If you ask me my favorite sport, 99 percent of the time the answer will be basketball. Growing up, it’s a sport that I often played, competing on blacktops and hardwood courts across St. Louis. I was always an above average player and even today, as my athleticism wanes, I can still get buckets in any gym. However, every four years, during the Summer Olympics, basketball takes a backseat to track and field on my personal sports pedestal.
I’m sure many others have a similar love for Olympic track and field. It’s easy to dream about being an athlete on the world’s greatest stage for sports. At bare minimum, basketball requires a ball, a court, decent shoes and a basket. Gymnastics require expensive apparatuses and thousands of hours of training before being able to compete at even the most basic level. Swimming requires access to a pool, which is especially difficult in urban, inner city and economically-challenged areas. However, all that many track and field events require to start are working arms and legs. We learn the skills of running, jumping and throwing as wee toddlers.
For example, I ran track and field for four years in high school, mainly just for something to do in the spring. Back in those days, the track at Lutheran North was made of dirt and the jumping pits were hard and in terrible condition. Still, we were able to put together three consecutive state championships teams. Even though I treated track like a hobby, I won an individual state championship in triple jump as well. So even with limited resources, it’s easy to imagine ourselves as Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Allyson Felix, Usain Bolt.
I’ll never forget watching Florence Griffith-Joyner destroy the field in the 100- and 200-meters in Seoul in 1988. The latter record still stands 28-years later. Nor will I forget Johnson obliterating the 200-meter record and his dominant 400-meter race and in gold shoes in Atlanta.  Even Lewis’ shocking loss to Ben Johnson in 1988 is seared into my memory.
I vividly recall Bolt smoking the filed to best the world records in both the 100- and 200-meter races in Berlin in 2008. Bolt’s consistently blistering performances have led me to abandon all patriotism when he’s on the track. I scream and cheer for the Jamaican sensation as if I was straight outta Kingston. I have no doubt that Wade van Niekerk’s insane 400-meter world record from lane 8 in Rio will be a lasting memory as well.
It’s a shame that track and field’s popularity doesn’t really last beyond the Olympics here in the United States. Track and field is the second most-popular sport in the world, after soccer. But like soccer, here in America, track and field is treated like a family reunion. It’s all love when the big event rolls around, but everybody is pushed to the backburner as soon as it’s over. Bolt, track’s biggest superstar, earns $30 million per year in worldwide endorsements. But how many times have you seen someone in the USA rocking a fresh pair of his Pumas? Most people would live in fear of starring in their very own ‘What are those’ videos on social media. ‘Those’ are the kicks of an Olympic legend.
With all due respect to Michael Phelps (the greatest Olympian of all-time), Simone Biles (possibly the greatest gymnast of all-time), Team USA basketball, Kerri Walsh Jennings and other Olympic stars, the burners on the track truly rule the roost of the Olympic Games.
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Leave Gabby alone
This biggest disappointment for me in these Olympics, even more than Team USA’s basketball struggles, has been the treatment of Gabby Douglas. Douglas failed to qualify for the all-around competition, despite finishing third-overall in the prelims, due to a rule that limits each country to two competitors in the finals. It’s time for that rule to change. Many sports have a two-person (or team) limit for a particular sport or event. The difference though is that more than two gymnasts are allowed to compete in the all-around competition in gymnastics. The rule should allow for the top-three or top-five gymnasts to advance to the finals, regardless of country. That way, you’re guaranteed to have the best of the best competing for a spot on the podium. To exclude possibly the third-best gymnast in the world from the finals means that the bronze medal is essentially a participation award.
Despite the fact that Douglas still walked away with her third gold medal in the team all-around, she caught heat from the peanut gallery about her hair and her hand placement during the Star-Spangled Banner. Since my colleague Alvin Reid has the national anthem part covered, let me touch on the hair bit for just a second.
A young, black woman proves that she is one of the best in the world, at one of the most difficult sports, yet she is hammered on social media about her ‘edges’? Maybe if more internet critics spent as much time on a sport as they do on their edges, we’d see more barrier-breaking athletes such as Douglas, Biles, Simon Manuel, Ibtihaj Muhammad, Michelle Carter and others.
That may seem contradictory coming from a sports columnists, who is paid to talk about and sometimes criticize athletes. However, to critique an athlete’s performance on-the-field or behavior off-the-field is one thing. To personally attack them for how they look or dress while performing amazing acts at a level of which most of us can barely dream is just outright stupid. Gabby critics, please zip it and allow the three-time Olympic gold medalist to have her shine.
Follow Ishmael and In the Clutch on Twitter @IshmaelSistrunk
