On Saturday night in Cleveland, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame returned with some aplomb after last year’s ceremony was conducted virtually owing to the coronavirus pandemic. From musical icons to award-winning actors, controversial comics, and even a former president, all of the stars lined up to pay homage to the latest batch of inductees in the performer, early influence, and musical excellence categories.
There were more than a few raised eyebrows and angry texts back in May when the Hall of Fame whittled its longlist down to a few lucky recipients. The ballot announced in February was one of the most diverse in the history of the Hall of Fame, including seven female acts, an Afrobeat pioneer, and legends of punk, new wave, and heavy metal.
Instead Kate Bush, Mary J. Blige, and Chaka Khan missed out, as did Fela Kuti, the New York Dolls, Devo, and Iron Maiden. But Carole King and Tina Turner received their belated dues as solo artists, even though King was inducted with her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin in 1990, while Turner was inducted for her incendiary R&B antics with Ike in 1991. And while Jay-Z was granted induction in his first year of eligibility, after six close calls the hip hop innovator and multi-hyphenate LL Cool J finally received a pass in the form of a well-deserved Award for Musical Excellence.
Established in 2000 as an award for sidemen, those musicians and producers who have made a lasting contribution to the game while staying resolutely out of the spotlight, since 2010 the Award for Musical Excellence has served as a more flexible category, allowing the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame to fill unseemly gaps in its honour roll. Joining LL Cool J in the class for 2021 were the guitarist Randy Rhoads and the keyboardist Bill Preston.
Meanwhile Kraftwerk, the towering krautrock band who had also been nominated six times, at last gained access to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame via the category for early influences. Previously the bracket had served for influential artists who predated rock and roll, like Jimmie Rodgers, Robert Johnson, Louis Jordan, Ma Rainey, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. This year however the category was expanded to include other innovative acts who might be excluded from the main performing class, with Kraftwerk and the spoken-word poet Gil Scott-Heron joining the Delta bluesman Charley Patton.
The headline act for the performing class of 2021 was Carole King, though the ceremony in Cleveland opened more with an ode to her prowess as a songwriter. ‘Will You Love Me Tomorrow’, a number one hit for The Shirelles at the beginning of 1961, received an ambling synth cover from Taylor Swift more in line with King’s own rendition of the song on her 1971 album Tapestry, reducing the passionate entreaty to performative mush. Swift then delivered the induction speech for King, describing her music as one of ‘sage wisdom’ and ‘gentle comfort’ before calling Tapestry ‘a watershed moment for humans in the world who have feelings’.
For her own part, King said ‘I keep hearing it, so I guess I’m going to have to try to own it, that today’s female singers and songwriters stand on my shoulders’, saving a special word for Aretha Franklin as the first female Hall of Fame inductee. The sentiment was echoed by the The Go-Go’s, whose bassist Kathy Valentine said after a beatific introduction from Drew Barrymore:
‘By honouring our historical contribution, the doors to this establishment have opened wider. Because here is the thing, there would not be less of us if more of us were visible.’
The classic quintet of Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Jane Wiedlin, Kathy Valentine, and Gina Schock proceeded to stomp and sneer through their hits ‘Vacation’, ‘Our Lips Are Sealed’, and ‘We Got the Beat’. Jennifer Hudson joined Swift in paying her respects to Carole King, with a stirring rendition of ‘(You Make Me Feel Like a) Natural Woman’, while Christina Aguilera, Mickey Guyton, H.E.R., and Keith Urban performed a medley for Tina Turner, who did not attend the ceremony. Nor did the famously reclusive pop maestro Todd Rundgren, who was inducted to the Hall of Fame in a taped segment by Patti Smith.
Perhaps the most animated introduction of the night came courtesy of Dr. Dre, who inducted LL Cool J with an energy usually reserved for his stints behind the turntables. Blending personal anecdotes with snippets of informative mythmaking, Dre spoke of shared traumas and family bonding on a boat out on the Mediterranean Sea, noted that LL was the first artist to define the acronym ‘GOAT’ for ‘Greatest of All Time’, and brought it all back home with references to his roots in New York and the enduring influence of his debut album Radio.
LL in turn made humility the theme of his speech. Thanking everyone from his wife Simone to the business manager who refuses to allow the star a new pair of Converse sneakers, he paid tribute to his fellow hip hop pioneers Marley Marl and Kool Moe Dee, and saved a special shoutout for Canibus, whose early exposure on the LL track ‘4, 3, 2, 1’ kicked off a legendary feud between the two artists. After words from his longtime crew members E Love and DJ Cut Creator, the rapper closed his speech adding:
‘Rock and roll, hip hop loves you. We borrow your beats, we sample ’em, we turn them into hits. And we know where we came from, we know where things come from.’
Taking the stage with his usual gusto, LL was joined by Eminem for a boisterous rendition of ‘Rock the Bells’ before the silky smooth crooner revived his old chemistry with Jennifer Lopez, as they shared bars of their chart-topping 2003 single ‘All I Have’. The Ahmet Ertegun Award for non-performers went to the music executive Clarence Avant. And Brandi Carlile helmed the in memoriam segment with a slow-moving take on the Everly Brothers classic ‘All I Have to Do Is Dream’.
‘I’ve turned to Jay-Z’s words at different points in my life, whether I was brushing dirt off my shoulder on the campaign trail, or sampling his lyrics on the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 50th anniversary of the Selma march to Montgomery.’
Dave Chappelle delivered the in-person introduction in his home state of Ohio, opening with a reference to the ongoing controversy over his recent Netflix special The Closer, with the comic standing accused of making transphobic remarks. In his acceptance speech Jay-Z, who spurned the sequins and sparkles and plaid and lace of some of his fellow inductees for a simple tuxedo in midnight blue, reminisced on the past and paid tribute to some of his mentors and peers, including LL Cool J, Rakim, Chuck D, and KRS-One. The rapper said:
‘Growing up, we didn’t think we could be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. We were told that hip hop was a fad. Much like punk rock, it gave us this anti-culture, this subgenre, and there were heroes in it.’
As the ceremony spilled over, a short speech from Paul McCartney inexplicably served to induct Foo Fighters, with Dave Grohl like King and Turner becoming a two-time inductee after Nirvana ascended the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame back in 2014. The band blasted through a barrage of their hit songs, performing ‘The Best of You’, ‘My Hero’, and ‘Everlong’ before McCartney joined them up on stage for a cover version of The Beatles anthem ‘Get Back’.
Put down those plates full of pelmeni, pass by the carts packed with pirozhki, and keep the blini and borscht on a slow cook on the stove. Muscovites no longer down pints of vodka and lament their culinary deprivation while reminiscing on the halcyon days of the Cold War. Great food has finally arrived in the motherland, a fact confirmed this week during a ceremony in the Russian capital, where Moscow received its first edition of the prestigious Michelin Guide.
Published for more than a century by the French tire company Michelin, the eponymous guide serves as the demarcator of excellence in the restaurant industry. Featured establishments typically see an upsurge in business, and the expansion of the guide to new regions and locales courts controversy over issues of bidding and corporate sponsorship while shining a spotlight on sometimes overlooked culinary haunts. The Bib Gourmand highlights restaurants offering exceptional food at moderate prices, while three Michelin stars in the little red guide signals membership among the elite of haute cuisine.
A total of 69 restaurants are recommended in the first Moscow edition of the Michelin Guide. Seven restaurants have received one star, including White Rabbit on the top floor of the Smolenskiy Passazh, whose head chef Vladimir Mukhin combines pre-Soviet recipes with modern techniques and was featured in the third volume of the Netflix series Chef’s Table. Two restaurants nabbed two stars, including Twin Gardens by the twin brothers Ivan and Sergei Berezutskiy, and Artest by the head chef Artem Estafev.
