Truth or slander?

I was reading again the last part of the book of Ayméric Mantoux on Pierre de Coubertin and I stumbled upon something that I had missed the first time. 

Here is a translation to english:

Some have seen in the perseverance and passion he put into fighting the entry of women into the Olympic Games an implicit influence of his Jesuit education, even a sign of homosexuality, since [de Coubertin] never ceased to praise the virile heroism and to admire triumphant ephebes.

Mantoux added that de Coubertin has never been happy in his marriage. This is essentially true: de Coubertin's family life conditions were far from optimal. He had married in March 1895 Marie Rothan, daughter of a rich protestant family from Alsace (de Coubertin himself was catholic). They had a son (who was handicapped from the age of two leading a vegetative life till his death) and a daughter (who suffered emotional disturbances and never married). And, when one adds to this that de Coubertin was financially ruined after the first World War, this makes for a not so fulfilling life. 

But let us go back to the homosexuality innuendo. The reference offered by Mantoux is the book by Michel Larivière, "Homosexuels et bisexuels célèbres". I was intrigued and I tracked down the book. Indeed, there is an entry on de Coubertin where the author simply affirms that the baron was homosexual and misogynist.  That's it! No further argument is offered, simply a repetition of what we already know, that de Coubertin admired the athletic efforts of young men.

Is that a proof of homosexuality? Certainly not! However the hatred of de Coubertin towards sports-women, his aversion for feminine sports is sufficient, at least in the eyes of some people, in order to cast a doubt. As far as I am concerned, and given my not so positive opinion on Mantoux's book, I am inclined to brush aside the question. After all, if de Coubertin were homosexual that would have been his personally chosen life-style, and as such, at least by today's standards, totally respectable. 

What is totally inexcusable is his attitude towards women. Already in 1892 he was writing: "the real olympic hero is, to my eyes, an adult male". Adding "and when I see a woman on the track I perceive her as an imperfect double of the male athlete". According to him, women should not practice sport but only care about the performances of their husbands and look after the athletic education of their sons. He was making fun of tennis-women who were competing in long white skirts and lace blouses.

Looking back at the baron's life today, the IOC-promoted hagiography aside, it is clear that he was a great hypocrite. He wrote "Sport is the birthright of all, equally and to the same degree, and nothing can replace it". Only when writing "all" he was excluding a good half of humanity.

Combined events at the Paris Olympics

A few days before the beginning of the Games, together with my friends of Décapassion, Frédéric and Pierre Gousset, we made predictions concerning the 8 finalists of the decathlon. (Come to think of this, why didn't we do the same thing for the heptathlon?). And the order for the medalists was Neugebauer, Owens-Delerme, Warner for the Gousset, while I predicted silver for Warner and bronze for Delerme. The absence of the 2022 and 2023 world champions, K. Mayer and P. LePage, both injured, made the situation simpler. At least that's what we thought.  It turned out that we couldn't have made a worse prediction. But, to tell the truth, things did not start badly. After the first day, our predictions were looking fine. Skotheim was in third place thanks to the jumps, while Warner was in fourth, precisely having underperformed in them. Gletty was slightly below our predictions but one would expect some improvement over the second day. (And, anyhow, our including him in the finalists was perhaps motivated by sentiment rather than by an objective assessment).

I was somewhat worried about Delerme. He gave me an overall impression of heaviness. He had stormed to a 45.07 s 400 m in Eugene two years ago. But in Paris he had to fight his way to a 46.17 s. I don't have any details concerning his current weight but I am convinced that he is heavier than in Eugene. He did improve his personal best in the shot put by a metre but, unfortunately, without improvement in the other two throws. 

But I am getting ahead of myself. So, let's get back to the timeline. 

The second day started as expected, with Warner dominating the hurdles. (Neugebauer, given his 2 m stature, is not at ease in this event, having to shorten his steps between the hurdles). Then came the discus and that was the tipping point of the competition. Neugebauer started with a decent, for him, throw of 53.33 m but could not improve it in the two remaining attempts. He bungled completely the last one with a throw at 40 m. (Had he thrown 56 m he would have won the event). His coach was seen on tv shouting "ah f**k!" because he understood that the title could be lost. (The funny thing is that while the expletive was not heard on the air, the BBC commentator had to apologise adding "hopefully no lip readers viewing today"). 

