, who had looked like the favourite to many (including myself) finished just outside the medals. He did manage to take bronze in the 10000 m, thanks to his finish, in a race dominated by A. Almgren, who won in a championship record of 27:23.44, defeating the reigning champion, D. Lobalu.

    

N. Battocletti has no serious opposition at European level. She made winning both the 5000 and 10000 m almost a formality, launching her sprint 200–250 m from the finish and leaving nobody capable of following her.

Despite the presence of the world champion, D. Kambundji, the favourites for the women’s 100 m hurdles were P. Skrzyszowska and Nadine Visser. They fought all the way to the finish, after which another long wait ensued while the photo-finish officials tried to separate them.

In the end, the title went to Visser (those who follow my blog know that she is one of my favourite athletes) by a single millisecond: 12.668 to 12.669. (I have written on several occasions about the absurdity of milliseconds, so there is no need to repeat myself here). L. Bapté managed to beat Kambundji to the bronze medal, 12.73 to 12.75.

Like Visser, J. Joseph added the European outdoor title to the indoor one, winning in an underwhelming 13.12 (given the recent progress in the high hurdles). M. Trajkovic reached the final, but some early mistakes over the hurdles prevented him from being competitive, and he had to settle for eighth place.

E. Zapletalova won the women’s 400 m hurdles in 52.91, a time that looks rather ordinary by today’s standards. I had expected something better from Lina Nielsen and A. Iuel, who finished sixth and seventh respectively. On the other hand, I was impressed by the finish of F. Binta Diallo, who took the bronze medal behind E. Newnham, 53.33 to 53.55.

L. Warholm had no serious competition in the men’s 400 m hurdles, winning in a championship record of 46.63. I had noticed E. Agyekum in the semifinals, and he did not disappoint in the final, taking silver in 47.87, ahead of I. Nezir, in 48.26. The latter’s bronze was Turkey’s only medal of the championships.

F. Ruppert, the European record-holder in the 3000 m steeplechase and the only European to have run under eight minutes, won a slow and tactical race in 8:25.33. R. Querinjean provided Luxembourg with its first medal of the championships, taking silver in 8:25.61.

G. F. Krause added a third European gold medal to her collection, following the titles she won in 2016 and 2018. Let us not forget, either, her bronze in 2012 and silver in 2024. A. Finot, who had beaten Krause in Rome in 2024, had to settle for silver this time. Their times were 9:12.69 and 9:14.24 respectively.

I did not follow the marathon from start to finish, but began watching at around 30 km. By then, A. Vainio had established a substantial lead over the chasing group, and it was steadily increasing. She finished in a championship record of 2:22:26, a good five minutes ahead of the silver medallist. And, in case you are wondering, as I was, she is not related to Martti Vainio, the 1978 European 10000 m champion.

Things were different in the men’s race, although A. Petros had taken control shortly after halfway. He did not build a safe lead, however, and the remaining runners actually began to gain on him during the final kilometre. He held on to win in a championship record of 2:09:11, with the first ten athletes arriving less than a minute behind him.

PS1. You know that I do not comment on the race-walking events, but I will make a small exception this time. The new marathon and half-marathon distances were introduced in Birmingham, for the first time at an official championship. M. Pérez set a new world record of 1:30:06 in the half-Marathon.

PS2. People have been aslking about examples of bad organisation. I can give you two images

The 43.23 was regularly appearing in the place of the score of the second attempt in feild events during the first morning Fortunately it was corrected for the evening session. The next image

is a screenshot from the third morning. The three words ISO MELT REEL is video-techncal jargon meaning roughly a highlights video made from the camera’s raw footage. Now, why did we, spectators, had to see this, it's something I have no answer to (apart from sloppiness on behalf of the organisers).