While several restaurants serving traditional Russian food – including the iconic Café Pushkin on Tverskoy Boulevard, currently operated by Maison Dellos – are recommended in the guide, none managed to attain stars, prompting the usual complaint that Michelin critics are too fond of French fare and continental constructs. However Michelin’s international director Gwendal Poullennec was quick to praise Russian produce, like the king crabs from the eastern city of Vladivostok, Borodinsky bread, halibut from Murmansk, and the sour cream used in the preparation of beef stroganoff.
At the ceremony on Thursday, the Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin heralded the boost for his city, especially given the strain imposed on the restaurant industry during the time of the coronavirus pandemic. Meanwhile Sergei Berezutskiy of Twin Gardens said:
‘Thank you, Michelin Guide, for coming to Russia and believing in all of us. Today is an historic event for the whole restaurant market. Moscow really has become one of the gastronomic capitals of the world.’
So on to Paris, and the climax of the spring-summer 2022 season. The return of audiences to the French capital created a buzz around fashion week for the first time in eighteen months. A packed schedule saw Chanel, Dior, Saint Laurent, and Louis Vuitton showcase their wares alongside relative newcomers like Thebe Magugu, Kenneth Ize, and Rok Hwang. But there was no jostling for space, as models walked en plein air and fashion houses returned to familiar haunts.
Some brands still stuck with digital presentations. In one of the first shows of Paris Fashion Week, the designer Marine Serre created the video Ostal 24 with her usual collaborators Sacha Barbin and Ryan Doubiago, upcycling embroidered tablecloths, linen tea towels, and vintage denim within the ample confines of a French country house. Flowing smocks and jewellery made out of cutlery adorned the models as they embarked on their pastoral routine, with morning yoga and solo dancing giving way to a crimson dyeing ritual by dusk.
Paul Smith put on a small personal presentation down the Rue des Archives, while the South African designer Thebe Magugu based his collection around the idea of ‘memory as a reservoir for optimism’, showing sculpted knits and plenty of sharp tailoring while poring over old family photographs in the company of his mother and aunt.
The first runway show of the week had already commenced over at Kenneth Ize, who debuted in Paris last year just before the curtain dropped on the pandemic. The Nigerian designer has a weaving factory in the Kwara capital of Ilorin, which produces around 80 percent of his fabrics, and his spring-summer collection showed a dazzling array of silks and prints.
At Dior, Maria Grazia Chiuri dived back into the sixties, drawing from Italian discothèques, period board games, and the designs of Marc Bohan, which are currently on display as part of a retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum. The result was colourful display of mini dresses, tailored coats, and Mary Janes which drew the attention of Jisoo from Blackpink. And from a tent in the Tuileries Garden to a series of strobe lights under the watchful eye of the Eiffel Tower, at Saint Laurent the creative director Anthony Vaccarello dedicated his show to Paloma Picasso, with broad-shouldered jackets, spandex jumpsuits, and red leather gloves all reaching towards a watery climax.
On the grass of the Bois de Vincennes, the Courrèges creative director Nicolas Di Felice focused on festival wear, with ponchos and flared leggings as he seeks to breath new life into the heritage brand. Acne Studios mixed things up with sheer tops, buckled skirts, and leather corsets over beats from the Venezuelan producer Arca. And Rick Owens returned through plumes of smoke to the Palais de Tokyo, where Michèle Lamy heralded a billowing assortment of laddered knitwear and tulle fabric, draped over the top of cutaway bodysuits, leather patches, and reptilian platform boots.
For her first physical show as the creative director of Chloé, the Uruguayan designer Gabriela Hearst gathered spectators on the Quai de la Tournelle along the banks of the River Seine for a collection of tasseled gowns, comfortable pantsuits, and crocheted dresses which paid heed to the environment. As the brand transitions towards low-impact and sustainable fabrics, linen is gradually replacing cotton, and buying strategies emphasise the upcycled and handmade, with the soles of the sandals and flip-flops in Paris produced in collaboration with Ocean Sole, a social enterprise which removes trash from the waterways of Kenya.
Through the pines, Jonathan Anderson of Loewe drew inspiration from the exaggerated elegance of Mannerism, with surreal silhouettes which jutted out at the waist, flared at the knees, or exposed the chest through pink plastic resin. Many of the models wore metallic breastplates, while stilettos skewered household objects like bars of soap, birthday candles, and cracked eggshells.
It was a case of the slouchier the better for Raf Simons, who reimagined the workplace through a collection of unisex suits and oversize dress shirts. Valentino took over the old marketplace at the Carreau du Temple, where Pierpaolo Piccioli launched the Valentino Archive alongside swathes of chocolate brown, royal purple, and yellow taffeta. And over at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Demna Gvasalia of Balenciaga conducted his own film premiere, as celebrities like Isabelle Huppert, Cardi B, and Eliot Page strode the red carpet, with their looks screened to the audience inside before the assembled cast settled down for a special Balenciaga-themed episode of The Simpsons.
Cartoons were also in vogue at Lanvin, which collaborated with DC Comics to incorporate illustrations from old issues of Batman. Hermès opted for a sleeker and more natural look, as Nadège Vanhee-Cybulski added leather detailing to athletic crop tops, boiler suits, and wide-legged trousers, against a sunset backdrop specially staged within the confines of a private airport hangar. Meanwhile the mixture of luxury and utility courted controversy at Givenchy, which received criticism for its noose necklaces in silver and gold.
That left the final day of Paris Fashion Week, where Chanel combined swimsuits and mesh skirts, tweeds and pastel cardigan suits, and sequins and diaphanous butterfly prints, all on an elevated runway which was illuminated by the flashbulbs of in-house photographers Inez and Vinoodh. Miu Miu shrunk office attire down to the barest of essentials. And at Louis Vuitton, the designer Nicolas Ghesquière continued to mine the past, with reveries under the grand chandeliers of the Passage Richelieu in the Louvre rudely interrupted by a climate protester who stormed the runway, bearing a sign which read ‘Overconsumption = Extinction’.
All the pent-up emotion and careful consideration over the future of fashion wound down with a tribute to Alber Elbaz. The Israeli designer, who became known for his effortless chic and carnivalesque runway shows over the course of fourteen years at Lanvin, died in April at the age of 59 years old. The final show of Paris Fashion Week saw the leading lights of the industry join forces with his old design team at AZ Factory, with his longtime partner Alex Koo explaining ‘We wanted to find a way to celebrate Alber’s spirit’.
From Bruno Sialelli, the current creative director at Lanvin, to Maria Grazia Chiuri, Jean Paul Gaultier, and Ralph Lauren, forty-five top designers paid homage to Elbaz in a show loosely based on the Théâtre de la Mode, the touring exhibit of miniature mannequins which brought the French fashion industry together in the immediate aftermath of World War II.
Dries Van Noten and Olivier Rousteing incorporated caricatures of Elbaz into their designs, Thebe Magugu and Daniel Roseberry reimagined vintage pieces, while Pierpaolo Piccioli and Demna Gvasalia offered riffs on his signature hearts and hot pink ruffles. Finally Amber Valletta emerged in a velvet bow tie as the embodiment of the late designer, before the sounds of the 1972 hit O’Jays single ‘Love Train’ brought the evening to a wrap.
Expo 2020 is officially open. Postponed by a year due to the coronavirus pandemic, the world fair received a lavish opening ceremony in Dubai with performances from the Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, the American soul singer Andra Day, the British pop star Ellie Goulding, the Chinese concert pianist Lang Lang, and the Beninese and Saudi icons Angélique Kidjo and Mohammed Abdu, who performed a duet.
Dubai was named as the host of Expo 2020 back in 2013, when the most populous city in the United Arab Emirates fended off competition from São Paulo, Izmir, and Yekaterinburg to become the first world fair scheduled for the Middle East. The exposition has kept its title despite the year-long postponement for branding purposes, and hopes to attract 25 million visitors during the course of its run from 1 October to 31 March next year.
