The ceremony may have been sewn together but there was nothing makeshift or hand-me-down about the latest iteration of the Kennedy Center Honors, which aired on Sunday evening on CBS.
The Kennedy Center Honors are awarded annually to a select group of performing artists for their lifetime contribution to American culture. Typically the ceremony lasts all weekend, involving a lavish dinner and the presentation of medals on Saturday at the State Department, followed on Sunday by a White House reception and a black-tie gala at the Kennedy Center opera house which stretches long into the night.
The 43rd Kennedy Center Honors boasted a typically stellar cast: the actor, choreographer, director, and producer Debbie Allen who received Golden Globe and Emmy awards for her breakthrough role in the musical drama Fame; the folk stalwart and social justice advocate Joan Baez; country icon and perennial bestseller Garth Brooks; the internationally renowned violinist Midori; and the comedian Dick Van Dyke.
The rubber-limbed star of The Dick Van Dyke Show, Mary Poppins, and Diagnosis: Murder said that Joe Biden even bowed when he met Van Dyke and the other honourees at the Oval Office back in April, where Joan Baez sang a verse of ‘Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around’ in her rich soprano.
Gloria Estefan hosted the ceremony, as the big names and star attractions waited in line to pay tribute. Joan Baez arrived arm-in-arm with the infectious expert Anthony Fauci, Shonda Rhimes called Debbie Allen ‘an inspiration and a symbol of power’, while Chita Rivera, Lin-Manuel Miranda, Bryan Cranston, and Steve Martin joined Julie Andrews in honouring Van Dyke, with his Mary Poppins co-star adding ‘Like his character Bert in that movie, Dick seems to have found the secret to happiness’.
Meanwhile Derek Hough, Pentatonix and Aaron Tveit, and Laura Osnes regaled Dick Van Dyke with recitals from Mary Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and his original Broadway hit Bye Bye Birdie. Van Dyke remarked:
‘There was some great, great dancing tonight. They were doing dance numbers I couldn’t have done, I’m glad I didn’t have that choreographer! Blew me away! All of those numbers reminded me of how much fun I had over the years. I wasn’t working for a living, they were paying me to play. Everything I did I just enjoyed it.’
It was a marriage portrait that would have graced even the Golden Age of Dutch painting: the fast track at the Fanny Blankers-Koen Stadion in Hengelo, previously host to a 10,000 metre world record by Haile Gebrselassie in 1998 and a 5000 metre world record by Kenenisa Bekele in 2004; and Sifan Hassan, who already vies with Blankers-Koen for the title of greatest ever Dutch athlete.
Unlike Blankers-Koen, who became known as ‘the flying housewife’ for her four gold medals at the 1948 Olympics, Hassan excels over the long distances rather than the sprints. At the World Athletics Continental Tour Gold meeting in Hengelo on Sunday, she was also aided by the latest in shoe design in the form of Nike ZoomX Dragonfly spikes, and by Wavelight technology, which effectively acts as a pacemaker as it lights up the inside of the track.
The result was a new world record, as Hassan lapped the entire field over 10,000 metres before racing home in a time of 29:06.82. In the process Hassan shattered the previous best set by Almaz Ayana in 2016 by more than ten seconds.
When Almaz ran the twenty-five lap event in 29:17.45 on her way to gold at the Rio Olympics, the 10,000 metre world record had not been broken in 23 years. In fact since Wang Junxia enjoyed a record-breaking year in 1993, nobody had managed to get within 22 seconds of her time of 29:31.78. Wang Junxia was the first woman to race the 10,000 metres under 30 minutes, but the legacy left by the Chinese athlete has long been plagued by allegations of doping.
Now all four long distance records on the track have fallen in the space of ten months. Letesenbet Gidey set a world record in the women’s 5000 metres with a time of 14:06.62 last October in Valencia. At the same meet, Joshua Cheptegei set a world record in the men’s 10,000 metres with a time of 26:11.00, adding to the world record of 12:35.36 which he had achieved over 5000 metres two months earlier in Monaco.
The shoes raise questions around the legacy of distance running, and prompt concern owing to the apparent disparity between the haves and have-nots. Away from the track, rival brands appear to be catching up. Athletes have afforded a warmer reception to Wavelight technology, which sets the pace by lighting up the inside rail of the track, catching the eye and affording more consistency than traditional pacemakers.
