Belated promotion cannot top thrill of bronze on the night
David Leggat
Watching old clips of famous sporting achievements can bring back fabulous memories, but nothing beats being there to savour the moment.
That old line leapt to mind in the wake of the Asbel Kiprop’s positive drug test this week.
The Kenyan three-time world 1500m champion was promoted from silver to gold in the Bejing Olympics after Bahrain’s Rashid Ramzi was rubbed out for failing a test himself.
In the recalibration, Nick Willis went from bronze to silver and now there lies the tantalising prospect of a further step up the dais. We’ll come to the significance or otherwise of that in a moment.
But here’s the point of this: nothing beats witnessing it live.
The atmosphere in the Beijing Bird’s Nest on the night of the 1500m final was special. The race proceeded as expected with the black singleted runner there or thereabouts.
Willis, gold medallist at the Melbourne Commonwealth Games two years earlier remember and no slouch, was eighth at the bell, sixth at the turn for home where he mowed down three runners in front of him. He was running straight towards our press seats as this unfolded.
My colleague Eugene Bingham, one of New Zealand’s best allround journalists, and now regular marathon runner, briefly lost it.
“He’s going to do it! Go on son! He’s done it! You beauty!” exclaimed the normally organised and measured Bingham as Willis crossed the line.
Bingham was in the moment. That’s what being there can do.
Hairs standing on the back of the neck doesn’t do justice to it. You are a witness to something special which won’t be repeated.
Like the day Sarah Ulmer smashed the world 3000m individual pursuit record in winning the gold at the Athens velodrome in 2004; or when Hamish Carter and Bevan Docherty confirmed that New Zealand would win triathlon gold and silver 400m from the finish on a sweltering Athens day. All that was left was sorting out who won what.
That was a first thought when the Kiprop story broke. It’s 10 years ago and whether Kiprop loses his gold remains a moot point for a while yet. You doubt it really matters to Willis.
For him, that was a day he’ll never forget. He said this week that despite his other successes in an outstanding career, “that [Beijing race] is still the highlight of my sporting career. I couldn’t have been any more joyful than I was that day.
‘‘That was an amazing experience, and that’s what brought us [he and his family] to peace many years ago in this sport.”
So will it matter if Willis does earn an upgrade to sit alongside Jack Lovelock, Peter Snell and John Walker in New Zealand’s middle distance pantheon? In one, obvious sense yes, but on balance probably not.
It won’t change what Willis achieved that night in Beijing. At its best, sport can bring a rare, albeit sometimes fleeting, joy into lives. Willis wasn’t the only New Zealander who discovered that 10 years ago.