The site has been built from scratch on 4.3 square kilometres of desert near the border with Abu Dhabi. For the first time in World Expo history, each of the 192 participating nations will host their own pavilion, with additional pavilions bearing the stamp of regional organisations and businesses. The Burkina Faso pavilion will include a replica of the medieval ruins of Loropéni, the Finnish pavilion seeks to evoke the first covering of snow, the Holy See has reproduced the Michelangelo fresco The Creation of Adam, and the Peruvian pavilion will model Queshuachaca, the last remaining Inca rope bridge.
While the Spanish pavilion is set to feature a six-metre hyperloop model by Zeleros, more anticipated still is the chance to see a demonstration of the passenger-tested Virgin Hyperloop. The tagline for Expo 2020 is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’, while theme weeks will be devoted to climate and diversity, tolerance and inclusivity, and urban and rural development. The Sustainability District will feature hanging gardens and vertical farms, modelling biodiversity, renewable energy, and integrated climate systems. And the Mobility District will incorporate the world’s largest passenger lift.
Still Expo 2020 has courted its share of controversy. Last month, the European Parliament passed a resolution calling on nations to boycott the event, while urging the United Arab Emirates to free imprisoned human rights activists. Human Rights Watch has suggested that the exposition will serve to distract attention from ongoing abuses in the country. And in the United States, Congress maintains a ban on world fair funding, with the United Arab Emirates instead financing the American pavilion at a cost of $60 million.
Visitors to Expo 2020 are required to wear face masks and socially distance, with entrance dependent on full vaccination or a negative coronavirus test. If everything goes according to plan, a kaleidoscopic nighttime festival will illuminate the sky over Dubai for the next six months. And when the fair winds down at the end of March, the site will be given over to District 2020, a large-scale real estate development where sculptures from the exposition will remain alongside buildings shaped for residential and commercial use.
Under heavy security and an air of thick anticipation, as audience members mingled, took photographs, and chatted over the tops of their plush red seats, the National Theatre of Somalia flickered into life this week as it played host to the first film screening in the country for 30 years. The moment capped a period of reconstruction and renewal for Somalia, which still bears the scars of a long civil war.
The history of cinema in Somalia stretches back to the newsreels and propaganda films which were shown during the colonial period of Italian Somaliland. Shot by an Italian film crew in Somalia, and based on the buildup to the Second Italo-Ethiopian War, the propaganda work Sentinels of Bronzewon a prize at the illustrious Venice Film Festival in 1937 for best Italian colonial film.
In 1960, the remnants of Italian Somaliland and British Somaliland united to form the Somali Republic, with a military coup in 1969 giving way to the Somali Democratic Republic in the form of a one-party socialist state. Cinema continued to flourish in an independent Somalia, driven by the riwaayado musicals with the odd historical documentary or epic drama based on the Dervish movement.
But by the late eighties, technological developments and internal strife saw some of the focus shift away from international film premieres towards the local television networks. And with the breakout of civil war in 1991, new film showings ground to a halt.
The Somali film industry has continued to thrive in pockets and spurts, particularly in diaspora communities, with Somaliwood birthing a new generation of action-oriented films out of its base in the Ohio capital of Columbus. But back in the Somali capital of Mogadishu, once home to so many cinema houses, the once thriving National Theatre has stood dormant.
Built by Chinese engineers and opened in 1967, the National Theatre of Somalia hosted famous bands like the Waaberi and served as a cultural landmark before being damaged during the early days of the civil war. Competing warlords used the bullet-strewn building as a base. A reopening ceremony in 2012 was broadcast on national television, but mere weeks later a suicide attack killed six people, including some of the country’s top sports officials.
After painstaking restoration efforts, once more backed by China while Somali filmmakers continue to be supported by international collaborators and regional grants, the National Theatre in Mogadishu was finally able to reopen. After paying the steep sum of $10 and passing through several security checkpoints, audience members were free to watch two short films by the local director IBrahim CM.
A horror story about a single woman who moves into an empty house and a dark romantic comedy, the star of the films Hoos and Date from Hell is the 24-year-old Kaif Jama. The screenwriter and actress said ‘This means something for everyone including me. This is for every Somali who wants to make movies’, adding ‘if our own movies come to cinema and TVs then every single Somali person and child will be shaped and influenced by their own culture’.
Norm Macdonald, the comedian whose mischievous glint and deadpan style carried him to success as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, died on Tuesday at the age of 61 years old. Unknown to the public, Macdonald had endured a nine-year battle with cancer. His friend and production partner Lori Jo Hoekstra confirmed his death, saying:
‘He was most proud of his comedy. He never wanted the diagnosis to affect the way the audience or any of his loved ones saw him. Norm was a pure comic. He once wrote that “a joke should catch someone by surprise, it should never pander”. He certainly never pandered. Norm will be missed terribly.’
Macdonald was born and raised in Quebec City to a couple of teachers. He graduated early from Gloucester High School, and began to earn a reputation as a stand-up in the local comedy clubs including the recently opened Yuk Yuk’s in Ottawa. Following a performance at the Just for Laughs comedy festival in 1986, the Montreal Gazette called him ‘one of this country’s hottest comics’, and after appearing as a contestant on Star Search in 1990 he was ready for television.
First building his resume behind the screen, Macdonald began writing for The Dennis Miller Show before being hired by the hit sitcom Roseanne ahead of the 1992 season. Macdonald was perturbed by the nature of a sitcom script, which from his background in stand-up seemed to be lacking in punchlines, but he was credited as the writer for two episodes of Roseanne before leaving to join the cast of Saturday Night Live, the flagship NBC sketch show and launchpad for so many comedians.
Macdonald first gained attention for his impressions, which would come to encompass Larry King, Quentin Tarantino, Burt Reynolds in the show’s long-running parody Celebrity Jeopardy!, and the ageing Republican senator Bob Dole. From 1994 he served as the anchor for Weekend Update, following in the footsteps of Chevy Chase and Dennis Miller while adding a surreal bent and giddy bite to the influential news satire.
Macdonald made running gags of Frank Stallone and the sexual proclivities of Michael Jackson, and peppered his newspeak with references to crack whores and David Hasselhoff. But while Weekend Update made Macdonald a household name, the sketch would also prove his undoing when it drew the ire of NBC’s west coast executive Don Ohlmeyer. Following repeated jabs at O. J. Simpson, one of Ohlmeyer’s golfing buddies, Macdonald was removed from Weekend Update and lost his job on Saturday Night Live, though he later suggested that the executive had simply failed to appreciate his unique tone as anchor.
Disappointed to lose his job, the rancour continued when Macdonald accused Ohlmeyer of sabotaging the promotion for his 1998 film Dirty Work. Directed by Bob Saget, featuring cameos from Don Rickles, John Goodman, Adam Sandler, and Chris Farley in his final role, the revenge comedy was the first starring vehicle for Macdonald but flopped among critics. Pared back to achieve a PG-13 rating, the film has nevertheless remained a cult classic.
The Norm Show found Macdonald spinning his wheels, stranded alongside Laurie Metcalf, Ian Gomez, and Artie Lange as the ABC show adhered to a conventional sitcom format. He voiced the character of the dog Lucky in the Dr. Dolittle series of movies with Eddie Murphy, and starred opposite Dave Chappelle and Danny DeVito in the comedy Screwed, which much like Dirty Work failed to score at the box office.
A couple of failed pilots and commercial work for the Canadian wireless company Bell Mobility saw Macdonald’s career flounder for the best part of a decade, until Bob Saget’s Comedy Central Roast, stand-in hosting duty for Dennis Miller, and regular guest appearances on The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien restored some familiarity to his face on the small screen.
