Hey, let’s be careful out there (robles wasn’t)

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By Len Johnson

Was there a Bolt reaction out there, I wondered. Apart, that is, from the disqualification of the world and Olympic champion and world record holder in Sunday night’s 100 final generating about a billion words of analysis and thousands of scholarly discussions on the false start rule from people who had never previously heard of it.

When Kerron Stewart of Jamaica had a reaction time of 0.270 seconds in the first semi-final of the women’s 100 on Monday night, it looked as if there certainly was a reaction. Stewart sat in the blocks, her response to the starter’s gun not so much a reaction as a belated realisation, recalling that politically incorrect Monty Python skit on the Olympics for the deaf (now hearing impaired) when the frustrated starter, having discharged his gun several times, finally runs around to the front of the runners and holds up a sign reading, ‘Bang!’

The case seemed stronger given Stewart’s reaction time in the previous morning’s heats had been 0.160.

But a random, thoroughly unscientific, and definitely not peer reviewed study of a few other athletes threw the theory into doubt.

Some had slow reaction times on the day after bolt, but a check of the previous day’s rounds showed slow reaction times then, as well.

Case not proven, you’d have to say. But I am certain every sprinter went to the blocks on Monday with the advice of Sergeant Phil Esterhaus on Hill St Blues running over and over in their heads: “Hey, let’s be careful out there.”

One man who was not careful out there was Dayron Robles of Cuba. He paid the ultimate price, too, losing a gold medal to become the latest in a litany of high-profile disasters at these championships.

Robles, the world record holder and Olympic champion, strayed towards the lane of Liu Xiang and the pair clashed over the final two barriers. The second clash caused Liu to miss his step coming into the last hurdle, and he stumbled off it after hitting it with the knee of his trailing leg.

Stumbles at that speed normally come at a cost. Robles, who also lost some rhythm in the clashes, lunged desperately at the line to hold off Jason Richardson of the USA, 13.14 to 13.16. He appeared to have added the world championships gold medal to his Olympic and world record accolades, but an appeal by China to the track judge was upheld and he was disqualified.

There was another Cuban sensation, but this time it was in an unexpected area – the pole vault where Lazaro Borges came in with a personal best of 5.72 and proceeded to clear 5.90 for a silver medal. The unheralded Borges relegated gold medal favourite Renaud Lavillenie of France to third place, but was beaten by another ‘unknown’ in Pawel Wojciechowski of Poland.

The vault sensations started in qualifying when defending champion Steve Hooker failed to clear his opening height of 5.50 – a height which, ironically, would have got him to the final.

Then, into the final, Berlin silver medallist Romain Mesnil no-heighted at 5.65. At least Lavillenie hung on to his Berlin bronze, though he would hardly be happy about that.

Wojciechowski, 22 in June, started the year with a personal best of 5.60. Yet here he was taking 5.90 at the second attempt for the gold.

Moreover, there were three Polish vaulters in the final – Lukasz Michalski finishing fourth with 5.85 and Mateusz Didenkow seventh at 5.75. All three achieved personal bests. Michalski won the gold medal at the World University Games in Shenzhen.

Poles dominating the pole vault – it has not happened since the wondrous days when Tadeusz Slusarski and Wladyslaw Kozakiewicz won consecutive Olympic titles in Montreal in 1976 and Moscow in 1980 (where Slusarski tied for the silver with Konstantin Volkov of the USSR).

As for us in Daegu, we can just keep on expecting the unexpected.