Hassan was a Dutch record holder and world medalist prior to 2016, when she joined up with the Nike Oregon Project and head coach Alberto Salazar, who is currently in the middle of a four-year ban for doping violations. She can now boast a total of four world records, with all-time bests in the mile, the one-hour event, and the women-only 5 kilometre road race. On Sunday she said:
‘Wow, to run this world record here today in Hengelo is something I could only dream of. It’s the perfect confirmation of the hard work we’ve put in getting ready for Tokyo. I am so happy to share this record in front of my Dutch fans. I am so happy.’
Meanwhile in Kingston as the Jamaicans prepared for their national trials, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce became the second-fastest woman in history. Fraser-Pryce scorched her competitors and shattered her own personal best, setting a new world lead with a time of 10.63. Only Florence Griffith-Joyner has gone faster, with her world record of 10.49 and times of 10.61 and 10.62 all set during a remarkable 1988 season.
The women’s 100 metres will be one of the most eagerly anticipated events at the Tokyo Olympics, with the diminutive Fraser-Pryce – who gave birth to her son Zyon in 2017 – hoping to add to her extraordinary tally of world and Olympic medals. Her time on Saturday was a shot across the bows of some of her nearest rivals, including her compatriot Elaine Thompson-Herah, who was previously tied for the Jamaican national record at 10.70, and the upstart American Sha’Carri Richardson, who held the previous world lead following her time of 10.72 earlier this year in Florida.
Richardson took her share of the credit for Fraser-Pryce’s success, with a tweet which read ‘My presence in this track game making history happen’:
My presence in this track game making history happen,no need for a thank you. 🔥🔥
Also on the track, the Puerto Rican Jasmine Camacho-Quinn continued her stellar form in the 100 metre hurdles, adding to her world lead of 12.32 with a time of 12.44 to cap another dominant performance. In the 110 metre hurdles, the reigning Olympic champion Omar McLeod set a season’s best time of 13.08, narrowly missing out on the world lead of 13.07 set by Grant Holloway in Florida in April.
Fred Kerley in the men’s 400 metres, Abderrahman Samba in the men’s 400 metre hurdles, and Jemma Reekie in the women’s 800 metres all put in solid performances. The climax of the night on the track came courtesy of local favourite Femke Bol in the women’s 400 metre hurdles. In her first hurdles race of the season, the prodigious youngster came through in a time of 54.33, and seems set to challenge the American trio of Sydney McLaughlin, Dalilah Muhammad, and Shamier Little come the Tokyo Olympics.
Meanwhile Armand Duplantis got back to winning ways in the field, clearing a whopping height of 6.10 in the men’s pole to knock 19 centimetres off the meeting record. The soaring Swede could not quite best his own world record, falling short as he attempted to clear at 6.19, but he still had a message for his friend and rival Sam Kendricks:
‘Since Sam wasn’t going to be here and I was just coming off a loss to him, that was my way to get back at him, to take his meeting record away from him. I haven’t checked my phone yet but I’d imagine I’ll have a text. I felt really motivated coming to this meet. I haven’t felt like that in a pretty long time – that I really had something to prove. Today I wanted to show everybody that I can still jump really high.’
On Wednesday the novel At Night All Blood is Black, written by David Diop and translated from the French by Anna Moschovakis, was announced as the winner of the 2021 International Booker Prize. The announcement was made by the chair of judges Lucy Hughes-Hallett during a virtual ceremony hosted from Coventry Cathedral.
Diop and Moschovakis will split the £50,000 prize, which aims to afford equal recognition to authors and translators. Diop becomes the first French writer to win the International Booker, which functioned as a lifetime achievement award until 2016, when it became an annual award for a single book translated into English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland.
In At Night All Blood is Black, Diop exhumes the unheralded experience of the Senegalese tirailleurs, colonial infantry corps who fought in the trenches for France during the First World War. Through the descent into madness of a young man called Alfa Ndiaye, who acquires a taste for blood following the death of a childhood friend, Diop reckons with the brutality of war and the colonial order.
Diop was inspired by his great-grandfather’s service as a tirailleur during the war. His novel was selected from a shortlist of six books, by a panel of five judges: the cultural historian and chair Hughes-Hallett, the journalist Aida Edemariam, the Booker Prize shortlisted novelist Neel Mukherjee, Professor of the History of Slavery at Bristol University, Olivette Otele, and the poet, translator, and biographer George Szirtes. Announcing the winner, Hughes-Hallett said:
‘This story of warfare and love and madness has a terrifying power. The protagonist is accused of sorcery, and there is something uncanny about the way the narrative works on the reader. We judges agreed that its incantatory prose and dark, brilliant vision had jangled our emotions and blown our minds. That it had cast a spell on us.’