Norm Macdonald thought that he would only be remembered thanks to Saturday Night Live, and was sometimes content in his later years to cut a bemused, comically hapless figure even as he continued to work on new material. And perhaps it was true that after Weekend Update he never quite found the four walls capable of providing a settled home for his roving brand of humour.
But there were fans who had never grown up watching Saturday Night Live or who the show had long since passed by, who knew Norm instead for his roasts and talk show appearances and hosting ventures. And there were no doubt fans who continued to attend his shows and stuck by him all the while, sharing in some of life’s roguish joys and bitter disappointments.
Through video sharing platforms and streaming services, Norm cultivated a new generation of followers, who revelled in the Bob Saget roast and his numerous Conan appearances, who perhaps got to know him for the first time alongside Jerry Seinfeld as he toasted Richard Nixon and Kojak in his episode of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, who found him through the internet murk of Norm Macdonald Live, or who cherished his exquisitely rendered and tearful goodbye to the Late Show with David Letterman.
The Letterman bit took Macdonald many hours to write, as he sought to pay fitting tribute to one of his comic idols. Tackling big themes, from a man whose tastes ranged from Klondike bars to Russian literature, and returning to the Letterman stage for one final fling 25 years after his debut as a televised stand-up comedian, Macdonald turned his attentions to the absurdity of war and the horrors of petty bureaucracy before expressing his love for his longtime friend and youthful inspiration.
In the meantime, Macdonald had hosted a short-lived sports show and released Me Doing Stand-Up as his first special for Comedy Central. He had recurring roles in the comedies The Middle and Sunnyside, and contributed his voice to offbeat animated films and the adult series Mike Tyson Mysteries. He eventually settled in behind the desk of Norm Macdonald Live, where he played host to his fellow comedians alongside The Comedy Store booker Adam Eget.
In 2016, he published his first book in the form of the semi-fictional retrospective Based on a True Story. The text was well received, though the public clamoured for the seedy tales of married life which they would have no doubt received had the book been a memoir. In 2017 the special Hitler’s Dog, Gossip & Trickery arrived on Netflix. And in 2018 his ramshackle podcast moved over to the streaming platform with a new title, Norm Macdonald Has a Show, though by this point his talents thrived best the looser the structure.
He possessed an old school penchant for the careful crafting of a joke and an anarchist sensibility, at least within the confines of comedy, where he loved to juke and scramble as the world about him crumbled and burned. His preferred modes were the faux epic, garrulous and homespun in the style of a bygone oral tradition as he deliberately laboured the joke, piling up absurdities until the winning punchline, and the stunning interjection as he let the air settle after curls from his acrid tongue. In his personal life he appeared to be something of a homebody, and joked about never having travelled outside of North America, but as a comic he rode the waves and sailed high seas.
The ups and downs of his professional life were exacerbated by his penchant for gambling, which resulted in a few sleepless nights and six-figure losses. In search of some message or meaning in the final chapter of his book, Norm wrote:
‘The only thing an old man can tell a young man is that it goes by fast, real fast, and if you’re not careful it’s too late. Of course, the young man will never understand this truth. But looking back now, I can see that my life since SNL has been a full sprint, trying with all my might to outrun the wolves of irrelevancy snapping at my heels. It has all been in vain, of course. They caught and devoured me years ago. But not completely.‘
Norm Macdonald thought that the perfect joke would be one where the setup and the punchline were identical, and he felt himself lucky. His leukemia diagnosis was seemingly guarded from all but a few close family and friends. He was married once, with his son Dylan born in 1993. His death prompted an outpouring from his fellow comics, including Bob Saget, Conan O’Brien, and David Letterman, who wrote ‘Norm was the best. An opinion shared by me and all peers. Always up to something, never certain, until his matter-of-fact delivery leveled you’.
As the crowds flocked back to Flushing Meadows, the talk of the tennis circuit ahead of the 2021 US Open revolved around a few notable absentees. For the first time since way back in 1997, neither Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Serena Williams, nor Venus Williams would be present in the singles draw of a major. Novak Djokovic almost seemed like the relic of a bygone era, even as the reigning world number one sought to achieve the scarcely precedented feat of a calendar Grand Slam.
In truth however the changing of the guard has already happened. Injuries as well as pandemic restrictions have changed the face of the tour over the past eighteen months, with Ash Barty and Naomi Osaka leading a new pack of female challengers, while Daniil Medvedev, Alexander Zverev, Matteo Berrettini, and Stefanos Tsitsipas are now more likely than Nadal or Federer to find themselves in the latter stages of a men’s draw.
The 2021 US Open accelerated the trend for the shiny and new. The most remarkable two weeks in the history of modern tennis heralded fresh faces on both sides of the draw. Five set epics, topsy-turvy clashes, and more than a slither of controversy provided the backdrop as fans inside the Billie Jean King Tennis Center celebrated a glut of sporting upsets. From start to finish, as the concession stands whirred into action and the smells of popcorn and hot dogs scented the air, rambunctious crowds and intrepid youngsters brought a carnival atmosphere to New York.
Still there was life in the old dog yet. And none seemed gruffer or mangier than Andy Murray, who emerged ready for a scrap in the first round out on Arthur Ashe Stadium. As the obstinate Scot continues to work his way back valiantly from two bouts of hip surgery, his opponent in the first round seemed like a stern test in the form of the third seed Stefanos Tsitsipas. But it was Murray who proved the quicker man out of the starting blocks, as he raced away to take the first set.
Murray, now 34 years old, broke his duck at the majors with victory at the US Open back in 2012. The cherubic 23-year-old Tsitsipas on the other hand still awaits his first major, having come precariously close at the French Open in June. With Murray still lacking for match practice and Tsitsipas enjoying his highest ranking to date, the Greek trailblazer edged the second set tie-break, but everything was to play for when Murray found another foothold in the third set.
The humid conditions had already forced both players off court. Dripping with sweat, their underwear showing through sodden shorts, Murray loudly bemoaned his lack of additional footwear. Now at two sets apiece, Tsitsipas once more retreated backstage for a toilet break. And as his opponent conducted his business away from the prying eyes of the public, Murray turned his attention to the umpire and any other official within earshot, berating them over the length of time Tsitsipas was taking on the commode.
After more than seven minutes, the Greek returned to face a braying crowd and the bloodshot eyes of his opponent. The tide of the match had turned, with Tsitsipas now clearly possessing the upper hand, but though he prevailed in the fifth set he had lost the fans, with Murray accusing the young challenger of cheating. Between broadsides from Murray and Zverev, the toilet saga refused to flush, with Twitter posts, internet memes, and scrupulous crowds turning comfort breaks into one of the long-running stories of the tournament.
In the meantime some of the big hitters of times past suffered early exits, with John Isner and the 2014 champion Marin Čilić going out in the first round. Pablo Carreño Busta, a bronze medalist at the Tokyo Olympics, and Alex de Minaur, Lorenzo Sonego, and Karen Khachanov also took the briefest of bites out of the Big Apple. But Djokovic progressed with relative ease in four sets against the Danish qualifier Holger Rune, who seemed sorely in need of a bathroom break as he waddled about the court for the best part of two sets, suffering from cramp.
Controversy in the men’s draw was offset by the sheer quality of the tennis among women. The first round of the draw boasted several clashes that would have graced the second week of the tournament, as Simona Halep defeated Camila Giorgi in two hard-fought sets. Possessing similar styles, as two of the fastest players on tour with the capacity to really muscle the ball from the back of the court, in the end Halep managed to disrupt the rhythm of the Italian to prevail 6-4, 7-6 (7-3). If anything the victory for the former world number one was an upset, as Halep entered the tournament with a thigh strain while Giorgi won big in Montreal at the Canadian Open.
