Guliyev insists toppling titans was ‘no shock’
Turk snatches 200m as Van Niekerk takes silver Britain’s Mitchell-blake fourth ahead of Makwala
It is safe to say, with all the boiling intrigue around the men’s 200metres last night, that few expected a heavily tattooed Turk of disputed national allegiance to bundle through the pack and spoil the script. Just when this London crowd dared look for more romantic narratives, Wayde van Niekerk winning the first 200-400 double since 1995, say, or Isaac Makwala shaking off the ravages of the norovirus, Ramil Guliyev hung tough to shred the form guide.
Not that the man himself appeared too surprised. “This is not a shock, but it still does not feel real,” said Guliyev, who at 27 had never before won a global medal of note. “I am so proud, I delivered my best race at the right time. I was competing against some of the best athletes in the world, so it didn’t bother me that the attention was on them. Maybe at the next competition everyone will look at me instead.” Despite the unpredictability of this race, it should still serve as a reminder of what athletics stands to lose once Usain Bolt slips off into sun-kissed Caribbean retirement after tomorrow night’s sprint relay.
In the past 29 years, there has been just one time slower than Guliyev’s winning mark of 20.09 seconds at major championships. For Van Niekerk and Makwala, both of whom had broken 20 seconds this season, it seemed a race too far. The South African was exhausted from his efforts to win gold over 400m, while for his Botswanan rival the stress of running three 200m in two evenings after a 48-hour quarantine period for illness finally caught up with him.
Guliyev, diving over the line to drop Van Niekerk to silver, took advantage, which we can rest assured will be less than kindly received in Azerbaijan, his country of birth. For four years the authorities in Baku made clear their displeasure at him switching loyalties to neighbouring Turkey, even blocking him from appearing at London 2012. But the former European junior champion made good on his early promise here, bursting from the shadows.
To many, his will be a triumph soured by Turkey’s lamentable recent record of doping. After all, four of their nine finalists from the London Olympics have served drugs bans. Paula Radcliffe, world record holder for the women’s marathon, said this week: “When you look at those cheats from 2012, 80 per cent come from four countries: Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and Belarus.
“But only one of those countries has been banned.”
Tactfully, Guliyev wore both the Turkish and Azeri flags on his lap of honour, but for Van Niekerk there was a tinge of regret. A second gold was his stated target and could have signified a passing of the flame from Bolt, but he was toppled by an unlikely opponent. “It has been a massive rollercoaster for me, this competition,” he said, looking drained by a programme of six races in six days.
Trinidad’s Jereem Richards snaffled the bronze, while Nethaneel Mitchell-blake, the second fastest Briton ever over 200m, felt bereft in fourth. “I feel like I let the nation down,” he said, as the hosts’ medal drought extended to a sixth straight day. It was 30 years ago, with John Regis in 1987, that Britain last managed a medal over this distance.
There was little doubting the identity of the crowd favourite here, though. Makwala, in the space of 48 bewildering hours, spanning exile and reinstatement, pity and joy, had made himself a cult hero. If his one-man time trial in the teeming rain expressed the loneliness of the short-distance runner, his 20.44sec for sixth on a placid, windless summer’s evening at the Olympic Park suggested he was spent.
It will fall to Makwala and Van Niekerk, in all probability, to define the next chapter of the 200. Through the pomp of Johnson and then Bolt, there has been an embarrassment of riches in the half-lap dash. Pietro Mennea’s world record of 19.72sec, set in the altitude of Mexico City, had endured for 17 years until Johnson broke it at the US Olympic trials for Atlanta 1996.
Since then, it has been eclipsed another three times, with Bolt’s 19.19 such a quantum leap for the event that he has had the Berlin clock mounted on the wall of his Tracks and Records bar in Jamaica.
Van Niekerk has made no secret of his preference for the shorter sprints. It is Ans Botha, his 75-yearold coach, who has resisted such a move, but she might need to relent. The 400 will always struggle to galvanise a broader audience, and Van Niekerk, who has dipped under 10 seconds for 100 and under 20 for 200 on several occasions, has the impeccable technique that should enable him to keep improving.