10 Takeaways From the World Championships

One last post about the World Track & Field Championships before I go back to talking about sports other people actually watch.  Over the last 10 days in London, we saw one of the best World Championships in history.  One that was held in front of a packed house every night (just like it was five years ago at the Olympics in the same stadium).  One that also saw a changing of the guard, as Usain Bolt and Mo Farah both called it a career.  Here are my 10 biggest takeaways from the goings on over the past week and a half in London...

1. Usain Bolt picked the right time to retire--There was a fairly large contingent of people who thought Bolt should've gone out on top and retired after last year's Olympics.  And they'll point to his performance in London as proof of that argument.  But they'd be wrong.  If anything, this World Championships proved why Bolt's timing is actually perfect.  He came back for the fans.  Yes, him winning would've been the ultimate fairy tale ending.  But him actually losing for the first time ever in a championship final, then pulling up injured in the relay proved why he's stepping away.  His body simply can't hold up anymore.  People needed to see that.  Now there won't be anymore questions.

2. Wayde Van Niekerk will be a worthy successor--With Bolt and Mo Farah both retiring, there's a huge void to be filled at the top of the sport.  Well, Wayde Van Niekerk has all the makings of that guy.  He burst onto the scene at the 2015 Worlds, then had that scintillating world record last year in Rio.  Van Niekerk tried the 200-400 double this year and came up just short, winning silver in the 200.  But you can bet he'll go for it again at the 2019 Worlds in Doha and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.

3. The IAAF really needs to figure out what to do about Russia--Russia wasn't there, but Russians were.  In fact, the "Authorized Neutral Athletes" won six medals, including Maria Lasitskene's gold in the women's high jump...which gave us the most awkward medals ceremony I've ever seen.  I get why Russia's federation is suspended, and I'm glad their clean athletes are able to compete, but there has to be a better solution.  "ANA" doesn't fool anyone and the blank flag just looks stupid.  Worse, Lasitskene should've been happy about receiving a World Championships gold medal.  Instead it looked like she'd rather be anywhere else.

4. Upsets, upsets and more upsets--If there was one overriding theme of these World Championships, it was the upset bug.  Everywhere you looked, there was an Olympic champion losing or an unexpected gold medalist.  From Ramil Guliyev and Karsten Warholm to Phyllis Francis and Emma Coburn.  It even extended to the relays, where Trinidad & Tobago ended the meet by beating the U.S. in the final event, the men's 4x400.

5. Going viral (and not in the good way)--Speaking of bugs, a stomach virus in one of the hotels was one of the biggest stories early in the Championships.  A number of athletes were put under quarantine and prevented from even coming to the stadium.  That knocked Isaac Makwala, one of the favorites to actually challenge Van Niekerk, out of the 400 final.  It also caused him to miss his 200 heat, which they let him rerun (alone), and he posted one of the fastest qualifying times before winning his semifinal.

6. The U.S. is a FORCE--I'm not surprising anyone with this news.  A year after winning 32 medals in Rio, the U.S. won 30 in London, the most by any nation at a single World Championships in history.  But it's not just the amount of medals that's eye-popping.  It's the distribution.  Americans won medals all across the board (sprints, middle distance, long distance, throws, jumps).  A lot of reasons have been offered for this, and I could do a whole separate blog post offering some, but one thing we know is that this all-around quality ensures the U.S. will stay on top for the foreseeable future.

7. Historic 1-2 finishes--In 16 of the 48 events, two athletes from the same nation shared the podium.  Six of those were 1-2 sweeps...and four of those six were by Americans (Ethiopia and Kenya had one each).  It wasn't totally unexpected in the men's triple jump or the women's 400 hurdles.  But there were also those two Tennessee Vols beating Bolt in the men's 100 and that incredible women's steeplechase, where Emma Coburn and Courtney Frerichs made history by taking gold and silver.  For me, that was without a doubt, the moment of the Championships.

8. Jamaica may have some lean years ahead--It wasn't just Bolt.  Jamaica's sprinters struggled across the board.  Their only gold medal was Omar McLeod's win in the 110 hurdles, they didn't qualify anyone for the final in either 200, and only one relay team won a medal (with the women's 4x100 barely hanging on for bronze over Germany).  They've dominated Olympic and World Championship sprinting for the last decade, but the world is catching up and that dynasty may be coming to an end (if it hasn't already).

9. It's all about the schedule--For the first time, the World Championships were held over 10 days instead of nine.  They also reduced the number of morning sessions to five, only four of which had events in the stadium (two days for the heptathlon, two for the decathlon).  They also had the marathons back-to-back on the first Sunday, then all of the race walks back-to-back on the second Sunday.  Most observers credited these changes as reasons why the attendance was so good.  (I think the general British passion for track & field also had something to do with it.)  But with the 2019 Worlds scheduled for late September in a non-traditional venue, and without Usain Bolt or Mo Farah to draw people in, those attendance numbers likely won't be repeated in Doha.

10. British relay redemption--Everything started off well for the hosts, with Mo Farah winning the 10k on opening night.  But that was it for Great Britain until the final weekend, when Farah doubled their medal total with a bronze in the 5000.  That was it individually for the Brits, who had a whole lot of fourth place finishes, too.  But the relays salvaged the Championships and gave Great Britain a respectable medal total of six.  They medalled in all four relays, highlighted by that incredible men's 4x100 where Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake ran down Christian Coleman on the anchor leg to win the gold.