Sloane Stephens ousted Madison Keys in the battle of home favourites and former US Open finalists, and there were other intriguing matchups as Ash Barty opened her tournament against the veteran Vera Zvonareva, Angelique Kerber defeated the capable young Ukrainian Dayana Yastremska, and Garbiñe Muguruza saw off the always dangerous Donna Vekić. The first round of the tournament also brought one final match from Carla Suárez Navarro, who returned to the tour free from cancer after being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma late last year.
When Arthur Ashe Stadium received its retractable roof in 2016, the design had not accounted for the noise of the spectators, which reverberated through the rafters and muffled the calls of umpires and linespeople down on court. The United States Tennis Association had to bring in a team of sound engineers to boost the acoustics. So when Louis Armstrong added a roof of its own in 2018, as part of a $200 million reconstruction project, the new stadium boasted improved sound and a world’s first in the form of natural ventilation even when the retractable roof needed to be closed.
More difficult to anticipate than a noisy crowd, by the middle of the week the US Open was forced to reckon with Hurricane Ida, which had wreaked havoc in Louisiana before steadily making its way up the East Coast. During the third night session, the match between Diego Schwartzman and Kevin Anderson on Louis Armstrong Stadium was halted twice as torrential rain whipped in through the space between the concourse and retractable covering, drenching spectators and making for perilous conditions on court. Schwartzman and Anderson finally finished their match over on Arthur Ashe.
By nightfall New York was in the grip of a tornado warning. In the meantime however Sloane Stephens had swept past Coco Gauff, and there were comfortable victories for Simona Halep and Aryna Sabalenka, as the second seed progressed to the third round despite suffering a nasty fall. Ash Barty held off the challenge of the young Danish contender Clara Tauson, and in a prelude of things to come, Karolína Plíšková snatched victory from Amanda Anisimova at the end of a long third-set tie-break as the resurgent American roused the crowd before falling narrowly short.
By the end of the first week, some of the breakthrough stories of the 2021 US Open were already beginning to form. Anisimova had set the tone against Plíšková in the earlier night session, and as the cloak of evening fell on Friday, the young Canadian Leylah Fernandez went one better by fighting past the reigning champion Naomi Osaka in three sets. Younger still, Emma Raducanu backed up her promising performance at Wimbledon by sailing through to the fourth round after victories versus Stefanie Vögele, Zhang Shuai, and the in-form Sara Sorribes Tormo. And Stefanos Tsitsipas, still reeling from the bathroom fiasco, succumbed to Carlos Alcaraz in five thrilling sets.
The teens were taking over, as the air of change around tennis erupted with the shock of the new. The 18-year-old Alcaraz was establishing himself as the face of the next generation, making the likes of Zverev, Tsitsipas, and Medvedev seem familiar and old-school. In July, the Spaniard became the youngest player in thirteen years to win an ATP Tour title, earning inevitable comparisons to Rafa Nadal even as he claims to model his aggressive style after the Swiss swordplay of Roger Federer.
Already accustomed to the grind of the tour, Fernandez won her first WTA Title in March at the Monterrey Open. But as she celebrated her 19th birthday during the course of the US Open, the precocious Quebecer was still enjoying her best ever performance at a major. Meanwhile the 18-year-old Raducanu had been forced to battle her way through the qualifiers in only her second appearance at a Grand Slam.
Elsewhere the battles continued among the established stars of the women’s game. In the third round, Angelique Kerber beat Sloane Stephens and Garbiñe Muguruza toppled Victoria Azarenka in three sets. Elise Mertens put paid to the latest bid by Ons Jabeur, even as the Tunisian continues her steady climb up the rankings. And with Naomi Osaka still struggling for form, perhaps the shock of the round came from her compatriot Shelby Rogers, who edged past the world number one Ash Barty to become the last American standing in the women’s draw.
The men were faring better on home soil. Frances Tiafoe stormed past the fifth seed Andrey Rublev in the early hours of Saturday morning, letting the forehand winners fly in the decisive fifth set. The canny wildcard Jenson Brooksby saw off Aslan Karatsev. Reilly Opelka scored victory over Nikoloz Basilashvili. And as the men continued to rack up the five-setters, Jannik Sinner squeezed past Gaël Monfils, while Félix Auger-Aliassime broke Roberto Bautista Agut, as the athletic Canadian threatened another major breakthrough for Quebec.
Defeats for Rublev and Denis Shapovalov added to the dearth of top seeds, with Tsitsipas, Casper Ruud, Carreño Busta, and Hubert Hurkacz among the players to fall in the first week. Instead a couple of youngsters and a handful of qualifiers were rounding out the men’s draw. The best of them proved to be the swinging South African Lloyd Harris, who eased past Opelka, the Dutch qualifier Botic van de Zandschulp, who stretched past Diego Schwartzman in five sets, and Carlos Alcaraz, as the Spaniard beat the German qualifier Peter Gojowczyk to become the youngest man to reach the quarter-finals of the US Open since the Open Era began back in 1968.
But in the quarter-finals, a sense of order was restored as Alexander Zverev brushed past Harris and Daniil Medvedev bested Van de Zandschulp in four sets. Alcaraz, who had relied on a second wind to get past Tsitsipas and Gojowczyk, was forced to retire against Félix Auger-Aliassime owing to a right adductor injury. And despite dropping an early set for the fourth time in five matches, Novak Djokovic repeated his feat from the Wimbledon final, easing past the sixth seed Matteo Berrettini in four sets.
Not so in the women’s game, where the sense of disruption prevailed as the big names continued to fall. Not content with ousting Osaka, in the fourth round Leylah Fernandez upset another contemporary icon. After taking the second set at the end of a nip-and-tuck tie-break, the Canadian ran away from the thrice major winner Angelique Kerber. And Emma Raducanu rolled past Shelby Rogers, putting an end to American hopes in the draw.
After working her way into the tournament through close victories over Giorgi and Elena Rybakina, the movement and consistency of Elina Svitolina proved too much for Simona Halep in the fourth round. Two more former Grand Slam champions fell by the wayside, as Belinda Bencic shattered Iga Świątek and Maria Sakkari battled past Bianca Andreescu. And the sense of controversy switched briefly to women’s tennis, as Garbiñe Muguruza called Barbora Krejčíková ‘unprofessional’ for the timing of a medical break which seemed to shift momentum away from the Spaniard in the second set.
By now Fernandez was battle-tested, so it was no surprise when her quarter-final match with Elina Svitolina went deep into the third set. And though the tie-break seemed like a toss-up, it was the Canadian who kept her wits to keep Svitolina waiting for Grand Slam success. Raducanu on the other hand faced her first seeded player in the form of Belinda Bencic, still on a high after returning from the Tokyo Olympics with solo gold. But the young Brit recovered from an early setback to sweep through in two sets. Maria Sakkari outfought the fourth seed Karolína Plíšková, and Arya Sabalenka triumphed as the demure Krejčíková seemed totally out of sorts.
By the second week of the tournament, the toilet talk had begun to wane while discussions around vaccine mandates were put on a gentle backburner. For the time being, torrential weather felt like a thing of the past. But after the washout of last autumn, when the coronavirus pandemic left a sea of empty seats and closed-off stadiums, the crowds had returned to the Billie Jean King Tennis Center with their own sense of punctiliousness as well as a pent-up roar.
They had railed against the toilet antics of Tsitsipas and any player who dared to linger too long at stool thereafter. And they had turned on Naomi Osaka when she lost her composure towards the end of the second set versus Fernandez. If there was ever any doubt, the call was for more tennis whatever the cost. They willed on Alcaraz when the youngster appeared to be out of gas, they rooted for Fernandez as an American surrogate, and they eyed Raducanu the new British sensation with an air of intrigue.
