Last year, 2017, was one of the worst for athletics: no new world record for men was registered while, for women, we had to content ourselves with one indoor and a few road records. P.-J. Vazel wrote an article in his blog commenting on this record drought (it was his comeback to blogging after a year and a half, but not a real comeback, since ten months later the blog has gone into radio silence).
Fortunately 2018 turned out to be totally different from the previous one. First, we had the magnificent 3000 m steeple record by Beatrice Chepkoech. She's an athlete I am keeping an eye on. After a disappointing 4th place in the olympic, 2016, steeple race she dipped under the 9 minute barrier last year and this year she dominated the discipline rewarding us with a new world record at 8:44.32. But, as it turned out, the year was not over yet. The magic Sunday of two world records was awaiting us.
Eliud Kipchoge is not just any marathon runner. He is the best marathoner ever, period. I have already written this in my last years' top-ten classification, where Kipchoge was second behind M. Barshim. Last year Kipchoge set the best mark ever during the Nike Breaking2 event, with a performance of 2:00:25 which many have considered as being due to the irregularities (with respect to the standing rules) of the event. While criticising the liberties Nike took with the rules, I did not hesitate to qualify Kipchoge's effort as historical. To my eyes Kipchoge has the best profile for a marathon runner. He started as a track athlete (he was world champion and olympic medallist in the 5000 m) and has the best basic speed among marathoners. His preparation for Breaking2 event did pay out in this year's event. Passing the half-way point in 1:01:06, he completed the second half in an amazing 1:00:33 to smash the world record by 1 min 18 s, a margin unheard of for the past 50 years. So, after the olympic gold, obtained in 2016, Kipchoge adds a world record to his prize list. Will he be the first human to break the 2 hours barrier? Time will tell.
While watching the 2018 Europeans on tv I missed Kevin Mayer's first foul in the decathlon's long jump. But I saw him fouling the second one (with a jump in the 7.70-7.80 m region) when he should have taken some precaution, moving his marks and controlling his approach. And then came the third foul which deprived Mayer from the european title. I was shocked at the time and wrote a post in this blog, venting my disappointment. But Mayer had most probably heard of Dan O'Brien and the 1992 debacle. (If you haven't, I invite you to read my article on "fouling out in decathlon"). To put it in nutshell, O'Brien, fouled out in the US qualifiers for the 1992 Olympics (for which he was the hands-down favourite) but broke the world record in Talence with a whopping (at the time) 8891 score. Mayer went to Talence with the world record in his sights. He ended the first day with a tally of 4563 points, 140 behind Eaton’s first day total for his 9045 world record. But the difference was due essentially to the amazing 45.00 s record of Eaton in the 400 m, which gave him 171 points more than Mayer's 48.42 s. A superb second day brought Mayer within 625 of the record after the 9th event: it would have sufficed to run an easy 4:49 1500 m in order to make it. Mayer obtained 4:36.11 to finally break Eaton's record by some 80 points (the biggest margin of improvement over the last 40 years). Clearly that was not an all out effort since Mayer has a 4:18.04 personal best. Speaking of personal bests, how does Mayer's decathlon score stand with respect of his bests in every discipline? When we tally the latter we end up with a score of 9366 points (counting his outdoor best in the vertical jumps; but he has better performances obtained indoors and counting them would have brought the score to 9424 points). This brings his ratio to 97.4 %, a more than decent one among top decathletes. Still O'Brien's pb total is 9476 points and Eaton's one 9543, the best by any decathlete. What does this mean for Mayer? Simply, if he manages to improve his personal bests overall, bringing the total above 9500 points and if he keeps the 97 % consistency a record of more than 9200 points is not impossible.
I do not remember any other occasion where two world records were broken the same day outside major championships (most probably there exist and I would welcome all comments on this point). But be that as it may the 16/09/2018 has been a magic Sunday for athletics.
Fortunately 2018 turned out to be totally different from the previous one. First, we had the magnificent 3000 m steeple record by Beatrice Chepkoech. She's an athlete I am keeping an eye on. After a disappointing 4th place in the olympic, 2016, steeple race she dipped under the 9 minute barrier last year and this year she dominated the discipline rewarding us with a new world record at 8:44.32. But, as it turned out, the year was not over yet. The magic Sunday of two world records was awaiting us.
Eliud Kipchoge is not just any marathon runner. He is the best marathoner ever, period. I have already written this in my last years' top-ten classification, where Kipchoge was second behind M. Barshim. Last year Kipchoge set the best mark ever during the Nike Breaking2 event, with a performance of 2:00:25 which many have considered as being due to the irregularities (with respect to the standing rules) of the event. While criticising the liberties Nike took with the rules, I did not hesitate to qualify Kipchoge's effort as historical. To my eyes Kipchoge has the best profile for a marathon runner. He started as a track athlete (he was world champion and olympic medallist in the 5000 m) and has the best basic speed among marathoners. His preparation for Breaking2 event did pay out in this year's event. Passing the half-way point in 1:01:06, he completed the second half in an amazing 1:00:33 to smash the world record by 1 min 18 s, a margin unheard of for the past 50 years. So, after the olympic gold, obtained in 2016, Kipchoge adds a world record to his prize list. Will he be the first human to break the 2 hours barrier? Time will tell.
While watching the 2018 Europeans on tv I missed Kevin Mayer's first foul in the decathlon's long jump. But I saw him fouling the second one (with a jump in the 7.70-7.80 m region) when he should have taken some precaution, moving his marks and controlling his approach. And then came the third foul which deprived Mayer from the european title. I was shocked at the time and wrote a post in this blog, venting my disappointment. But Mayer had most probably heard of Dan O'Brien and the 1992 debacle. (If you haven't, I invite you to read my article on "fouling out in decathlon"). To put it in nutshell, O'Brien, fouled out in the US qualifiers for the 1992 Olympics (for which he was the hands-down favourite) but broke the world record in Talence with a whopping (at the time) 8891 score. Mayer went to Talence with the world record in his sights. He ended the first day with a tally of 4563 points, 140 behind Eaton’s first day total for his 9045 world record. But the difference was due essentially to the amazing 45.00 s record of Eaton in the 400 m, which gave him 171 points more than Mayer's 48.42 s. A superb second day brought Mayer within 625 of the record after the 9th event: it would have sufficed to run an easy 4:49 1500 m in order to make it. Mayer obtained 4:36.11 to finally break Eaton's record by some 80 points (the biggest margin of improvement over the last 40 years). Clearly that was not an all out effort since Mayer has a 4:18.04 personal best. Speaking of personal bests, how does Mayer's decathlon score stand with respect of his bests in every discipline? When we tally the latter we end up with a score of 9366 points (counting his outdoor best in the vertical jumps; but he has better performances obtained indoors and counting them would have brought the score to 9424 points). This brings his ratio to 97.4 %, a more than decent one among top decathletes. Still O'Brien's pb total is 9476 points and Eaton's one 9543, the best by any decathlete. What does this mean for Mayer? Simply, if he manages to improve his personal bests overall, bringing the total above 9500 points and if he keeps the 97 % consistency a record of more than 9200 points is not impossible.
I do not remember any other occasion where two world records were broken the same day outside major championships (most probably there exist and I would welcome all comments on this point). But be that as it may the 16/09/2018 has been a magic Sunday for athletics.
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