No, the title is not some cheesy pun. Athletics meetings are back and, although the conditions are far from optimal, the athletes have the occasion to compete and, in some cases, excel.
The Monaco meeting, although a pale copy of the famous Herculis meetings, was a welcome change from the "impossible" and "inspiration" games. And icing on the cake were the World and Area records, that nobody could have predicted.
I have been following J. Cheptegei for quite a few years now. He is to me eyes the best 5000 and 10000 m runner today. In Monaco he proved his supremacy by breaking Bekele's record, which had stood for more than fifteen years. What was really impressive was the perfect regularity of Cheptegei running at 60 second 400 m laps for most of the race. Next stop the 10000 m record. (In fact I would like to see Farah coming back to the track only to be humiliated by Cheptegei).
I enjoyed greatly the 1500 m. Cheruiyot was the winner but this time things were not as easy as in the World's last year. Jakob Ingebrigtsen followed him closely over the final stretch and although he had to concede the victory he improved the European record. And Jakob has not yet celebrated his 20th anniversary. The world record of El Guerrouj looks now more vulnerable than ever.
A second Area Record was that of F. Kipyegon over 1000 m, a distance, admittedly, not very frequently run.
K. Warholm was impressive as always. He has spent the winter period perfecting his 13-step technique and it shows: there are no more hesitations over the last hurdles.
He is unfortunately running without competition. I cannot imagine what a race with all the top low-hurdlers (Warholm, Benjamin, Samba, McMaster) present would give.
One of the high points of the meeting was the athletes presentation before the 200 m where N. Lyles raised a black gloved hand.
The symbolic gesture is a direct heritage of the T. Smith-J. Carlos iconic protest during the 1968, Mexico, Olympics. Hammer thrower G. Berry repeated the gesture (although without glove) on the podium of the 2019 Panamericans and got reprimanded with a 12 month probation. The tone of the reprimand letter signed by S. Hirshland, the CEO of the USOC, was a clear message that athletes who would protest in the same way in the future could face a different (harsher) reaction. Still I seriously doubt that Lyles, who is one of the best US athletes today, will face any kind of punishment.
By the way, the World Athletics site announced the imminent release of the movie "The Stand: How one gesture shook the World" centred around Smith's and Carlos' Mexico protest.
The Herculis meeting, touted by some exaggerating journalists as a world championship in the absence of the real competition, was well-stocked in track events and incredibly poor in field ones. There were just three jumps and no (!) throws. Perhaps there is an epidemic-dictated reason for this but I have trouble imagining one. Duplantis looks like he is getting better accustomed to his stiffer pole. This time he managed 6 m but his jumps were not always completely under control. Once he gets really the knack of the pole, sky is the limit. Y. Levchenko and Y. Mahuchikh (both world vice-champions) offered us a great high jump contest culminating at 1.98 m. Mahuchikh won that one but Levchenko riposted two days later in Bydgoszcz prevailing with a 2 m clearance.
There were also some disappointments in Monaco. M.-J. TaLou, one of my favourite sprinters could not finish better than 4th in the 100 m with a mediocre 11.39. S. Hassan dropped out of the 5000 m. Is this a sign that the post-Salazar period will not be an impressive one?
The two ugandan last year's revelations H. Nakaayi and W. Nanyondo (first and fourth in the 800 m of last year's world championships) were among the "also ran" in the women's 1000 m. G. Holloway could not even make the podium in the 110 m hurdles giving the impression of running out of steam at around the 7-8th hurdle. L. Girma, last year's world vice-champion in the 3000 m steeplechase, was never among the contenders of the race, and even managed to fall in the river jump.
I left Y. Rojas for last. She won the women's triple jump, all right. But she was really, really disappointing. Her physical qualities are great but I find her style abysmal. In Monaco where she was not as fast as usual she could only manage a less-than-mediocre 14.27 m. This is the recurrent situation with athletes who rely essentially on their speed and whose technique is somehow lacking. My triple jump consolation was G. Petrova. She's an athlete I have been following for quite some time now, and she is back having recovered from her injuries.
We could have had another world record in Monaco had C. Kipruto been able to participate in the 3000 m steeplechase. He had been hinting at this before the meeting. Unfortunately he was tested positive for the virus before Monaco and had to be put in quarantine. Let's hope this is a false positive and he can be back for what is left of the season.
PS. I was over-optimistic when I wrote about Warholm having perfected his 13-step technique. He is only a tad shorter than E. Moses, 1.87 to 1.88, (and a good 6 cm shorter than K. Young) but the 13-step technique is quite delicate. So in the Stockholm Diamond League, while on a world record trajectory, Warholm hit the last hurdle, stumbled and had to content himself with "just" a european record. But still, his 46.87 is the second best performance ever and a solid promise for a WR to come. (And, just to be fair, K. Young also hit and knocked down the last hurdle on his way to the world record).
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