As the last Grand Slam of a long tennis season, the US Open tends to greeted with a mixture of anticipation and fatigue. Niggling injuries and early withdrawals are commonplace. Now in addition to the noise of the crowd, the fast courts were also playing their part in the flurry of upsets. One of the two tennis majors played on hard surfaces, the speed of the courts tends to wax and wane between the US Open and Australian Open. This year the US Open organisers seemed to have taken things up a notch.
The kick carried through to the serve, with more holds and more tie-breaks, especially as the five-setters continued to come thick and fast on the men’s side of the draw. In the first round, Kevin Anderson and Jiří Veselý played for 4 hours and 22 minutes with three tie-breaks, yet long rallies were scarce as the South African hit 49 aces, tying his career record. In the second round, even the below-par Tsitsipas scored 27 aces for a new career high. And Plíšková and Anisimova went the best part of two sets without registering a single break point, the Czech prevailing in large part thanks to her serve, with 24 aces a new US Open women’s record.
Now in the semi-final match between Alexander Zverev and Novak Djokovic, the leggy German leaned on his booming serve as he raced away with the first set. A final appearance last year at Flushing Meadows and victory over Djokovic at the Tokyo Olympics gave Zverev plenty of cause for optimism, but over five sets his major hopes once more fell agonisingly short.
An early break in the second set saw the world number one wrest control of the match. Zverev continued to battle, staving off one set point late in the third at the end of a mammoth 53-shot rally which would remain the longest point of the tournament. And he rebounded in the fourth set, boosting his aggression on serve to take the match into a decider.
But Djokovic, still renowned for his return, has cannily worked on the pace and accuracy of his own serve, which now rivals the best in tennis. Relying on the shot to get him out of a jam, racing to the net in a tactic which surprised onlookers throughout the tournament, the Serb stretched ahead in the fifth set and held on to win the match. Cheerleading for the younger generation, Djokovic had warm words for his opponent, but Zverev will continue to play with a question mark as allegations of domestic abuse resurfaced during the tournament.
If Daniil Medvedev remained the most likely challenger, first he had to deal with Félix Auger-Aliassime, with the young Canadian finding the right balance between consistency and power on route to his first Grand Slam semi-final. But despite testing the Russian’s will towards the end of the second set, the match proved a fairly one-sided affair as Medvedev swept to a comfortable victory.
Steady improvement faced the impetuousness of youth in the semi-finals of the women’s draw. Maria Sakkari reached her first major semi-final in June at the French Open, where she succumbed in three long sets to the unseeded Barbora Krejčíková despite holding one match point. Then at Wimbledon in the flush of July, Aryna Sabalenka reached her first Grand Slam semi-final but lost out in three sets to the resurgent Plíšková. Now veterans of the tour, both women hoped to go one better in New York.
In their way stood the teenagers Fernandez and Raducanu. And the first semi-final proved another close call, with Sabalenka showing real grit to pull herself back into the match after a disappointing end to the first set tie-break. Dominating with her forehand as she had in the early stages of the match, the Belarusian tied Fernandez at one set all. But in the crucial moments it was the younger athlete who kept her composure, as Fernandez prolonged rallies and drew on the crowd to earn a break in the decider, leaving Sabalenka to hack and slash her way off the court. Two double faults and a wayward forehand handed the Canadian the match.
Fernandez became the youngest woman to reach a Grand Slam final since Maria Sharapova won Wimbledon back in 2004. Mere moments later, Raducanu stepped out onto Arthur Ashe Stadium and proceeded to claim that title, effectively manhandling Maria Sakkari as she swept the match in two sets. After squandering seven break points in the early going, Sakkari struggled to put a dent in her opponent’s serve, with Raducanu maintaining a high winning percentage while swatting away the returns. Reflecting on her loss, Sakkari said ‘She plays fearless. She absolutely goes for it. She does the right thing actually. She has nothing to lose’.
Already the first qualifier to reach a semi-final in the history of the US Open, now Raducanu was the first qualifier ever to make the final of a Grand Slam. But her progression through the tournament had been so seamless that despite the three extra qualifying matches, Raducanu had still logged less time than Fernandez out on court. The Canadian had faced three-set matches against four consecutive top seeds on her course to the final. It was to be the first all-teenage major final since Serena Williams ushered in a new era of women’s tennis, beating Martina Hingis at the US Open in 1999.
Yet despite all of these assorted firsts, the international media scrum, celebrity fans, and a soaring sense of anticipation, the women’s final at the US Open proved more like business as usual for Raducanu, who silenced the New York crowd as she won through in two sets. Once more impressive on serve and proactive in the return game, she found winners at the right moments as Fernandez struggled to gain a foothold in the match.
The snapping cross-court winners which have already become a trademark helped her to the first set, then restored parity in the second following an early break by Fernandez. Raducanu pressed on into a 5-2 lead, only for her opponent to save two championship points. Then at 5-3, Fernandez won the opportunity to break back, at the end of a frantic rally which saw Raducanu scrape her knee as she scampered across court. A medical timeout was called to halt the bleeding, and while the Canadian complained at the net, Raducanu emerged unscathed to finally seal the match with an ace.
The final scoreline read 6-4, 6-3 as Emma Raducanu won the US Open women’s singles title without dropping a set. As she collapsed to the court then climbed up into the player’s box, Virginia Wade watched on from the stands as the last British woman to win a major some 44 years ago. Fernandez paid tribute to the city of New York which earlier that day had commemorated the twentieth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, and Raducanu had warm words for her opponent before being whisked off on a long victory lap, which included congratulations from Simona Halep, who along with Li Na served as one of the young prospect’s idols.
While the women’s game celebrated youth and a flurry of firsts, Novak Djokovic was hoping to be the last man standing come the men’s final. As he sought to become the first man to achieve a calendar Grand Slam since Rod Laver in 1969, and took square aim at a record-setting 21st Grand Slam title, for the time being he could content himself with tying up another record, as he joined Roger Federer by reaching his 31st major final.
There were warning signs for Djokovic however, who from his third round match with Kei Nishikori had made a habit of dropping the first set. Against Nishikori, Brooksby, and Berrettini, the indomitable Serb had still managed to wrap things up in four sets, stretching to five in his semi-final match versus Zverev. But if Daniil Medvedev was able to build up a head of steam, the gangling Russian might prove harder to catch.
So it turned as Medvedev stormed into an early lead with an immediate break of service. Thumping down his own serve, the crafty second seed raced through the first set in just 36 minutes. And when he managed to stave off five break points at the start of the second set, Medvedev put a dampener on the usual comeback of his opponent. A dauntless backhand down the line and another big serve led to a smashed racket, another sign that Djokovic was struggling. Then in the very next game, as Djokovic continued to charge the net, a dinked backhand and a drifting volley gave the challenger his own break which soon thereafter became a two set advantage.
The third set progressed in similar fashion, with Medvedev securing an early break then adding more margin for error. At 5-2 he served for the match, only to clam up as two double faults and the raucous crowd helped Djokovic to his senses. The glimmer of hope for the three-time US Open champion and the possibility for more tennis led the crowd to get behind Djokovic like never before, and at the next change of ends he grew tearful.
This however was Daniil Medvedev’s moment. Two years ago at the US Open he played the pantomime villain to brilliant effect, winning over even the sternest of critics before succumbing to Rafa Nadal in his first major final. The Australian Open in February proved a cautionary tale, as Medvedev faced Djokovic in his second final at a Grand Slam, and lost uncharacteristically with barely a whimper. Now he stood up from his chair at 5-4 in the third set, and could glance over the court at the reddened eyes of his opponent. Showing his steel, Medvedev served out the match to claim his first Grand Slam title.
Djokovic meanwhile found some solace in defeat, telling the crowd that ‘even though I have not won the match, my heart is filled with joy and I’m the happiest man alive because you guys made me feel very special’. Djokovic appeared to have forged a lasting bond with the city of New York. In victory Medvedev called his vanquished opponent the greatest tennis player of all-time, a point Djokovic will no doubt be ready to prove when the Australian Open rolls back around in January.
