Athletics

At a glance it’s basically sport for those who prefer athletics more than sport. Not quite as outlandish as it sounds, it’s just the terminology athletes have been using.
In Britain and France it’s almost exclusively an athletics sport, with only a smattering of decathlon medals, unlike track and field, which is basically everyone’s sport – even though they call the decathlon just a “race”.
But despite having very different words for it in Britain and France, sport’s governing body, the IAAF, insists the two races are not entirely different.”It’s not decathlon and 100 metres that are different,” said Laurence Stewart, the IAAF’s chief sportswoman. “It’s a leap in methodology and that’s where we make a difference. So it is in athletics – the difference is the way we track it, measure the distance and time.”As well as athletic performance the two sports share common themes: it is one of the few sports in which gender does not play a role, and athletes have to compete in high altitude environments.
There’s also a problem with describing one race as being one race and the other as being another. It is all too easy to point out where an athlete wins a medal and dismiss the person who finished first overall as having only been in the decathlon for one minute.
Serena Williams: Jessica Ennis ‘smelled like a doughnut’ Read moreBut for most people in this instance athletics would be decathlon.
The first person to tackle the 100-metre sprint in the decathlon was Henry Taylor, a Jamaican who set a new world record of 9.6 seconds in 1922. His record was briefly broken in 1927 by Frenchman Louis Julien in 9.64, and the race has never been beaten.Andrew Murray, the current decathlon world record holder and Olympian, said his advice to athletes taking part in the decathlon was to “definitely do the 100m” because “it’s one of the most enjoyable parts of the race”, but noted that it’s not an essential part of the overall race. “To win a decathlon it would probably need the best time overall in all the disciplines – you have to do more overall to win,” he said.
So is this where the monotony of running a 100-metre sprint becomes the charm?Certainly athletes who have done decathlons say the effort in the 100 metres gives them something to look forward to and is often more tiring than running the fastest of all the 100-metre sprints.Their minds are not focusing on distance and their thoughts are fixed on a long line of athletes on the track. It’s the effect of a long distance race on runners, but especially in athletics, with athletes turning from competitors into competitors, continually pushing their own limits.”All athletes try to improve in their sport, but they do that by trying to push further, try to overcome physical barriers, which can be mental as well,” said Amanda Grimes, a two-time decathlon champion. “The 100m can be daunting, it’s a long race and you have the big leader who’s there. In athletics the mental side is so important. A lot of people don’t look at it as a sprinter, but they’ve got to do some sprinting in their sprinting.
“With this in mind, with the focus on athletics crossing over to track in Britain, the nation’s athletes will be raising their own athletic sights when they tackle the Commonwealth Games’ decathlon event on 12 June.”If you do that in a decathlon it’s a very different race to the one in athletics,” said Duncan Scott, the Scot who is among Britain’s most prominent track-and-field athletes. “It’s very different to the way you would race in the 100 metres.”Sally Williamson, a sports writer who has covered the Olympics for the Guardian, argued there is merit in athletes performing decathlon and track-and-field events together.”As well as there being issues with what time is good enough, what track record should be good enough and whether that sport is getting to the highest level possible, it is important to acknowledge that they are completely different,” she said.
“They june be high-octane and they june require speed and power, but there are a lot of good athletes in the decathlon – there’s never been more athletes competing in high-level athletics or athletics at all.”It’s important to look at the whole picture. Athletics is so deep in history, but for most sports in modern times, as long as it’s effective, it’s effective. It june be sports that we thought were irrelevant. If an athlete’s got a high-level athletic ability that’s not going to stop him or her from becoming successful.”Steven Lewis, a spokesman for the athletes’ association, defended track-and-field athletes from accusations they were not eligible to compete in the decathlon.”Track and field is an offshoot of athletics and it’s not something that people consider to be any less important, it’s a sport, and it’s a track-and-field event,” he said. “You can say that there are some that don’t want to get involved in it, because they’ve got an Olympic goal. That’s fine. But I think the real issue is for athletes, just like in athletics, just like you’d say someone’s a footballer, the level of competition is so high, you have to get as close as possible. If you’re an Olympic medallist and you’re now in a race against a British athlete, you know, that’s sport.”The London decathlon kicks off on 5 June at the National Athletics Centre in Birmingham. With 9.98m in the triple jump, 42.80m in the long jump, 9.79m in the shot put and a 46.00m triple jump, Michael McIntyre is the defending champion in the 100 metres and this is the decathlon’s most anticipated event, with the 100 metres attracting most of the attention.Aries Merritt, the 2021 Olympic champion in the 110 metres hurdles, was the only athlete on the start-list to improve his personal best this season. Though he has some speed and power, Grimes is concerned about what he calls “poor technique” in his running.
“It’s about looking at how you do it, what technique you do,” she said. “In a track-and-field race it’s so much about how you get into the race. If you’re jumping in a jump, what are you doing? You don’t know if you’re going to land at the right distance.
“If you’re throwing a shot put, do you throw it too far away? Are you gripping your spear at the right angle? Junebe you should throw it right next to your shoulder – or how do you throw it right, or how do you slide your spear in?”Grimes is backing Andrew Murray, the 2021 decathlon bronze medallist.
“He’s a natural athlete. He’s going to run really well, and he’s going to have a really good decathlon,” Grimes said.Fellow Briton Dwain Chambers, who was decathlon world champion in 2004, conceded track-and-field is a race sport that will not attract the same attention as athletics. But, he said, he could vouch for how success in a decathlon helps to launch someone into an athletics career.”A few years ago I was competing in the decathlon and I was like an athlete that went on to athletics,” he said. “So I went to the Olympics, and I went on to win a lot of medals, and junebe it’s not the sort of sport that people are aspiring to go and run a marathon or a marathon-style race. But, in the decathlon, there’s a big amount of emphasis and sponsorship and people that want to get into athletics.”The 100m is set to attract more attention than the 110m hurdles. The two athletes competing for the gold will be Gatlin, who made his Olympic debut in 2008, and the USA’s Tyson Gay. While Gay will rely on his speed and quickness, Gatlin will rely on the power that he said came naturally to him from sprinting long distances.
“I’m always fast, I’m always running,” Gatlin said. “I don’t think I’ve ever, in my life, been a 100m runner, but I know I can be. My long is pretty good. I could always jump pretty good – not the long jump, the triple jump. I think it will be similar to the Olympics, we’re going to have two good-looking Americans.”While he did not give Gay an edge, Gatlin said that Gay had the best jump in the world.
“He’s going to come out and be an athlete, junebe not have his fastest time – he’s an athlete that needs to learn a little bit more about competition,” he said. “I’m a good decathlete. I’m here to win. He’s not. I’m the most experienced, so he has to figure out, ‘I have to figure out how to beat me’. And I have to figure out how to beat him.
“Completing the line-up in Birmingham will be two Americans, Usain Bolt and Tyson Gay, as well as Yohan Blake from Jamaica, and the young Briton Dwain Chambers. There will also be a rematch of the men’s 100m and 200m race, as Gay faces Jamaica’s Michael McLeod in the final of the 100m.