When Olympic track and field athletes take to the stadium, it’s all about records, rivalries and gold

Need a once-every-four-years crash course in what’s going on in track and field and what to expect in the Olympic Games? You’ve come to the right place. Let’s get right to it.

The showdowns

There are usually highly anticipated showdowns in each Olympics, but there seem to be more than ever this time around.

Women’s 800-meter run: Keely Hodgkinson (Britain) vs. Mary Moraa (Kenya). It was supposed to be a three-way rematch, but America’s Athing Mu, the defending Olympic champion, fell in the Olympic trials (totally her fault, by the way) and failed to make the team. Mu would be an underdog against the 2024 iteration of Hodgkinson and Moraa.

In the final Diamond League meet before the Olympics, Hodgkinson recorded a time of 1:54.61 to become the sixth-fastest ever. Both Moraa and Hodgkinson beat Mu in last year’s world championships. Hodgkinson has won the silver medal in the last three global championships, starting with the 2021 Olympics at the age of 19.

Hodgkinson is a beautiful runner with a long, rhythmic stride. Moraa, by comparison, has a strange, stiff, head-back running style but has sprinter speed. She tried to run from the front in their only meeting this year, opening a 12-meter lead over Hodgkinson through 500 meters, but the Brit ran her down. Will Moraa change her tactics?

Women’s 400-meter hurdles: Femke Bol (Netherlands) vs. Sydney McLaughlin (U.S.). Generational talent seems to arrive in pairs. This is essentially a match race between the only hurdlers ever to crack 51 seconds in this event (in fact, only one other woman has broken 52).

They have rarely faced each other. McLaughlin, the defending Olympic champ and world record holder, doesn’t race much, partly because of injuries but mostly because that’s what Bobby Kersee-coached athletes do.

In McLaughlin’s absence, Bol, the 6-foot Dutch woman, has become a sensation, winning the world championship last year. McLaughlin has better sprint speed. It’s in the homestretch, when the competition has lactic acid up to their eyeballs and the muscles are locking up, that Bol excels.

Men’s 1,500-meter run: Jakob Ingebrigtsen (Norway) vs. Josh Kerr (Britain). Ingebrigtsen, cocky and arrogant, seems to relish the bad-guy role. When asked about Kerr’s two-mile world indoor record earlier this year, Ingebrigtsen said, “I would have beaten him in that race, blindfolded.”

He’s also referred to Kerr as “just the next guy.” Kerr beat the Norwegian in the mile in their one and only meeting this year, clocking 3:45.34, making him the sixth-fastest ever. Afterward, Ingebrigtsen said Kerr beat him only because he was sick, which prompted Kerr to say the Norwegian has bad manners.

Ingebrigtsen, the defending Olympic champ, has lost to a Brit in each of the last two world championships in the 1,500. In Paris, Kerr and Ingebrigtsen will play a cat-and-mouse game of trying to determine when to make a push for the finish and from how far out. Kerr stalked his rival in their last race and took the lead with 600 meters to go and Ingebrigtsen couldn’t catch him, so there might be new tactics.

Men’s 400-meter hurdles: Karsten Warholm (Norway) vs. Rai Benjamin (U.S.) vs. Alison dos Santos (Brazil). That’s the order in which they finished in the 2021 Olympics, but times have changed. Warholm is the world record holder, but his rivals have caught him.

Warholm, who always pushes out the first 200 hard, will hold the lead coming into the homestretch but Benjamin and Santos will catch him and then it’s anyone’s race. Benjamin, with three silvers and a bronze in Olympics and world championships, is due.

Women’s 100-meter dash: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica) vs. Sha’Carri Richardson (U.S.). It’s the battle of the tiny titans. Richardson is 24, Pryce 37. Richardson is 5-foot-1, Pryce 5-foot. Richardson is competing in her first Olympics and only her second world championships; Pryce is competing in her fifth Olympics and 14th world championships.

