by Stuart Weir
Gianmarco Tamberi, photo by Diamond League AG
Tom Walsh, shot put, photo by Diamond League AG
This is a rather tongue-in-cheek piece on the new format for field events, which is deplored, it seems by everyone but the inhabitants of Mars, and that may be due to the fact that Martians don’t do track & field.
Field events of which de Coubertin would have approved!
The founder of the modern Olympics, Pierre de Coubertin famously said: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part.” I am sure the Diamond League’s quaint way of deciding winners in throws and jumps in very much in that spirit.
Let’s start with the Men’s shot. Leonardo Fabbri of Italy threw 21.71m, Armin Sinancevic (Serbia) 21.60m, and Tomas Walsh 21.47m so of course Tomas Walsh was the winner – as the result depended not on the athlete’s best throw but on their last one! To add injury to insult poor old Fabbri was third.
The Italian commented: “I am very satisfied. This is an amazing feeling. Winning was not the most important thing today, rather have fun in front of my people” Quite right, I mean who needs money anyway. Asked about losing on the sixth attempt, he said, “I need to fight the man who invented this rule”. I hope he wasn’t joking.
The “winner” commented very honestly: “This new Diamond League final already worked in my favor twice, so I’m happy about it. It’s good that the Diamond League is trying something to showcase throws and horizontal jumps. Whether it’s the right thing to, that’s a different story. Obviously, you play the game a little, and to be honest, I’d much rather throw further and come third than what happened tonight. You have to play with what it’s front of you, it seems to work for me alright, but I know for a lot of other throwers, fans, and other throwing athletes maybe they are not the happiest about it, but it’s great to be able to showcase just shot put at a Diamond League event, for a whole 5 minutes”.
In the women’s discus, the outcome was very unsatisfactory as the winner was Sandra Perkovic who had the longest throw.
Maryna Beth-Romanchuk, long jump, photo by Diamond League AG
The women’s long jump was very exciting – if you like farce and injustice. Malaika Mihambo (Germany) jumped 6.82m. Maryna Beth-Romanchuk (Ukraine) 6.79m and Ivana Spanovic (Serbia) 6.74m. In the jump off Beth-Romanchuk had a foul, Mihambo her worst jump of the day (6.33) so Spanovic won with 6:56m.
Brandon Starc, high jump, photo by Diamond League AG
The men’s high jump was won by Ilya Ivanyuk (ANA) from Brandon Starc (Australia) and Gianmarco Tamberi (Italy) who was sporting half a beard. All three cleared 2.33m. The surprise of the night was Mutaz Barshim only managing 2:30m.
The women’s pole vault was one by another of the Russian athletes cleared to compete, Anzhelika Sidorova (4:91m).