But the real disaster arrived at the next event. Jumping in group A, Warner and Ureña fouled out in the pole vault. Warner started at 4.60 m, a tad high given his 4.90 m personal best. (Unfortunately, given the hour, there was no live tv coverage in Greece and I could not see his attempts). This was a golden opportunity for S. Skotheim who, at that point of the competition, was third, behind Neugebauer and Warner. And then group B started jumping and Skotheim no-heighted at 4.50 m. Now, Skotheim has a personal best of 5.35 m from 2023 and has jumped 5.11 m this winter. However, in the Europeans he jumped only 4.60 m and needed three attempts at the initial height of 4.40 m. Does he have an injury that makes itself felt particularly in the pole vault? Anyhow, Skotheim was out of the race for the medals after the eighth event. Neugebauer jumped 5 m but Rooth added 20 cm to his personal best with 5.30 m. The former was still first at that point but given his, at best, mediocre javelin throw that was not going to last. And indeed, Rooth, with another personal in the javelin, took command of the event. The 1500 m was a mere formality and, with 8796 points Rooth was olympic champion, Neugebauer getting silver with 8748. It is remarkable that both Ureña and Skotheim who had fouled out in the pole vault, pursued their efforts in the remaining events, finishing the decathlon. L. Victor, was consistent throughout and, with 8711 points, was rewarded with the bronze medal. 

A minor surprise was the fourth place of S. Roosen (an ex-low-hurdler). He is a complete decathlete and when he improves his vertical jumps he will be a real menace. An unpleasant surprise was the 9th place of Owens-Delerme. He hasn't improved in the throws and what I cannot understand is how somebody who ran 4:13.02 in 2022 in the 1500 m could only do 4:40.39 in  Paris. (And this is not an isolated bad performance due to the fact that he was out of contention for the medals. He ran in 4:45.59 during his 8732 points decathlon in April). Concerning Neugebauer, I think that he learned a precious lesson. If he wishes to be number one in the world he must be more consistent in his throws and improve substantially his javelin. When he manages this, the world record will be within his reach.

In my report on the Europeans I had written that, with her performance in the heptathlon, Thiam was sending a clear message to all contenders that she was going to Paris in order to win a third olympic title. And win she did, but that was not as easy as I would have thought. Two things almost jeopardized her victory: the fact that she missed her tries at 1.95 (that she had easily jumped in Rome) and the great shape of K. Jonhson-Thompson, who surpassed herself in most events. At the end of the first day, Thiam was second at 48 points behind KJT. As luck would have it, they jumped 6.41 and 6.40 m in the long jump which means that entering the javelin throw, KJT had still 45 points of advance. And she threw very close to her personal best. But Thiam gave proof of her superiority throwing almost 10 m more than her adversary for a 121-point lead. 

Under normal circumstances, Thiam would have lost the title then and there, since 121 points correspond to roughly 8 seconds of difference in the 800 m.  But Thiam has specially prepared for the 800 m this year and had already improved her personal best in Rome. She improved it again in Paris, with 2:10.62 and the fact that KJT ran a pb of 2:04.90 did not matter: she was still 36 points behind. Thiam, with 6880 points, won her third olympic title in three Olympiads, becoming a member of a very select club that comprises, apart from her, only A. Wlodarczyk and F. Kipyegon. 

N. Vidts won her first outdoor medal in a major competition: she was third with 6707 points. I was disappointed by A. Hall. With 6615 points (just one more than at the US Trials) she was fifth. I don't understand what is happening with her. Last year she was injured and, still, she managed to clinch the silver medal. This year was the year she was supposed to shine. But she didn't.

