This year’s World Athletics Championships were held at the Olympic Stadium from 4th to 13th August 2017 in the Queen Elizabeth II Olympic Park, London. The championships marked the retirement of two amazing champions Usain Bolt (Jamaica) and Mo Farah (Great Britain).
This was the first major athletic event that we attended. I followed the event since being awarded to London. I got my tickets on time and the event that I choose to see was the 200m men final, hoping to see Usain Bolt (as this is his favourite event).
We decided to go to the park on the 4th August, as it was Friday and we were working remotely. It was evident that the park was embarrassing the games, as there were a lot of people enjoying themselves while waiting for the doors to be opened. On this occasion there was a free entry “Hero Village”, which we attended a got free product samples and participated in some competitions, where we won some prices.
We returned home shortly before starting to see the games on TV. That day Usain Bolt qualified for the 100m semifinal and Mo Farah won gold on 10,000m. Although it was a great day for both athletes, there were various events with many other athletes to see.
Watching athletics on TV is very convenient as you only see one event at a time instead of trying to choose which event to follow. However, the problem of watching athletics on TV is that you are only able to watch the participation of the country where you are watching the games. However, being born in Mexico and my husband being born in India we want to see those countries athletes but we never can. In any case, the games were amazing as many young athletes are starting a very promising career.
We attended the games on 10th August (Thursday), and was an amazing day. Since we have covered the Heroe Village, we went directly to our seats, however, we stopped at the warming area to have a peak of some athletes training.
In the warming area, I was searching for Dafne Schippers (Netherlands, runner), and we saw Christian Taylor (USA, triple jump), Phyllis Francis (USA, runner), Caster Semeya (South Africa, runner) to mention some.
Then after seeing a glimpse of Dafne Schippers, we went to our seat and we were fortunately to be over the final line, and the side of the javelin throw. Since Usain Bolt was not competing in the 200m, my next objective was to see Dafne Schippers qualified in the 200m.
The day was spectacular, we saw Dafne Schippers won her round and qualified for the semifinals. My husband’s favourite event is the javelin throw and were very fortunate to see two Indian athletes competing. We were very excited to see Davinder Singh Kang (India) qualified automatically to the final after achieving 84.22m on his final throw. We also saw Christian Taylor won the triple jump and Kori Carter (USA) won in 400m hurdles.
We loved sports and we were very fortunate of attending a major competition, as we missed the athletics in the Olympic Games during 2012. However, the thing the most stroke me was that the games were focused on witnessing the last appearances of two legends and not about the rest of the sports.
I think that the best example of this was that during the 4x100m relay final as most people were very disappointed that Usain Bolt did not win any medal, never mind that he might have suffered a major injury that would put him bedridden, or that USA and UK did an amazing job, or the fact that Mo Farrah won silver instead of gold in his last track event.
I think we need to embrace all the athletic specialist as this is one sport that no major equipment is needed and every child in every country could do to keep themselves fit and out of problems. Therefore, I think the media, including this blog, needs to encourage other countries to explore the world of athletics as we might find another legend in the making. The more exposure we give to athletics the more people it reaches and the more children will practice it to keep a healthy lifestyle.
I am happy that these types of events are coming to London as with the integration of para athletics every person regardless of their circumstance could pursue a sport and maybe be the next champion of their home country.
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