Golden Games Review
by Steve McGill
This past weekend I watched the USATF Golden Games on the usatf.tv website, as I coughed up the necessary money to subscribe to the runnerspace.com site that would allow me to watch lots of meets — not only the finals, but also the rounds. Since the pandemic began, I haven’t really watched a lot of track and field — partly because they’re hasn’t been a whole lot of track and field to watch, and partly because I tend to focus more on my own athletes in my own world. When I was younger I was a huge fan of the sport as a whole, and I’m trying to get back to a degree. A professional hurdler who found my YouTube channel was picking my brain a lot recently, and she competed at the Golden Games, which served as my direct inspiration for putting down the dollars for the runnerspace subscription, as I wanted to watch the hurdle rounds in addition to the finals, as the rounds were aired on usatf.tv, and only the finals were on NBC.
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The meet was a lot of fun to watch, and it had me thinking of how much great track and field we have lost to the pandemic. I found myself thinking of olden times when track and field was featured on network television every weekend back in the 1970’s, before America’s obsession with team sports took over, pushing Olympic sports like track and field into the background except during Olympic years.
The featured event of the meet was the men’s 100 meter dash — not because of the usual reasons, but because a team-sport hero, DK Metcalf of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, was signed up to compete. Usually, I get annoyed when people watch track just to see a football player run. It makes our sport more of a spectacle than a sport that is truly appreciated for the dedication required to excel in any event. I still have memories in my mind of football players at the college I attended walking up to me and my teammates while we were warming up before practice and saying, “I’ll take on any of you track ni**as in a 40,” and one of my teammates being stupid enough to take him up on the offer. And the national sports media has always been ignorant and arrogant in their coverage of track. ESPN reporters really kiss me off. Football commentator Mike Tirico was talking about Christian Coleman and comparing him to some football player, and he remarked that Coleman’s speed wasn’t as impressive because he wasn’t being chased and he wasn’t wearing pads. Or something asinine like that. And then there was the time many years ago, when Pardon the Interruption host Michael Wilson referred to sprinter Jon Drummond as “track bitchy” when Drummond lay down on the track and refused to leave after being called for a false start at a major international meet. (World Championships, I think). That had to be at least ten years ago and I haven’t watched an episode of PTI since.
But the vibe was different at the Golden Games. For one, Metcalf has a past as a track athlete, and he fully respects the sport. He wasn’t trying to prove a point about football players being faster than track guys. In his post-race interview, he even mentioned that the 100 meter guys were “professional athletes who do this for a living” and that he was proud just to be competitive. If there was an element of spectacle to the event, it had to do simply with the massive size of Metcalf, who dwarfed the other 100 meter runners with his huge frame, particularly in the upper body. He finished last in his heat, but was competitive the whole way and ran a very impressive time of 10.36.
What I liked about him competing is that it gave casual viewers a clear picture of how fast track athletes are. Metcalf is known for his speed on the football field, yet he finished eighth in a heat against guys who aren’t household names in anyone’s household. As commentator Ato Bolton said, 40-yard speed and 100 meter speed are very different types of speed. The ability to hold top-end speed is a factor in track that doesn’t apply to football. As sprint legend Carl Lewis once said, the race usually goes to the sprinter who decelerates the least, as everybody is going to decelerate some over the last thirty meters. In a 40-yard dash — football’s barometer distance of speed — deceleration never becomes a factor.
From a hurdle-centric perspective, this meet was very exciting. The most thrilling moment for me was Rai Benjamin’s performance in the men’s 400 meter hurdles. This dude hadn’t run a 400h race since 2019, and had been running open 400’s prior to this meet. So we weren’t sure what to expect from him after so much time away from his specialty event. Well, he hit us with a BOOM! He dropped a 47.13, which is really quite astounding. After last year, I found myself thinking that Karsten Warholm has this event on lock. Now I’m like, hold up, maybe it’s not that simple. Watching Benjamin’s race, it didn’t look especially smooth, and he seemed to be sloppy over the last two hurdles. So when I saw the time, I was like whoa! But in looking at the replay, it became evident that he was running somewhat conservatively in the race’s early stages and turned it up a notch at the top of the curve. Also, he 13-stepped the whole way! In race number one! So, that explained why the last two hurdles looked a little sloppy. Once he really Nigerians that stride pattern simply be getting more races under his belt, Benjamin will surely be ready to challenge Warholm for supremacy in the event. It was cool to hear, in the post-race interview, that Benjamin has been talking with Edwin Moses about race strategy. I love it when young bucks respect the oldheads, and I love it when oldheads guide and encourage the young bucks instead of hating on them. It’s a big deal because it gives the event a sense of history, connecting the past to the present and keeping the story going, helping the event to continue to evolve. Meanwhile, Kyron McMaster also impressed in a big way with his 47.50. He was slightly ahead for the first half of the race before Benjamin turned on the juice, but he never let Benjamin get too far away.
In the women’s 100 meter hurdles, it was nice to see my former athlete Keni Harrison run an efficient race in tying her season’s best of 12.48. Also noteworthy was Sydney McLaughlin dropping her personal best all the way down to 12.65. If she keeps improving in this event she’ll have a decision to make regarding international competitions, and even the USA Nationals, for that matter. Harrison was pleased with the win but wasn’t all that happy with her race, as she felt her start was “average” and that her finish was “poor,”’as she said to me in a text, but it didn’t look poor to me.
The meet was devoid of fans. Only athletes and coaches were in the bleachers. If that’s how we have to do it nowadays, it’s certainly better than nothing at all. We found that out last year, when so many meets were cancelled. I’m now feeling a sense of excitement regarding the rest of this outdoor season. And I’ll be sure to continue to share my insights here in this magazine throughout the summer.
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