Virus-hit Makwala books a final place
World Athletics Championships,
The path to get there could scarcely have been more convoluted, but the London World Championships finally have the showdown everyone wanted – Wayde van Niekerk versus Isaac Makwala in the 200metres final. Game on.
To describe events of recent days as strange would be a gross understatement. The ‘Makwala Saga’ has seen more twists and turns than a pretzel and it continued apace yesterday. It was early afternoon when the International Association of Athletics Federations made the unexpected announcement that all was not lost for Makwala’s medal aspirations.
Less than 24 hours after the Botswana athlete had been refused entry into the London Stadium when attempting to line up for the 400m final, he was handed a lifeline in the form of a 200m solo time-trial.
Regardless of whether he had indeed suffered from the norovirus outbreak that has affected more than 40 athletes and officials at these championships – he maintains that he never did have the disease – his 48-hour quarantine period was over and the IAAF was only too happy to end the bad publicity that the episode had brought.
So it was that two days after he had vomited on arrival for the 200m heats and been banned from running, Makwala was cheered to rafters as he lined up all alone in the thundering rain yesterday.
The task was simple: run a time of 20.53 seconds to improve on the slowest qualifier from the heats and he would advance through to the semi-finals. For the fastest man in the world this year, it appeared a simple enough assignment in spite of the conditions, and so it proved as he clocked 20.20sec.
Then came the bonus action. Keen to prove a point to those who had stripped him of his 400m bid, Makwala dropped immediately to the track on crossing the finish line, completed a rapid-fire set of push-ups and stood to attention with a salute. If the norovirus had struck, it was not affecting him any more.
Makwala then had little more than two hours to prepare himself for the next round, for which he was given the tight inside lane – one of two lanes not sheltered from the rain. After everything he had endured, those trivialities mattered not a jot as he later admitted he was “running with anger”.
The smile as he crossed the line was huge. Second place behind America’s Isiah Young and a spot in the final was his. Yet there was almost one more turn in the road. With Makwala having kept his part of the bargain, Van Niekerk nearly failed to keep his. The 400m champion had been expected to win his semi-final with ease, but only progressed as a fastest loser after finishing third. Britain’s Nethaneel Mitchell-blake got the other fastest loser’s spot. Makwala’s reprieve was the latest twist in an ongoing saga that had shown few signs of slowing. The day had begun with Seb Coe, the IAAF president, insisting that the decision to ban him from the 400m was a necessary precaution for the welfare of other athletes competing.
“As a former athlete, I have enormous sympathy for Isaac Makwala and the other athletes to get to this point in a championships and to contract an illness like this,” Coe wrote in the Evening Standard.
“It’s the last thing you ever want to happen and it’s very hard on him, but our overriding guiding principle is that we have 2,000 athletes in London under our care and we have a responsibility to protect them in the best way we possibly can.
“We’ve taken very careful medical advice, which is that athletes
showing symptoms of this virus have to be isolated immediately.
“The medical teams made a judgment after medical examinations, and the medical team is very clear that this athlete was showing some quite serious symptoms that had been happening for a period of time, and needed to be removed from competition.”
While the source of the outbreak remains unknown, the Tower Hotel – one of a handful of official athlete hotels at these championships – in central London has been confirmed at the epicentre.
As well as Makwala’s Botswana team, Canada are known to have 10 members of their team catch the virus, while Germany have quarantined 13 of theirs.
Andrew Lichtenthal, the German team’s lead doctor, yesterday lent his support to the decision to remove Makwala from competition.
“We are in a crisis – a medical crisis,” he said. “I agree with IAAF’S decision. We are very sorry for the athletes. We don’t do this job because we want to take athletes out.
“We want our athletes to compete. That’s our main aim. But this aim shouldn’t be so far that we take ill athletes.”
If Makwala’s push-ups had not sufficiently proven the point, his performance on the track hammered it home – no one can call him ill any longer.