The sun rises after Bolt

They were the first athletics championships of a Games after the era marked by Usain Bolt. The void was feared. The desert World Cups in Qatar had hinted at a drop in yields as well as audiences. Tokyo denied it in the middle of the pandemic. No audience. In the worst circumstances, the events in the Olympic stadium during the last week reversed the inertia. Athletics was reaffirmed on the basis of splendid performances. A handful of Olympic records were broken, such as the 1,500 in both categories (Ingebrigtsen, Kipsang and Kipyegon), the shot put (Ryan Crouser), the decathlon (Damian Warner), and the women's 100 meters (Elaine Thompson); and world records were broken in triple jump and 400 hurdles in both categories. A succession of lightning that evoked 1968.

Fosbury, Beamon. In the maelstrom of records, sneakers and heat storms that hit the stadium in nine days, the journalists who have read the stories of the Games and the enthusiasm of the chroniclers recounting the athletic events of Mexico 68 - the Fosbury flop, the plaid, Bob Beamon, the black protest, Lee Evans's Castro beret — they think they see their counterpart in the clean streets, in logistical perfection, in the Japanese order of Tokyo. And Sebastian Coe, who as an athlete brought the art of the 1,500m and 800m to the top, believes that the comparison between the most longed-for Games and Tokyo is not exaggerated: “Brands, the technological revolution in sneakers, in synthetic materials of the track, the heat, the humidity, the stormy environment, the ambition of a new generation of athletes, their youth,who are not afraid to measure themselves against historical records ... everything is here in Tokyo, ”he says at Coe Stadium, who is now the president of World Athletics, the international athletics federation, and he lacks fingers on his hand when he evokes the most memorable moments from Tokyo, the ones that will take time to forget, the names.

More information

• Elaine Thompson is the queen of the night at the stadium

• Karsten Warholm breaks the world record in 400m hurdles: 45.94s

Young athletes.

The relay for the world.

Three world record holders: Yulimar Rojas, Karsten Warholm, Sydney McLaughlin.

A queen of speed for everyone, Elaine Thompson.

The young revelation of Athing Mu (gold in the 800m and in the long relay, 1m 55.21s at the age of 19), the Olympic confirmation of the pertiguista Mondo Duplantis, born to fly;

the two golds and the bronze of Sifan Hassan in her triple Stakhanovistic challenge of the 5,000m, 10,000m and 1,500m, six races in six days: the last cheers of Allyson Felix;

Jakob Ingebrigtsen fulfilling his destiny;

Eliud Kipchoge catching up with Abebe Bikila in the marathon's paradise of the immortals ...

The triple jump. The resentful Yulimar Rojas asks for rhythmic clapping before her six triple jumps and silence answers - some took note, and the Australian technicians and athletes who followed the final of the high jump of their Nicola McDermott on Saturday, brought bongos to rhythm their palms amplified with the wishes of the jumper who writes down all her jumps in her diary—, but even so, the Venezuelan, the highest expression of the Afro-Cuban and Caribbean jumping school, trained by the Cuban Iván Pedroso, established in Guadalajara, has just finished reaching 15.67m, the first of the three world records that, in four days, were broken in the athletics stadium. Before Tokyo, Rojas, so loved by the public, so fond of applause and enthusiasm in stadiums, regretted that she could not enjoy them in Tokyo.Then he forgot to say it. Maybe he didn't miss them so much. Her own joy already filled her whole.

The Norwegian genius.

The second world record in Tokyo, that of the 400m hurdles by Norwegian Karsten Warholm, was perhaps the longest-lived minute in the stadium, the most memorable.

All the planets aligned, a noon of sun and heat;

a track of a quality never seen before, good for long distance runners and sprinters, the squaring of the circle;

some formula 1 sneakers;

an American in search of a record, Rai Benjamin, who pushes the record-holder more than ever, the sentimental Norwegian;

the decision to go further, the courage to try;

the perfection of the gesture… They are 45.94s for the story.

More information

• Sydney McLaughlin breaks his world record for 400m hurdles

• Jakob Ingebrigtsen retakes the 1,500m crown for Europe

Madness on the fences. Encouraged by Allyson Felix —11 medals in five Games, and two in Tokyo, at the age of 35, none like her in the history of Olympic athletics, and only one, a Finn from 100 years ago, Paavo Nurmi, above—, the American women born at the turn of the century decide to take over athletic power from their country. They are her voice and Sydney McLaughlin sings better than anyone and, chasing her friend Dalilah Muhammad, who wants to regain her world record, she breaks the 400m hurdles record again, 51.46s.

Queen of the night. It was, that of McLaughlin, the third world record in four days in the new Tokyo stadium, and there could have been two more, those of the 100m and the women's 200m, if the anomalous phenomenon of Florence Griffith, the American sprinter, had not existed. which at the Seoul 88 Games brought disruption to the progression of world speed records. 10.49s for the 100m; 21.34s for the 200m. Elaine Thompson, the girl from Banana Ground, won the 100m and 200m finals again, as in Rio, and added, novelty, the victory in the short relay. His marks, extraordinary (10.61s and 21.53s), both the second in history, are those that logical progression, not exceptional, would have set as world records. That is the tremendous value of the queen of the night in Tokyo.

Ana Peleteiro, from Spain, competes in the final of the women's triple jump at the 2020 Summer Olympics. The athlete won the bronze medal, climbing the podium with 14.87m, after beating the national record twice.David J. Phillip / AP

A medal, 11 Spanish finalists and Marta Pérez.

The enthusiasm of Spanish athletics fans was not measured in medals, but in emotions, which the new young people, so happy and outgoing, so novices in most Games, should feed.

One finished third, the tripler Ana Peleteiro, who trains with Yulimar Rojas, and while the Caribbean could with the world record, the Galician reached the Spanish record (14.87m) to finish with the bronze medal.

Four finished fourth: the jumper Eusebio Cáceres, who was solid again in a great championship contest, and three walkers, Álvaro Martín, María Pérez and Marc Tur, who until the last meters of their tests fought for victory; three finished fifth: the two in the middle, Adrián Ben (800m, the first Spanish finalist in the history of the event) and Adel Mechaal, the fastest Spaniard ever in a final of 1,500m, 3m 30.77s, impossible for him to run faster; and the marathon runner Ayad Lamdassem; two were sixth: the walker Diego García Carrera, and hurdler Asier Martínez, the great revelation for Spanish athletics in the 110m hurdles, the test in which the medalist Orlando Ortega did not participate, injured, and one was eighth, the athlete Of all distances, 23-year-old Mo Katir in the 5,000m.

And two tenths from being a finalist, ninth, and five from beating Natalia Rodríguez's 1,500m record, Marta Pérez was left, the whopping Soriana, the doctor who, with her enthusiasm, her quality, her laughter, her passion, symbolizes Spanish athletics, from which its most legendary figure, the walker Jesús Ángel García Bragado, said goodbye in Tokyo, who competed at the age of 51 in his eighth Olympic Games and completed the longest test, the more than four hours of the 50 kilometers March.

None with his perseverance in the world history of Olympic athletics.

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