All you wanted to know about the 100 meters and were afraid to ask, Your Daily Dose from DOHA, 2015 IPC Athletics World Champs, by Stuart Weir

Isis Holt, Australia, photo by IPC

Stuart Weir has spent nearly two weeks in Doha, writing about the IPC Athletics World Champs with the attention to detail and desire to provide the story and context needed to appreciate and celebrate the IPC Championships. Here is his piece on the 100 meters.

All you wanted to know about the 100 metres and were afraid to ask.

The 100 metres is often the highlight of a track and field meet. It is over quickest and the winner takes the title of the fastest man or woman in the world, the country, the county etc. But the process is more complicated in the IPC World Championships as there are 30 different 100 metres races in 16 different classifications for men and 14 for women. To acknowledge the 30 winners, I have listed them with their time.

The 100 metres is for many people the highlight of a Track and Field Meet. The fastest man was Richard Browne in 10.61 in the amputee T44 class just ahead of Jason Smyth (10.62) in the T13, Visual impairment class. Richard said afterwards: “”I’m really happy to break the world record again and to be world champion. I actually wanted to go faster than what I did, I thought I had a bit of a slow start.”

Omara Durand is the fastest woman running 11.28 in the T12, Visual impairment class. Omara had also won the 200 and 400 and was not surprisingly delighted: “I have won three gold medals, I am the happiest in the world, three is the magic number!”

I am a little hesitant to pick out the fastest and suggest that they are the best, as all of the winners have done incredibly well and their time is in relation to their disability. Look at the list of winners below. Remember the lower the number, the greater the disability. See the times get faster within the Visual Impairment, Cerebral Palsy, Amputee and Spinal/wheelchair categories as the level of disability decreases.

Having thirty separate 100 metres races certainly makes for a long programme and arguably cheapens a gold medal when an event goes straight to a final as there are not enough competitors to require heats or semi-finals. But it is the only way to place athletes in a fair competition where everyone has a chance. There is even an argument that there are not enough categories to guarantee that level playing field. See https://www.runblogrun.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-search.cgi?search=stuart+weir&IncludeBlogs=5&limit=20

The 2015 IPC World Champions in the 100 metres