At Night All Blood is Black is the second novel by Diop, who was born in Paris in 1966 and spent the majority of his childhood in Senegal, before receiving a doctorate from the Sorbonne and becoming a professor of 18th-century French literature at the University of Pau and the Adour Region. The acclaimed poet, author, and translator Anna Moschovakis has published the poetry collection You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake, the recipient of the James Laughlin Award in 2011, while her translations from French include Bresson on Bresson and Annie Ernaux’s The Possession.
At Night All Blood is Black was published in 2018 in France, where it was nominated for ten literary awards and received the Prix Goncourt des Lycéens, which allows nearly 2,000 high school students to vote for their favourite prose work from the Prix Goncourt shortlist. The French version of the novel, Frère d’âme, also won the Swiss Prix Ahmadou Korouma, while in translation the work has received the Europese Literatuurprijs in the Netherlands and the Premio Strega Europeo in Italy.
Change was in the air as the first balls were struck at the French Open in Paris on Sunday morning, despite the spectators who dotted the stands and the sunshine weather as the Grand Slam made a welcome return to its familiar springtime timeslot.
For the first time in a Grand Slam, world number one Novak Djokovic, world number three and thirteen-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal, and world number eight Roger Federer find themselves in the same side of the draw. That appeared to open up a pathway not only for world number four and twice-finalist Dominic Thiem, but for a generation of players still striving to make a splash at the French Open, including world number two Daniil Medvedev, number five Stefanos Tsitsipas, and number six Alexander Zverev.
More pressing was the announcement made earlier in the week by Naomi Osaka, who cited concern for her mental health as she explained her decision to forgo the mandatory press duties at Roland Garros. Osaka wrote:
‘I’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes mental health and this rings very true whenever I see a press conference or partake in one. We’re often sat there and asked questions that we’ve been asked multiple times before or asked questions that bring doubt into our minds and I’m just not going to subject myself to people that doubt me.’
In part Osaka’s decision reflects the longstanding concerns of players who find the traditional post-match press conferences uncomfortable: too long, overly repetitive, and taking place when the emotions are still raw too early upon the end of a match. As Osaka noted in her Instagram post, tetchy exchanges and signs of distress during these press conferences are far from uncommon.
Partly too the situation reflects the unique circumstances around Osaka, who has overcome a natural reserve to forge a close relationship with tennis fans and members of the wider public. Speaking at length, Osaka typically eschews the staid beats and stilted rhythms of the press circuit, more introspective and precise while showing warmth through her idiosyncratic sense of humour.
Osaka found a willing press at the US Open last September when she wore a series of face masks in tribute to victims of racial injustice. Her choice of masks stirred public debate and became almost as hotly anticipated as her matches. The coverage was giddily widespread when she scrawled a message to her sister on the camera lens earlier this year at the Australian Open.
Success at the US Open in September then at the Australian Open in February saw Osaka double her tally of Grand Slams. Her ability on court, the large following she commands across Asia, the Americas, and beyond courtesy of her Japanese and Haitian heritage, and her willingness to break the mould and prove forthcoming in her interactions with the press have all contributed to her standing as the highest-paid female athlete of all time, adorning the covers of popular magazines and highly sought after by sponsors. Osaka takes it upon herself to make a stand where there are issues which prick at her conscience, and nobody in tennis is better poised to make a difference.
Her decision summons all of the usual questions around the role of the legacy media in an age dominated by social engagement. There is also an issue of timing, as speculation swirls and judgements are made around the viability of the Tokyo Olympics. Osaka probably doesn’t wish to play spokesperson either for the Olympics themselves or for the attitudes of Japanese people.
For those who would wish for a compromise between Osaka and tennis organisers, the rush to the barricades over the past week might seem lacking in tact, though the collective statement issued by the Grand Slams on Sunday felt like more of an awkward nudge than an ultimatum.
Osaka battled through to the second round on Sunday, and carried out the usual on-court interview following her 6-4, 7-6 victory over Patricia Maria Țig. In the women’s draw Victoria Azarenka outlasted Svetlana Kuznetsova over three sets, while Madison Keys survived in three up against French wild card Océane Dodin. Petra Kvitová, a semi-finalist at Roland Garros last year, kept her challenge alive over three sets versus Greet Minnen, but Angelique Kerber continued her long run of poor form with a first-round exit to the qualifier Anhelina Kalinina.
