The days at Worlds only got better and better. The 20th was the big night of the week, before Sunday when the relays and 5k and so on would be run: it featured the 200m final and the women's high jump, in which Germany had a gold-medal contender. Thus, the stadium was the fullest I had seen it and supposedly the fullest it had been all week. I estimated that only 4 sections in the entire stadium were more empty than full. (Note the panorama I made of the stadium that night, click on it to get a full, high quality view). Awesome. Official attendance I later found out was 58,000 or so. Seeing so many people show up for a track meet was incredible; that the crowd was very knowledgeable was more than I had ever anticipated. It was really something to see a crowd that big so into a track meet. It's the kind of enthusiasm you only see at football games in the States.
Also big for me was the men's 5k heats, where the US had four runners, three of which I have met personally. Bernard Lagat, defending World Champion, was at Nike Team Nationals so many years ago; I have sold shoes to and used to live mere blocks from Matt Tegenkamp, 4th by several hundreths of a second at the last Worlds 5k; and Chris Solinsky used to be a member of the infamous Buddy Crew at Movin' Shoes Madison, and once bought me a beer post Christmas party at Karl's (I texted Chris Mah about this immediately afterwards).
Again, I used the bathroom trick to get better seats, in the section I sat the first night, right on the turn and also near the High Jump Area for the Women's final. It was the perfect place to watch everything, especially the 200.
The 5k heats went well for the US, Lagat, Teg and Solinsky all qualified. I had my Mmerican flag out and was jumping up and down and shouting rabidly at the US runners, especially Chris and Matt, who were in the same heat (also featuring none other than Ken Bekele). The Europeans were all giving me the who is this fucking Yank look, but I didn't care.
The Women's High Jump sealed the field events as the surprise of the weekend. This particular event was incredible, pitting mega-hottie defending Champ Blanca Vlasic against a Russian and the German girl. Many of the jumpers lead the crowd in the anticipatory slow clap, a US jumper in particular lead the way in getting hype throughout the competition. From the beginning it was clear that Vlasic, the Russian (Beijing silver) and the German were going at it. Vlasic would get the crowd going with slow claps, while the German would bring the crowd down completely to the point where you could have heard a sneeze on the other side of the stadium. I have never in my life seen 60,000 people be so quiet. When Vlasic cleared an impressive height near the end, she did a little dance that was quite enteraining and potentially arousing. She won and made some legit attempts at the World Record, but ultimately failed. However, the crowd had already had the fortune of seeing one of those.
Yes, the 200m final. There are few words to describe it. I will say this: I was about 60m into the curve and by the time Bolt (in lane 5) got to me he had made up the stagger on the outside lane, who was no slouch, Athens gold medallist Shawn Crawford. It was a foregone clonclusion by that point, only worth watching to see what time Bolt would finish with and how much he would win by (but both those reasons were well worth it). He made the World Championships final look like he was toying around at a twilight meet. Let's just think about this, he won by .63 seconds. Unreal.
The time 19.19 flashed - people knew that was fast, but there wasn't the eruption there was after he set the WR in the 100, I think mostly because people weren't as familiar with what the 200 WR actually was. When "NEW WR" flashed on the scoreboard though an already loud stadium reached maxiumum output. Photographers flocked him like paparazzi on nipple slip; Bolt hammed it up, posing, smiling, just giving them what they wanted. Just incredible, it sucks to be anybody else at the moment. Redefining what we think to be possible - this puts Bolt in the company of Einstein, or so I believe.
As the day wound down I saw Trey Hardee win the Decathalon. I was one marker shy of getting him to sign my Mmerican flag. oh well.
I really wanted to stay and get tickets for the weekend, but I had spent a lot of money already and thought I needed to get back to Ondrejov. It was an incredible close to an incredible experience.
There are a lot of problems in the World and oftentimes we humans get things very very wrong. But seeing the World Championships shows me that we've got some things right. People truly seemed to be cheering the performances and not just the jerseys. If only we spent more time finding the things that bring us together rather than those that bring us apart.
*steps off soapbox