Tokyo bronze medalist E. Oostewegel could do not better than 8th, due in part to her below-par jumps. Of the two "new" athletes I am following, S. Dokter had a great competition finishing 6th with 6452 points. On the other hand the heptathlon of A. Lazraq-Khlass was a pure disaster. She finished 16th with 6110 points, to be compared to her 6635 obtained in Rome. Had she repeated that score she would have been very close to the medals. But I still believe that she has great talent and can do something nice in the future. In particular, since she is a spinner in the shot put, it would not be difficult for her to learn the discus, and then there is just one more step to the decathlon. 

A. Sulek gave birth to her son in February and was present in Paris, finishing a quite respectable 12th, another confirmation (as if we needed one) that moms can do great in athletics. 

All in all, both combined events competitions were great. I just hope that next year in Tokyo we have something comparable.

Olympic innovations: the good, the bad and the insipid

The 2024 Olympics are over and before presenting my customary reports I would like to write about a few things, some that I did like a lot, some that irritated me and some that I found  totally uninteresting. I am talking here about Athletics. I have an aversion to this great rigmarole that are the (modern) Olympic Games, the main usefulness of which is to fill the coffers of the IOC. And I am not interested in any other of the "olympic" sports (although I have a great respect and admiration for the athletes practicing them) apart from Athletics. Not even swimming despite the fact that I am a (fin)swimmer myself.

So, let us start with an innovation that I found great, the repêchage rounds. Previously, for most athletes, their participation was limited to a single round, with qualification to the semi-final reserved to a selected few. Now, with a repêchage round, the athletes have a second chance, a race which is a kind of a final for them, the first being rewarded by a qualification to the semis. Why on earth didn't they think of this earlier? This is the perfect scenario but, of course, it requires that the athletics program be stretched out over more days. In Paris, with Athletics covering 11 days, introducing repêchage races was quite easy. Next year in Tokyo, with the World Championships covering just 9 days, the program may be more cramped. But I just hope that the repêchage is here to stay. 

S. Mawdsley and L. Manuel (here after the mixed relay) both participated in a repêchage for the 400 m (but only Manuel made it to the semis) 

Those who follow my blog know that I despise race-walking. I pointedly ignore it in my reports, the only occasion when I included it was when A. Drisbioti won both distances in the 2022 Europeans. But I will make another exception this time in order to talk about the race-walk mixed relay race. I have always wrote that replacing the 50 km by a 35 km was a stupid move: the two distances are too close, resulting often in the same person winning both. Fortunately for the Olympics, World Athletics decided (perhaps they were forced to this) to replace the 35 km by a relay. I like the formula of the relay, which is reminiscent of the 2x2x400 m mixed relay that was part of the World Relays program in 2019 and 2021. The same athlete has to run twice (well, for race walking I should have written "walk" but, as we all know, the race-walkers are in fact running so the "run" stays). Of course the resting time is substantial (of the order to 40 minutes) but still, having to do it twice is really taxing. My main objection concerns the choice of the distance. Why did WA opt for a Marathon distance (apart from the catchy name)? Competing over a distance of 42195 m means that the splits will be uneven. And indeed they are: male 11.45 km, female 10 km, male 10 km, female 10.745 km. It would have been much more organisation-friendly if the relay race were held over 40 km with exactly 10 km loops. But Lord Sebastian decided otherwise, so ...

The next thing that I liked a lot was the kinogram in the horizontal jumps and the javelin throw. It adds a really nice touch to presentation and can even be interesting from a technical point of view. 

Another visual effect that I liked was the rotating-camera image for sprint events, which gives a 3-D aspect of the arrival. Obviously, it is not meant to replace the photo-finish but, still, it is a nice to look at.

Unfortunately there were also things that irritated me. In the throws there was an information added giving the angle of the throw and the velocity of release. And, wait for it, four figures were given for the angle and the speed. This is utterly ridiculous. Both these quantities vary enormously with the point at which they are measured. I don't think that the measurement precision can be better than ±3 degrees in the angle. And looking at the dispersion of the angles among the athletes, rounding the angle to the nearest integer would have been more than enough. The same is true for the velocity of release: decimals are superfluous. Giving four significant figures is absurd and, to some extent, misleading. (And I would have preferred the velocity to be given as metres per second, in which case one decimal point would have been acceptable). Being a physicist, I hate fake precision, but the way measurements are presented on the tv is, unfortunately, not decided by scientists but by journalists who, in the majority, do not know what they are talking about.