The biggest shock of the opening day saw Dominic Thiem, the fourth seed and runner-up in 2018 and 2019, fall at the first hurdle to world number 68 Pablo Andújar. The 35-year-old underdog from Spain – in a rich vein of form after beating Roger Federer a couple of weeks ago in Geneva – came through despite losing the first two sets, with the final score reading 4-6, 5-7, 6-3, 6-4, 6-4.
This was Thiem’s worst performance in eight appearances at Roland Garros, but the talented Austrian has suffered something of a slump following his first Grand Slam triumph at the US Open last September. After the match, Thiem found fault with his game, laying to one side questions regarding his current level of motivation.
Roger Federer and Serena Williams begin their French Open campaigns on Monday, though the Swiss star remains realistic about his prospects as he continues his comeback from two knee surgeries. Rafa Nadal will hope to edge ahead of Federer by securing his 21st Grand Slam, while Novak Djokovic seeks to close the gap.
Despite entering the tournament as the second seed, Daniil Medvedev has never been past the first round of the French Open, and a few weeks ago in Rome even made a plea for disqualification such is his dislike of clay. On the women’s side, seventh seed Williams will be up against not only the world number one Ash Barty and world number two Osaka but an in-form Aryna Sabalenka, with the 20-year-old Polish starlet Iga Świątek primed to repeat last year’s success, and danger lurking in the form of Sofia Kenin, Garbiñe Muguruza, and Elina Svitolina.
Is there a meteorological term for whiplash, the experience of torrential rain and the sort of chill which seeps through to the bone one moment, only for the next breath to fill the chest with a lung-sapping humidity? Gateshead can boast international-calibre art galleries and concert halls all a stone’s throw from Newcastle city centre, but on opening day for the Diamond League last weekend it was horrid.
Athletes tend to like the heat. In Doha on Friday the second Diamond League meet of the season commenced with the temperature hovering around 41 degrees Celsius, which had dropped to around 36 degrees by the end of the evening. On the track in Gateshead, Dina Asher-Smith, Laura Muir, Mohamed Katir, and Jakob Ingebrigtsen put in sterling performances where expectations were dampened by the conditions. In Doha the joints were loose and the assembled athletes bounded over the rubber and asphalt.
Doha opened with a string of meeting records and world leads. The Americans Katie Nageotte and Sandi Morris managed to scale the lofty height of 4.84 in a highly competitive women’s pole vault, with Nageotte taking the victory on countback. Then Yulimar Rojas continued her quest for a new world record in the women’s triple jump with a first-round meeting record of 15.15.
On the track, the men’s 400 metre hurdles opened proceedings. Three of the four fastest times in the history of the event have come from current athletes: the Norwegian Karsten Warholm, who was not present in Doha, and the American Rai Benjamin and local favourite Abderrahman Samba, who were present and willing. On this occasion Samba was well off the pace, as Benjamin came through in a meeting record of 47.38. Alison dos Santos scored a personal best of 47.57 to finish second, while Commonwealth champion Kyron McMaster finished third.
Of course for many athletes this is not only the start of a new outdoor season, with all of the added hopes and pressures which come from the postponed Olympics. Everyone saw their plans for 2020 drastically curtailed if not squashed entirely. For many athletes the start of the new season amounts to a comeback.
That is especially true for the Russians who are scheduled to compete in Tokyo as authorised neutral athletes. World Athletics and the World Anti-Doping Agency have been locked in battle with the Russian Athletics Federation since 2015 amid allegations of state-sponsored doping. The culmination came towards the end of 2019, when WADA issued Russia with a four-year ban from all international sporting competition.
For the 2020 Diamond League season, Russian athletes with a proven record of clean performances were no longer afforded the olive branch of authorised neutral status. This year, the status has been restored for up to ten athletes, and in April World Athletics awarded four of those slots to the multiple-time world champion high jumper Mariya Lasitskene, world champion pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, her young competitor Aksana Gataullina, and the high jumper Ilya Ivanyuk.
On what is effectively their return to international competition after more than a year on the margins of the sport, the usually imperious Lasitskene struggled in Dessau last week and again in Gateshead, while in Doha, Anzhelika Sidorova could manage a vault of 4.64 and finished seventh.
