An Olympic 400m record of 48.17 by Marileidy Paulino of the Dominican Republic proved one of the major highlights on a captivating night of athletics at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games on Friday (9 August).
It was an evening of both individual brilliance and riveting head-to-head duels as Rai Benjamin finally got the win he’d been seeking on the big stage over arch rival Karsten Warholm of Norway, the US star powering to 400m hurdles gold in 46.46, while in the heptathlon Belgium’s Nafi Thiam had to summon all her strength in the 800m to repel a superb effort by world champion Katarina Johnson-Thompson, Thiam winning her third straight Olympic title with a tally of 6880.
The men’s triple jump produced a thrilling duel with Spain’s Jordan Alejandro Diaz Fortun leaping 17.86m to deny Pedro Pichardo by just two centimetres. Canada sprang a surprise in the men’s 4x100m, USA lived up to their favourite’s tag in the women’s 4x100m, while in the women’s 10,000m Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet completed a golden double. There was also gold for Germany in the women’s shot put through Yemisi Ogunleye.
But let’s start with Paulino, who put on a one-lap exhibition in the women’s 400m final, powering to gold in 48.17 to break Marie-Jose Perec’s Olympic record of 48.25 from the 1996 Games in Atlanta. She ripped through the first 200m and simply never looked likely to relinquish gold thereafter, hitting the line well clear of Bahrain’s Salwa Eid Naser (48.53) and Poland’s Natalia Kaczmarek (48.98), becoming the first woman from the Dominican Republic to win an Olympic gold in any sport.
“It’s the only medal that I was missing to complete the Olympic cycle,” she said. “I still cannot believe that just happened.”
The men’s 400m hurdles proved the race of the Games in Tokyo three years ago and there were high hopes for a similar spectacle here as Rai Benjamin and Karsten Warholm ran it back along with Brazil’s Alison Dos Santos, the 2022 world champion. But in truth, the duel only lasted until the home turn, at which point Benjamin began to assert and Warholm started to fade, the US athlete finally getting the gold his ability long seemed destined to win, clocking 46.46 ahead of Warholm (47.06) and Dos Santos (47.26).“I finally got it done,” said Benjamin. “In a way, the weight has been lifted. This colour of the medal has eluded me for so long and to get it done in this fashion, in front of my friends and family just means so much to me.”
The heptathlon proved a close-fought contest, with Thiam and Johnson-Thompson both throwing season’s bests in the penultimate javelin, leaving Thiam with a 121-point lead ahead of the 800m, which translates to about 8.3 seconds.
Johnson-Thompson went out hard, passing 400m in 60 seconds and she carved almost a second off her PB with 2:04.90 to threaten to take gold, but further down the track Thiam was also producing the best 800m of her life, clocking a PB of 2:10.62 to successfully defend her title with a tally of 6880 points – the highest of all of her Olympic title-winning scores. Johnson-Thompson claimed silver and her first Olympic medal with 6844 while Noor Vidts made it two Belgians on the podium, taking bronze with 6707.
“I feel very special,” said Thiam. “I didn’t cross that line and think I made history. I simply thought about all this pain, hard work, sacrifice, all those moments where I felt lonely, all of that paid off and I’m really grateful.”
In the women’s shot put, Yemisi Ogunleye found a breakthrough at the perfect time, unleashing the longest outdoor throw of her career in the final round to take gold with 20.00m ahead of New Zealand’s Maddison-Lee Wesche, who threw a PB of 19.86m for silver. China’s Song Jiayuan claimed bronze with 19.32m.
The men’s triple jump saw Jordan Alejandro Diaz Fortun become the first Spanish man to win a senior global title in the discipline, leaping 17.86m to deny defending Olympic champion Pedro Pichardo of Portugal (17.84m). Italy’s Andy Diaz took bronze with 17.64m.
The women’s 10,000m was a cagey race, one where speed proved a precious commodity at the end. It was once again Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet who had the most of it, outkicking Italy’s Nadia Battocletti to win gold in 30:43.25 and complete a distance double. Battocletti earned silver in a national record of 30:43.35 as Sifan Hassan of the Netherlands clocked 30:44.12 for bronze.
In the women’s 4x100m, Great Britain and Northern Ireland were left to rue their changeovers as they had to settle for silver in 41.85 as the US quartet of Melissa Jefferson, Twanisha Terry, Gabby Thomas and Sha’Carri Richardson swept to gold in 41.78, with Germany taking bronze with 41.97.
The men’s 4x100m saw the US quartet cross the line seventh after a botched first exchange between Christian Coleman and Kenny Bednarek, but they were then disqualified. It was the Canadian quartet of Aaron Brown, Jerome Blake, Brendon Rodney and Andre de Grasse who swept to gold in 37.50, with Akani Simbine finally getting his Olympic medal when anchoring South Africa to silver in an African record of 37.57, with Great Britain and Northern Ireland third in 37.61.
Cathal Dennehy for World Athletics