And the same journalists did not refrain from heaping praises on the organisers for the "ringing the bell" or the "three ground strikes" ideas. I beg to differ. I find these things a mere window-dressing with absolutely no value whatsoever. (I case you are wondering what am I talking about, all winners had to ring a bell after the victory, a bell that will eventually ornate Notre Dame, and every session was officially opened by a theatrical three strikes with a staff held by an ex-champion). The bell ringing is meant to capitalise on a certain post-victory enthusiasm adding an extra moment to the flag draped parade of the medalists. As to the three strikes, at least they offered us the occasion to see again some of the old champions, which was enjoyable in some cases (but less so in the case of King Carl).

Stop the presses: Tentoglou is olympic champion (again)

The greek tv presenters were ecstatic, pointing out that the only other athlete with back-to-back victories in the long jump, is King Carl (in fact he won four in a row, but who is counting). I must say that this victory of Miltos was less exciting than the one in Tokyo. Here he was everybody's favourite. He has been dominating completely long jump, his last defeat in a major competition going back to 2022. He was coming from a victory in Rome, at the Europeans, where he had jumped (twice) 8.65 m. 

To tell the truth I was expecting a jump at around 8.70 m (which is perfectly within the capability of Tentoglou). So, at the end of the day, I felt as if something was missing.  The competition was uneventful. M. Furlani opened with 8.34 m and tentoglou responded, first with a cautious 8.27 m and then with 8.48 m, which was enough for gold. W. Pinnock also passed Furlani with his second jump at 8.36 m but could do no better than this (he had a 8.24 m at his fifth jump). Furlani landed another 8.34 at his fifth attempt and that was that. Meanwhile Tentoglou had a series of 8.24, 8.36 and 8.31 for his 3rd, 4th and 5th jumps and, having secured the victory, fouled the last jump. S. Ehammer, who had decided not to compete in the decathlon opting for the long jump, finished fourth with 8.20 m. 

I find the comparison of Tentoglou to King Carl quite legitimate. Since he first made his appearance at the international scene, winning the 2017 European U20 championships with 8.07 m has has been a dominant figure of the discipline. The only thing that is missing are the great performances (starting with the greek national record). But, at 26, Miltos still has time for this.

And Karalis is bronze medalist

I still remember the frustration of the Tokyo Olympics where T. Braz had a lucky success at  5.87 m and pushed Karalis out of the medals. So, in Paris I was wondering whether "Manolo" was going to go the Roubanis or the Papanicolaou way. 

In Melbourne, at the 1956 Olympics the three americans where the favourite for the podium. But then G. Mattos failed  at 4.40 m, and G. Roubanis succeeded and went no to jump 4.50 m, clinching bronze behind B. Richards and B. Gutowski. It's funny that none of four renowned athletics statisticians, R. Quercetani among them, predicted Roubanis among the first six. What is less funny is that much later Mattos insinuated that Roubanis had an advantage jumping with a fibreglass pole.   (Roubanis had indeed experimented with fibreglass poles but does not remember using them in the Melbourne Olympics. And in any case, these poles did not offer a real advantage till the 1961 where the athletes started bending the poles).

Ch. Papanicolaou went to Mexico as one the the favourites(he was silver medalist at the 1966 Europeans). He jumped 5.35 m on his first attempt just as Nordwig (Seagren going directly to 5.40 m) and was thus 2nd or 3rd. Then an unknown till then vaulter, C. Schiprowski, succeeded on his second try. The disaster came at 5.40 m. Seagren, Schiprowski and Nordwig succeeded while Papanicolaou failed, and was thus pushed out of the podium. (Papanicolaou took a small vengeance two years later when he broke the world record with 5.49 m, a outstanding height for those who, insist in using the antiquated imperial measures, since it corresponds to precisely 18 feet).

In Paris, Karalis, showed a great consistency in his jumps, passing all heights from 5.50 to 5.90 m in his first attempt. Only Obiena and Kendricks had reached that height (but, of course, with Duplantis in the game there only two spots on the podium left). Kendricks jumped 5.95 m and after one failed attempt Karalis opted to continue at 6 m. Obiena (who had a 6 m personal best and has jumped 5.97 m this season) failed three times at 5.95 m and Karalis was on the podium.  