Rarely has any sprinter been able to endure as well as Pryce, who won the gold medal in the Olympic 100-meter final in 2008 and 2012 and bronze and silver medals in 2016 and 2021, respectively, giving her a total of 24 medals in world championship races (11 of them in relays) in 16 years. The Paris Games will be missing Jamaica’s two-time Olympic 100- and 200-meter dash champion Elaine Thompson, out with an injury. Between Thompson and Pryce, Jamaica has won the 100 in the last four Olympic Games.

Women’s 1,500-meter run: Faith Kipyegon (Kenya) vs. the clock. She is seeking her third Olympic gold medal in the 1,500-meter run and, at 30 years old, she is fresh from lowering her own world record this summer to 3:49.04. She holds the world records for the 1,500 and one mile (an outrageous 4:07.64) and formerly held the world record for 5,000 meters. She pulled off the 1,500-5,000 double at last summer’s world championships. She will double again in Paris.

Kipyegon is adding another chapter to the lore of Kenyan distance runners. Her story is a familiar one. She was born on a farm in the Rift Valley — cradle of so many great runners — and walked and ran to and from school every day. She made her international debut at 16, running barefoot in the world cross-country championships.

The Noah-Sha’Carri Show

Americans Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, the defending world champions at 100 meters, are in peak form and will draw much attention in Paris with their big personalities and talent (especially Lyles, a world-class ham). Both possess relatively mediocre acceleration, but both have stunning top-end speed (Usain Bolt and the great Carl Lewis possessed those same traits), which makes them even more effective in the relays (which afford running starts).

In the 100, they will not be in the lead at 50-60 meters. They will play a catch-up game and usually they succeed. Richardson generates immense power — her strength-to-weight ratio must be off the charts. Lyles will have a strong challenge in Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson at 100 meters, but he’ll win the 200-meter dash going away.

U.S. outlook

Americans won a leading 26 track and field medals in Tokyo three years ago; they’ll win about the same number this time around, too. The following Americans are gold-medal favorites: Sha’Carri Richardson (100 meters), Noah Lyles (100, 200), Rai Benjamin (400 hurdles), Gabby Thomas (200 meters), Masai Russell (100 hurdles), Sydney McLaughlin (400 hurdles), Grant Holloway (high hurdles), Quincy Hall (400 meters), Valarie Allman (discus), Ryan Crouser (shot put) and Tara Davis (long jump). Davis, by the way, married Hunter Woodhall, the Paralympic sprinter from Syracuse, Utah.

The U.S. will be hard-pressed to medal in any event 800 meters or longer with the exception of Nia Akins, who could slip in there for a bronze in the 800 behind Hodgkinson and Moraa.

The U.S. relay follies

Will the U.S. — always loaded with sprint talent — self-destruct in the relays again? In 12 of the last 19 world championship events held since 1983 (including the Olympics), the U.S. men’s 4x100 relay has either been disqualified or failed to finish because of a botched handoff.

In eight of those cases, the U.S. didn’t get past the semifinals. The women’s 4x100 has fared a little better, but that’s not saying much. Since 1991, the women have finished with either a DNF or a DQ six times. By now, it’s clear these are not fluke events; there’s something systematically wrong with the U.S. system and its relay preparation. Ask any high school coach – it should not be this difficult.

The broadcast booth

NBC’s broadcasting team for track and field is — hmmm, how to put this kindly — bad. So bad that a few years ago the network hired an auto racing commentator from Australia for play by play. No, seriously. His name is Lee Diffey. He’s NBC’s head cheerleader, a gushy, chatty, chuckling chap who thinks everything — EVERYTHING — is over-the-top sensational and WONDERFUL!!! If everything he said during a track meet was in written form, with proper punctuation, you would run out of exclamation points. He does the job as if he thinks he gets paid per word.

Suggestion: Watch the NBC broadcast with the sound off and listen to the BBC commentary.