Sport

The appeal of running

Lauryn Williams knows about hair-breadths and coming up short, she knows because she ran the fastest time in her race in Osaka and still lost.

The photo-finish can be a cruel finish, yet the end of the women’s 100 was also a classical finish, close, breathless, the separation not much more than the thickness of the victorious Veronica Campbell’s vest.

The mastering of the 100 brings more than a medal. Of all the labels that athletes chase, two have historically carried the heftiest swagger: "the heavyweight champion of the world" and "the world’s fastest man/woman". The latter, Tyson Gay will insist, is the track’s most sought after title, yet not all are convinced.

Sweden’s King Gustav V told Jim Thorpe in 1912, "Sir, you are the greatest athlete in the world", and the decathlete was once viewed as the ideal athletic man. Marathoners, who run some days in blood-washed shoes, see their struggle as unparalleled. But for many it is the 1500 metres, the men’s won by Bernard Lagat on Wednesday, that is pre-eminent.

Roger Bannister saw the mile as a "drama", John Landy as a "play in four acts", descriptions that comfortably fit the 1500, the "metric mile". This is a contest over the perfect distance, not a sprint yet requiring speed (Sebastian Coe’s last 100 in Moscow 1980 was 12.1 seconds), not a constant grind yet deeply demanding of the lungs. In its simplest form, Hicham El Guerrouj’s 1500 world record is an astonishing 15 consecutive 100-metre races run at 13.73 seconds each.

The 100 is beautiful in its simplicity, the 1500 compelling in its complexity. Despite the strut of its contestants, there is no pretence to the 100, a pure contest absent of frills, a race that appeals to every human who remembers a childhood shout to his friends of "race you to that tall tree".

Sprinter Ato Boldon said once: "When the gun shoots, you got to go". The 100 asks for no hesitation, it demands perfection because there is, literally, little time for corrections. This pressure, of four years being distilled into a passing moment, only a diver might understand.

But the 100 is almost too quick. You cannot get into it, but you can journey through the 1500, appreciate its unfolding plots, admire the runner’s struggle, feel the tension of a race where each man’s warm breath on the next man’s neck is a reminder of hot pursuit.

A contest appears incomplete if it does not demand an ability to push through pain, or constant decision-making under stress. You cannot easily find this in the 100, but it is the signature of the 1500.

Each runner arrived in Wednesday’s 1500 with a plan yet also ready to be flexible; each trains to run at a particular pace yet would have adjusted speed accordingly. Some runners authoritatively take the lead as Alan Webb and Asbel Kiprop did, most jostle into comfortable positions and carefully watch the race even while running it.

Some races are quick, most major ones like Wednesday’s are tactical (a medal matters, not time), but all are intricate. Runners do mathematics with every bend (is a race going too slow or fast?), evaluate the field on every straight (by checking positions on the giant TV), and stay focused even while ignoring pain and panic (wait, wait, now kick!).

On Wednesday, every element was on show: Lagat waited and kicked perfectly, Webb ran out of fuel, and defending champion Rashid Ramzi missed gold because he "failed tactically".

The 100 fascinates because raw speed has a visceral appeal. The 1500 attracts because athletes must mix stamina, speed and smarts. Either way, it takes a World Championship to remind us that athletes, in unrestrained flight, over whatever distance, are a beautiful sight.

As Maurice Greene used to say: "Every morning in Africa a gazelle wakes up. It knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a lion wakes up and it knows it must run faster than the slowest gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn’t matter if you’re a lion or a gazelle, when the sun comes up, you better be running."

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