Perhaps no sport has excelled in pandemic times quite like athletics. Following the postponement of the Tokyo Olympics, as pole vaulters retreated to the confines of their back yards and distance runners raced separated by continents, track and field returned with gusto in 2021, managing against all odds to produce one of the sport’s all-time great seasons.
Elaine Thompson Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce embarked on a rivalry for the ages, setting the second and third fastest times ever over 100 metres and backing those performances up as the spotlight fell on the women’s sprints. Sifan Hassan and Letesenbet Gidey jockeyed for records in the distance events. The 400 metre hurdles basked in the sun as Karsten Warholm edged Rai Benjamin to break the longstanding world record in the men’s event, while Sydney McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad, and the newcomer Femke Bol tore down barriers for the women. And out in the field, Ryan Crouser in the shot and Yulimar Rojas in the triple jump sailed past their competition.
As the Diamond League season drew to a climax, Brussels served as a tasty appetiser. Established favourites and newcomers alike shone under the lights of King Baudouin Stadium, as Armand Duplantis, Michael Cherry, and Francine Niyonsaba set new meeting records. That left the Weltklasse Zürich, which for the first time would take place over two days and play host to all 32 track and field disciplines.
More than glory was at stake as the best in the world descended on the financial capital of Switzerland. Based on their tally of points over the course of the season, the top eight athletes in each event now stood on the threshold of a bumper prize fund, with the winners in Zurich pocketing cheques worth $30,000. Winners would also receive Diamond League trophies and a free pass to the 2022 World Athletics Championships.
The first day of the Weltklasse Zürich took place on the Sechseläutenplatz, the city’s main square, which since its completion in 2014 has sat comfortably on the east bank of the Zurich River. For the sake of the afternoon’s two distance events, meet organisers had constructed the world’s largest temporary track, stretching round three banked bends over a long course of 560 metres.
In the women’s 5000 metre race, Francine Niyonsaba kicked ahead of the pack to complete a remarkable end to the season. An 800 metre specialist who has been forced to move up to the distance events owing to rules around differences of sexual development, the Burundian athlete set world leads and national records in Paris and Brussels before brushing past Hellen Obiri and Ejgayehu Taye in Zurich. For Obiri, the 2017 and 2019 world champion over 5000 metres, the race marked one final flourish on the track, as she turns her attention to the road ahead of next season.
In the men’s event, Berihu Aregawi emerged as the surprise victor, kicking from the front as the pre-race favourite Yomif Kejelcha fell back to finish in fifth position. Meanwhile the field events fanned out in patchwork fashion across the Sechseläutenplatz. Ryan Crouser scored another meeting record in the shot, and two big jumps from Ivana Španović carried her past Khaddi Sagnia in the final rounds of a nip and tuck long jump competition. But the real treat for those locals who thronged the square, stopping off on their way home from work or laden down with bags full of shopping, came in the sprightly figures and soaring forms of the women’s high jump.
Nicola McDermott and Yaroslava Mahuchikh led the early going, as the in-form Kiwi and the talented young Ukrainian registered clean cards beyond a height of two metres. But Mariya Lasitskene, the imperious Russian who at one point sustained a 45-meet undefeated streak, recovered from a couple of early failures to make 2.03 the new benchmark. Mahuchikh managed to clear the height, and while she and McDermott just fell short of new outdoor bests, Lasitskene prevailed at 2.05 to set a new world lead and meeting record.
If Lasitskene captured the attention of the crowd out on the streets, her compatriot Anzhelika Sidorova was the star of the show the following night as the Weltklasse Zürich stepped inside Stadion Letzigrund. With the reigning Olympic champion Katie Nageotte failing to register a mark, Sidorova performed a solo masterclass in the women’s pole vault competition. The silver medalist in Tokyo scored a new personal best and world lead at 4.96, then went clear on her third and final attempt at 5.01 to become only the third woman in history to reach beyond five metres.
A result of the steady improvement which saw Sidorova become world champion in 2019 before coming tantalisingly close at the Summer Olympics, a momentous night in the pole vault went up a notch when Armand Duplantis also achieved a meeting record in the men’s discipline. Pushed at least some of the way by Sam Kendricks and Timur Morgunov, the Swedish starlet consolidated victory at 5.98 then sailed clear at 6.06, on this occasion falling narrowly short at 6.19 after three attempts to better his own world record.
The second day of action started with a splash out on track, as Marileidy Paulino dived over the finish line in a desperate attempt to continue her winning run over 400 metres. But the pre-race favourite had to settle for scratched knees and second place, as Quanera Hayes held on down the straight for victory. The win was doubly important for the American athlete, who will get to skip the highly competitive United States trials thanks to her free pass for next year’s World Championships.
In the men’s event, Kirani James and Michael Cherry tumbled over the finish line for a photo finish. Unusually for athletics, the man who fell first won out, as Cherry’s flailing arms and plunging torso carried him to the narrowest margin of victory. Then in the women’s steeplechase, Hyvin Kiyeng landed up to her knees in the final water pit, leaving Norah Jeruto to storm away down the home straight. The result marked a strong end to the season for Jeruto, some recompense after she failed to make the Kenyan team for the Tokyo Olympics.
Following the highs of Eugene and Lausanne, where Elaine Thompson Herah and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce recorded the second and third fastest sprints of all time over 100 metres, there would be no head-to-head in Zurich as Fraser-Pryce withdrew a few days prior to competition. Still Thompson Herah had to keep her wits as she surged to another meeting record in a time of 10.65, with Dina Asher-Smith registering a season’s best in second. Ajla Del Ponte finished third in front of an eager home crowd, and there were personal bests for Daryll Neita and another local favourite in Mujinga Kambundji as five women raced inside eleven seconds.
Most of the big names were present and correct in the men’s 100 metres, as Canada’s Andre De Grasse faced off against the American trio of Fred Kerley, Trayvon Bromell, and Ronnie Baker. While Baker and Bromell stormed out of the starting blocks, it was Kerley and De Grasse who came through for a close-fought one-two, with Kerley continuing his stellar run of form in a winning time of 9.87.
Towards the end of the evening many of the same athletes returned to the track for the 200 metres. Asher-Smith, Neita, and Kambundji pulled double duty but were forced to watch on as Christine Mboma won in a time of 21.78, the new world junior record proving just enough to see off a personal best from Shericka Jackson. In the men’s race, Kenny Bednarek built up a big lead round the bend and managed to hold on despite a late charge from De Grasse.
One of the performances of the night came in the 100 metre hurdles, an event dominated this year by Jasmine Camacho-Quinn even as the Puerto Rican athlete has preferred to conduct her affairs from America. Absent again in Zurich, instead it was Nigeria’s Tobi Amusan who set one of the fastest times of the season, with her mark of 12.42 a new area record for Africa. Nadine Visser established a new Dutch national record as she clocked a time of 12.51 in second place.
The 110 metre hurdles got off to a rocky start as the home favourite Jason Joseph jumped the gun, resulting in an early disqualification. Devon Allen squeezed out Ronald Levy in a photo finish with both athletes running season’s bests, though Allen will not be a guaranteed presence at the World Championships next year as the automatic spot for the United States remains with the reigning world champion Grant Holloway.
Over the longer course, the Karsten Warholm show suffered a delay as two false starts earned Yasmani Copello disqualification from the 400 metre hurdles. When the race finally got underway, Warholm went out with all of his usual vigour, and though he was chased round the bend by Alison dos Santos and Kyron McMaster, eventually the Norwegian strode away to secure a comfortable victory.