Stefanidi, celebrating after her silver-medal jump in Rome

Those who are closely following my blog may point out that I never did a "stop the presses" article for K. Stefanidi (Olympic, World and European champion, who started as world U18 champion in 2005). I know that it will sound as a lame excuse, but I got the idea of the "stop the presses" thing only in 2021, when Miltos won the Tokyo Olympics. So, if ever Katerina reads these lines, I present my humble apologies to this great champion who, at 34, is still among the best pole vaulters of the world.

The first women's world decathlon championships

On the same week-end of the men's olympic decathlon, the first women's World Decathlon Championships were held, in Geneva (Ohio). The choice of the dates was deliberate. It was meant to remind the world that women are still suffering from the age-old prejudice that keeps considering them the "weak sex". All the more so in sports, where the official propaganda is insisting that men-women parity has been achieved. 

I cannot find a rational explanation for the fact that the decathlon event for women, officially introduced a quarter century ago, has yet to enter the official competition program. One possible reason, and one I hate to consider, is that women combined event specialists and their entourage are lobbying for the exclusion of decathlon, in order to maintain the status quo. It's true that the profile of a female decathlete would be totally different from that of the current heptathletes. It's also true that training for a decathlon would necessitate a much greater effort than the one necessary for the heptathlon, where specialists of one event can hope to shine with minimal preparation. But these are not valid reasons for perpetuating the injustice towards women, who demand that they be treated on an equal footing as men.

And since World Athletics is turning a deaf ear to their demands, they did what was done a century ago by the pioneer of women sports, the great Alice Milliat: they created their own competition. I have written on several occasions about women's decathlon. For me, a hard-core combined events fan, it is unthinkable that the event is not officially open to women. My friends, Frédéric and Pierre Gousset, of Décapassion, have also been campaigning for women's decathlon. If you wish to read the most thorough analysis of the question I suggest that you go over to Gabby Pieraccini's site and her article on the occasion of the World Championships. You will be greeted by the photo of the french national women's decathlon team.

I was really happy when I saw that the french federation, after having organised the first national championship of the event, was having an official presence in the World Championships.

There were in fact two competitions, an "élite" one and one dubbed "developmental". The latter was meant for competitors of a lesser level, ones who were discovering the decathlon. Seven countries were represented in the élite competition and five more in the developmental, for a total of 29 athletes. 

The final scores are given below, for the élite competition

and for the developmental one.

Allison Halverson (an american athlete of armenian extraction, competing for Armenia since 2020) won the élite event with 7236 points. Roseva Bidois, of the french team,  was second with 6962 points, the third place (by a scant 2 points over the 4th) going to Jordyn Bruce (who was second in this winter's indoor heptathlon) with 6723 points.

If you are interested in the details I suggest that you peruse the ones of the élite competition here, and those of the developmental, here. (And don't let yourself be led astray by the order in which the results are presented: the field events were held in the "natural" order and not the monstrous one cooked up by people trying to kill this women's event).

One funny remark is that, while most women decathletes have a decent pole vault, almost all of them are have a weakness in the throws. But this is something that will be easily remedied once we have the first real specialists of the event.

If you are wondering about World Athletics stance in all this, Pieraccini is presenting a detailed analysis. The Geneva competition is in fact listed in the World Athletics calendar as Women's Decathlon Championships but the word "World" has disappeared. Still, it is my feeling that the resistance by misogynists (accompanied by opportunists, some of them female) to a women's decathlon is futile. And (shamelessly filching the conclusion of Pieraccini's article) I, too, believe that "the doors currently slammed shut on girls are beginning to crack open". 

The Knighton affair

Let me start with a very clear statement. Erriyon Knighton is one of the young athletes I admire. He has a pure style which makes it a pleasure to watch him run. He is a great talent and his world U20 record of 19.49 s, established when he was 18 years old, is the promise of a great career. A career that is already underway. He was 4th in the 200 m in the Tokyo Olympics and won bronze and silver in the world championships of 2022 and 2023. I believe that, if he decides to move to the 400 m one day, he is capable of running under 43 s.

