4. World Records aren’t tall orders anymore
Prior to the Beijing 2008 Olympics, breaking World Records (WRs) seemed a somewhat insurmountable task for most athletes, with many of them content with winning the GOLD medal, or at least finishing among the podium placers at major championships.
Usain Bolt changed this mindset when he set WRs in his different events (100m, 200m and 4x100m) at the Beijing Olympics. Furthermore, he went on to break these records in subsequent years and at different championships, proving to other athletes that long standing records can actually be broken.
Fast-forward to 2016 and several athletes hadn’t only caught the bug of attempting/breaking the WR’s in their various events, they accomplished the feat with such doggedness and tenacity, with no less than five WR’s being erased with unbelievable margins in 2016!
Three of those records were set in Rio. The first was by Anita Wlodarczyk in the women’s Hammer throw. The Polish athlete has smashed the WR more than five times in the course of her career. She successfully retained her Olympic title with a then WR of 82.29m, before ending her season with a better mark of 82.98m just 13 days later. As it stands, she will be aiming to go beyond the 83m mark and improve on her record in 2017.
Wayde Van Niekerk as stated earlier, has had the most incredible months of his career since the start of the 2015 Athletics season. His shattering of Micheal Johnson’s long standing 17-year old 400m WR of 43.18s in Rio, by setting a new one of 43.03s, suggests a huge possibility of clocking a sub-43s in future.
Almaz Ayana on her second competitive race in the 10,000m, smashed Wang Junxia’s 23-year old WR of 29:31.78, shaving off as much as 14s to set a new one of 29:17.45, on her way to winning her first Olympic GOLD medal. She still has the 5000m WR in sight, where she has two of the Top 5 fastest times in history.
Ruth Jebet may not have set her 3000m Steeplechase WR in Rio, but her winning time of 8:59.75 was an Olympic Record (OR) and the second fastest mark of all time. A week later at the Paris Diamond League, she raced to a new WR of 8:52.82, erasing Gulnara Galkina’s 2008 mark of 8:58.81. Some may say the 20-year old might have peaked too early, but with the way she has outclassed her field in 2016, we just might see her dropping her time in future.
Last but certainly not the least is 100m hurdler, Kendra Harrison, who made up for her disappointment of not making the US Olympic team in the most spectacular way. At the London Anniversary Games, she stormed to a new WR of 12.20s to break Yordanka Donkova’s 28-year record of 12.21s.
Interestingly, the aforementioned athletes asides Wlodarczyk, are 25-years and below, which puts them at an advantage as far as lowering their times is concerned, in the event that they aren’t beaten to the task by their opponents.