In the women’s race Femke Bol was back after a brief foray over the flats, renewing her rather lopsided rivalry with Shamier Little. The American, one of the fastest athletes of all time in her own right, has been forced to act in the role of pacemaker and training partner on the Diamond League circuit, pushing the young Dutch athlete to a slew of personal bests. It was the same story in Zurich, with Bol running away after the final barrier to win the race in a time of 52.80 for a new meeting record.
A stacked field in the women’s 800 metres saw the likely contenders bunch up behind Natoya Goule. Hovering on her shoulder was the Olympic silver medalist Keely Hodgkinson, who pulled away down the straight, while Kate Grace just managed to pip Goule on the line for second. In the men’s event Ferguson Cheruiyot Rotich signalled his intent by moving out past Marco Arop, but it was Emmanuel Kipkurui Korir who had the legs despite the rugged form as he raced to the finish.
Benjamin Kigen stole a big lead in the men’s steeplechase, and despite stuttering over the last barrier, Soufiane El Bakkali was too far back to make up the ground, with the Olympic champion having to settle for second at the end of a slow race. That left the 1500 metres, where a couple of celebrated rivalries served as the centrepiece of the night’s distance running.
Sifan Hassan may have completed an unprecedented treble at the Tokyo Olympics, with two golds and a bronze from her three distance events. Over the 1500 metres however, Faith Kipyegon continues to have her number, routinely rising to the occasion courtesy of her sprint finish. The same held in Zurich, where Hassan tucked in behind before succumbing to the speed of her keenest rival. In the men’s race, Jakob Ingebrigtsten looked tired at the back end of a long season, hanging valiantly onto the coattails of Timothy Cheruiyot as the Kenyan held on for a narrow margin of victory.
In the meantime Yulimar Rojas was skipping through records in the field, the charismatic Venezuelan continuing to excel at the end of an extraordinary season in the sandpit. After setting a new meeting record of 15.27 in the first round of the triple jump, Rojas saved her best until last with a final leap of 15.48. And in similar fashion, Pedro Pichardo had already secured victory in the men’s event before a sixth round jump of 17.70 added extra embellishment.
In the javelin, success for Christin Hussong and Johannes Vetter served to quell some of the disappointment both athletes suffered at the Olympics. Daniel Ståhl needed just a couple of throws to cement his status in the discus, while Valarie Allman produced a winning spin of 69.20 to sweep past her competitors.
Then it was left to Gianmarco Tamberi to rouse the crowd, as the gold medal winner from Tokyo saw off the challenge of Andriy Protsenko and Ilya Ivanyuk in the high jump competition. Already a fan favourite owing to his flowing hair and spirited personality, Tamberi achieved world renown in Tokyo when he embraced Mutaz Barshim after the rivals and friends agreed to split the gold medal. In Zurich, the Italian athlete sailed over a final height of 2.34 as the camera called cut on a memorable athletics season.
Michael K. Williams, the actor who became known for his spirited and sometimes harrowing rendering of the lives of marginal black men through his breakout role as Omar Little in The Wire, died on Monday at the age of 54 years old. Williams was reportedly found dead inside of his home in the Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn.
Williams was born in Brooklyn to a father who hailed from South Carolina, while his mother had emigrated to the United States from the Bahamian capital of Nassau. He was raised in the Vanderveer Projects in East Flatbush and attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, suffering early trauma when he was sexually molested as a child. After battling drug addiction and piling up a record of arrests, he enrolled at the National Black Theatre in Harlem.
Soon Williams was hanging around the clubs and bars of Manhattan, frequenting dance studios and record labels as he sought to embark on a career as a dancer. He became a background dancer for the singer Kym Sims, performed on tour with Missy Elliott and Ginuwine, and provided choreography for the hit Crystal Waters single ‘100% Pure Love’ which was nominated for Best Dance Video at the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards.
The following year, Williams was celebrating his 25th birthday at a bar on Jamaica Avenue in Queens when he was slashed with a razor blade during a scuffle. The wound left Williams with a distinctive scar running slantwise from the top of his forehead past the bridge of his nose, and immediately boosted his acting and modelling opportunities while adding grit to music videos by Madonna and George Michael.
Set between the teeming tower blocks and dilapidated docks, the fractious police departments and grubby government offices of Baltimore, in The Wire the writer and creator David Simon diagnosed the institutional glut and creeping decay of the modern American city. Omar Little was at once the keening product of such a society and its fatal reckoning, adhering to a strict moral code and spurning profanity while doling out ominous punishment to street-level crooks and drug vendors. Somewhere between Pied Piper and Robin Hood, the swish of his dustcoat and the stubby frame of his sawed-off shotgun caused hoods to scatter with the tremulous cry of ‘Omar comin”.
Williams portrayed the character with a wispy air while deep pathos imbued his every gesture, carrying the weight of his gun, somehow fraternal though his pursuit was for the most part solitary. Pensive eyes and the tenderness of his personal relationships belied the sudden violence of his criminal endeavours. Williams received critical acclaim for the groundbreaking nature of his role, with Omar openly gay in a world of hardened gangsters. The accretion of small details imbued the grand gesture, as Omar Little became one of the defining characters of a new golden age in television.
Williams subsequently guest starred in a number of police procedurals and had recurring roles in shows including Alias, The Kill Point, and The Philanthropist. On the big screen, he scored memorable cameos in Gone Baby Gone, The Road, and Brooklyn’s Finest. And from 2010 another star turn saw him join the main cast of Boardwalk Empire, where he brought a dark grandiosity to the role of the Atlantic City bootlegger and community leader Chalky White.
Behind the scenes however Williams continued to battle drug addiction, developing a cocaine habit during the course of his six-year run on The Wire. He was kicked out of his apartment in Vanderveer and spent much of his spare time in the drug houses of Newark, by his own admission dicing with death until he sought rehabilitation through a local church.
Williams admitted that the line between himself and his characters sometimes became blurred, but also said ‘The characters that mean the most to me are the ones that damn near kill me’, adding ‘It’s a sacrifice I’ve chosen to make’. Describing his wider approach to acting, Williams explained:
‘I use my job to engage empathy and compassion for people society might stereotype or ostracise. No one wakes up and says “I’m going to become a drug dealer” or “I’m going to become a stick-up kid”. No. There is a series of events that makes them feel this is the only way out. As a black man growing up in the hood, I bear witness to some of those events.’
He played character parts in 12 Years a Slave, Snitch, Inherent Vice, and The Gambler, featured in the blockbuster reboots RoboCop and Ghostbusters, and starred as part of ensemble casts in the action thriller Triple 9 and the civic drama The Public. On television he tried his hand at comedy with recurring roles in Community and The Spoils Before Dying.
Returning to HBO, Williams starred opposite his longtime friend Queen Latifah in an award-winning portrayal of the life of blues singer Bessie Smith. He played a homosexual Vietnam veteran in the serialisation of the investigative novels Hap and Leonard. But his sterling performance in The Night Of forced Williams to confront old personal demons, drawing from the experience of friends and family members as he reckoned with the tension and trauma of life behind bars.
Michael K. Williams became an advocate for prison reform, calling for an end to mass incarceration under the auspices of the American Civil Liberties Union. He appeared in When We Rise, a docudrama chronicling the history of the gay rights movement in America, and he brought nuance to the part of Bobby McCray in the acclaimed crime drama When They See Us. Directed by Ava DuVernay, the miniseries shone a spotlight on the criminal justice system through its depiction of the prosecution of the Central Park Five.
The drama would prove one of Williams’ final screen roles. The same year he appeared in the neo-noir feature Motherless Brooklyn, and in 2020 he was part of the ensemble thriller Arkansas. His magnetic screen presence played out one last time in the horror drama Lovecraft Country, where the part of Montrose Freeman earned him a pending nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series at the upcoming 73rd Primetime Emmy Awards.
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