Faster, higher, stronger, Farah. Never mind the dead hand of London 2012. Bundle those memories of Super Saturday back in the sock drawer.
There were so many obvious symmetries on Rio 2016’s first bravura night of track and field, that perhaps only the more parochial will cast this middle Saturday as glorious but a notch down on the rush of London four years ago. In the event this was an occasion that stood without the need for comparison, three hours of utterly absorbing Olympic athletics on a chilly, slightly wild night in Rio took place.
It was always a wonderful piece of theatre that the Stratford three, Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis-Hill and Greg Rutherford should compete again simultaneously. In the event only Farah held on to his gold, producing the most thrilling medal race of his collection, a performance of tactical clarity and real matadorial edge.
Rutherford snaffled the long jump bronze in a tight, claustrophobic competition that went right to the last trailed hand in the sand. Jarrion Lawson’s final jump of the Games would have nudged Rutherford off the podium, but it was marked down for the tiniest imprint of a stray wrist. The heptathlon also went to the wire, with a supreme emergent performance from Nafissatou Thiam of Belgium edging Ennis-Hill into silver in what might just have been her own competitive farewell.
At times there was even something oddly poignant in the sight once again of a miserably empty Olympic stadium. Four years ago in London the bleachers were in a state of uproar as Ennis-Hill crossed the line to take gold. In one corner, an entire row of nurses could be seen embracing a squadron of sailors in old school white suits, plonked next to one another as part of a spare ticket giveaway, producing an impossibly cinematic scene of unbound celebration.
Rio, not so much. The dive pool has turned green and by the end here the Olympic stadium had turned the colour of empty blue plastic.
The consensus seems to be that this is a shameful state of affairs. But shameful for whom? Tickets here are expensive relative to income. The most obvious culprits are the wonks and politicians of Rio 2016’s organising committee, who bid for the Games with wild abandon and then simply failed to pull the people into the show, unmonitored by the International Olympic Committee, creating over seven years a crushingly costly spectacle drenched in indifference.
You can’t kill the spirit though. As the heptathletes strolled their lap of honour, hugging and smiling and waving at a minuscule crowd, it was tempting to glory simply in the pared back spectacle. Athletics remains a beautifully simple sport surrounded by confusion. In the end this is all you need: a track, someone to compete against, and someone – anyone – to cheer.
As the night kicked into gear, Rutherford sat once again at the edge of the running track as Ennis-Hill threw the javelin – a swirl of Olympic deja vu flickering beneath the tension. Rutherford put in a solid start, going further with his first jump than he had to win gold in London. But then he has never really been about pure distance, more a kind of warrior of the sandpit, a hard-edged and ornery competitor. His third jump hit the mark, nudging him out in front.
By now Farah had appeared on the near side of the stadium, swaggering to the 10,000m line like a man prepared for a fight. For the first three laps he prowled along three yards off the back marker. It is a showy, predatory kind of tactic, but a sensible one when the rest of the race fears you. Back there, Farah can see everyone. Steadily he crept up the field. For a while Farah hit the front. Then he abruptly fell over, ankle tapped by his training partner Galen Rupp. Farah rolled and scrabbled and sprinted back.
For a while three red Kenyan shirts boxed him out of the front, refusing to budge as the race unwound with an increasingly helter-skelter whirl of bluff and feint and bump. But again Farah was coiled right where he needed to be with a lap to go.
Paul Tanui made his move just after the bell. The gap opened briefly, but Farah stamped his way back and at the final bend made his move, skipping out from the slipstream and powering away. He had it won in that moment, the stadium rising as he collapsed across the line, holding his head and writhing in joy on the blue track.
Briefly there was a tearful Mobot, then a sombre, exhausted walk towards the fans at the perimeter to drape himself in the union flag.
It was a perfect race in many ways. The entire field bent to Farah’s racing will, allowing him to bunch them in, then finding themselves burnt away by his finishing speed.
Meanwhile, Rutherford had been hauled back. Jeff Henderson of the US pushed the gold mark up to 8.38m, a distance Rutherford, fourth now, had barely jumped in his career. The talk with Rutherford is always of his competitive will. Well, here it was. One leap to crash the podium. Pit or bust.
Rutherford slapped his thighs and made some gurning faces at the end of his run. He nailed it too, edging into bronze position, then hanging in there as Lawson’s huge final jump was dragged back to 7.78m, his coach leaping up in fury and calling fruitlessly for a do-over.
So it came down to the final knockings. Ennis-Hill needed to win by an improbable margin to haul in a Belgian who set five personal bests here. She went out like a hare, leading from start to finish and pushing herself to the limits of whatever two days of competition had left. Thiam hung on to become a truly worthy gold medalist, the champ who beat the champ.
At the end, Ennis-Hill seemed to be half-saying goodbye, beaming and sobbing, cuddling into her flag like somebody sealing in the moment. Either way, the chintz of London 2012’s grand middle Saturday can now be safely packed away for good, never again to be disturbed. For Rio this was something more, a night of thrilling competition and another reminder in among the sludge and the noises that sport can still provide not just moments of victory but shades of something more profoundly uplifting.