So, what happened? On March 26, during an out-of-competition test, Erriyon Knighton  was tested positive for a metabolite of trenbolone. The later is a well-known anabolic agent prohibited under the World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) rules. Knighton was suspended on April 12. The USADA (the anti-doping agency of the US) asked for an expedited evidentiary heating by an independent arbitrator. On June 16 the later decided that Knighton's was a no fault violation and thus he was not required to serve any period of ineligibility. The argument was that Knighton’s positive test was most probably caused by consuming meat contaminated with trenbolone, which is used as a growth promoter in livestock. You can find the text of the decision  in the document below. (Mind you, this is just the operative award, an abbreviated document that only conveys the arbitrator’s ruling. The reasoned decision will be made publicly available in some undetermined future).

Practically that decision meant that Knighton could participate in the US Trials, which he did, winning his qualification for the Olympics. Now, don't get me wrong. I am happy to see Knighton competing in Paris. As I said I appreciate him a lot. I am willing to believe him when he says that the positive test was due to contaminated meat. What I have trouble accepting is the attitude of the USADA and in particular its CEO, Travis Tygart. In the case of Knighton's violation he declared:   

“We did what the rules require us to do in all positive cases. We can take comfort that justice was served and transparency as required by the rules was achieved”.

So, according to Mr. Tygart all is well in the Knighton case. However Tygart is the same person who is crying foul in the case of chinese swimmers. In case you have not being following this matter, China is sending to Paris a team which comprises 11 swimmers who tested positive in 2021, before the Tokyo Games, but were cleared by WADA, following an investigation which concluded that there was food contamination.

The reaction of Mr. Tygart was quite different from the one in the case of Knighton:

"This appears to be a devastating stab in the back of clean athletes and a deep betrayal of all the athletes who compete fairly and follow the rules. All of those with dirty hands in burying these positives and suppressing the voices of courageous whistle-blowers must be held accountable to the fullest extent of the rules and law”.

He went on to accuse WADA of riding with China. And pushed the US Justice Department into opening a criminal probe into the affair. WADA issued a statement saying it handled the Chinese drug tests properly and was "disappointed" by the probe, accusing the US officials (read "Tygart") of exceeding their authority. "The United States purports to exercise extraterritorial criminal jurisdiction over participants in the global anti-doping system". (Note that WADA is headquartered in Canada and thus not subject to the US jurisdiction). And the best retort was that of WADA's former president, Dick Pound who did not mince his words:

“USADA is funded by the US government and that government currently has a very cold relationship with the Chinese government. Could there be a link?".

Of course Tygart was not happy. To his opinion 

"Russia and China have been too big to fail in WADA's eyes and they get a different set of rules than the rest of the world does unfortunately".

When, in 2020,  Russia was handed a ban for covering up a massive state-sponsored doping programme (allowing russian athletes to compete only as neutrals provided they have not been banned for doping) Tygart qualified the punishment as a "farce". (You can find a detailed account of that affair in my article on the effrontery of the USADA).

When, in 2019,  C. Coleman missed a third whereabout for testing and argued that the first missed case should have been backdated to the first day of that quarter having as a consequence that the dates of the three offences fell outside the required 12-month time frame, Tygart was eager to absolve him, arguing:

"Consistent application of the global anti-doping rules is essential in every case. In this case we applied the rules to Mr. Coleman in the manner that USADA understands should be applied to any other International-level athlete. We must approach every case with the primary goal of delivering fairness to athletes under the rules and providing transparency and consistency in order to build their trust and support for the anti-doping system".

You cannot find a better illustration of double standards than this. 

And, of course, Coleman did it again and in that case there was nothing Mr. Tygart could do.  So, Coleman missed the Tokyo Olympics, and having botched this years Trials, he will only participate in the 4x100 relay in Paris. Knighton, on the other hand will participate in the 200 m in the Olympics and I hope that he will be on the winners' podium. 

And, yes, I also have double standards.