On the other hand Ilya Ivanyuk was back up to speed in a competitive men’s high jump. Back at the World Championships in Doha in 2019, the hometown hero Mutaz Barshim roused the best night of the meet as he scored gold in the high jump in front of a rapturous crowd inside Khalifa International Stadium. On Friday the favourite had to settle for second place, as Ilyanuk scaled a height of 2.33, beating out Barshim by three centimetres.
The fast times continued to come on the track, with strong performances by Faith Kipyegon and Wyclife Kinyamal over 800 metres. In the men’s 1500 metres, Timothy Cheruiyot was chased all the way by the Aussie Stewart McSweyn and Moroccan steeplechaser Soufiane El Bakkali, but kicked in the straight to finish in a world-leading time of 3:30.48. In a topsy-turvy women’s steeplechase, Norah Jeruto came away with a world lead of 9:00.67 after her main challenger Hyvin Kiyeng fell over the last water jump. The sprightly young Ethiopian Mekides Abebe struck a national record to finish second.
The field events continued to falter in the face of a contentious new format. The top three athletes over five rounds lose their scores as they progress to a sixth round of sudden death, with the best performer over the final round declared the victor. Meant to foster engagement and add some drama away from the track, the format change instead results in tentative final rounds while squandering winning performances.
In the women’s discus, Valarie Allman was almost two metres ahead of her rivals over five rounds, only to crack under the unnecessary pressure. In the men’s shot, Armin Sinančević of Serbia scored a major national record and personal best to lead the field over five rounds, but in the sixth his foot strayed over the line and he was left with what must have felt like nothing.
At least the format squeezed another leap out of Yulimar Rojas, who led the women’s triple jump after her meeting record of 15.15 in the first round, then barely managed to make the sand before securing her victory with a sixth-round effort of 15.11. Shanieka Ricketts on the other hand fell into third despite a personal best of 14.98, with a no-jump in the final round pushing her behind Jamaican compatriot Kimberly Williams.
In one of the most eagerly anticipated matchups of the night, Michael Norman stormed to a world lead in a stacked men’s 400 metres. His victory in a time of 44.27 never seemed in doubt, but Anthony Zambrano, Fred Kerley, and Kirani James will all be eyeing the medal spots come the Tokyo Olympics. Meanwhile over 200 metres, Kenny Bednarek continued his impressive start to the season, managing to hold off a late surge from Andre De Grasse.
The climax of the night came courtesy of Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the diminutive Jamaican hoping to add this summer to her wardrobe full of world and Olympic gold medals. There was no Dina Asher-Smith or Sha’Carri Richardson in Doha, but Fraser-Pryce still had to hold off the challenge from Marie-Josée Ta Lou, Javianne Oliver, and an impressive Blessing Okagbare to come through in a time of 10.84.
That left the women’s 3000 metres, and the event did not disappoint, as twenty-one year old Beatrice Chebet led a slew of personal bests dropping down from her usual distance of 5000 metres. Chebet led the surge past pre-race favourite Hellen Obiri over the final lap, finishing strong in a world-leading time of 8:27.49. The Diamond League is back in Europe on 10 June, as the next meet takes in the Golden Gala in Florence.
Over two albums and a handful of extended plays, the Australian-born, Brighton-based Penelope Trappes has traded obliquely in themes of motherhood and femininity, tracing the twisted shapes and familiar gestures of the body, exploring feelings of anxiety, loss, and grief.
Beyond experiments in arpeggio and the odd conflagration leaving slow-burning embers in its wake, the music has remained hauntingly familiar. Through acoustic piano, minimal percussion, the muffled echoes and imperious decay of reverb and layers of gauzy effects, Trappes has inhabited the same sort of sphere as her contemporaries Grouper, Julia Holter, and Frankie Rose while evoking everything from the downtempo grooves of Portishead and the baroque pop of Scott Walker to the siren songs of This Mortal Coil.
On Penelope Three the songstress finds her footing and harks the lapping sounds of the shore. The album completes the triptych begun four years ago upon the release of her solo debut Penelope One. Penelope Three then is conceived as the culmination of a process of rebirth and healing.
Where previously Trappes’ voice sometimes hung like a spectre on the edge of her dense and drone-like recordings, and other times seemed to inhabit the centre of an empty room, on Penelope Three her voice drives the music and summons the elements, from birdsong to the sea, wind, and stars.
The manner remains intimate but there is a little more shimmer and sheen. Trappes introduced Penelope Three with slow-moving and slightly macabre music videos for the songs ‘Nervous’, ‘Fur & Feather’, and ‘Blood Moon’. ‘Fur & Feather’ finds her navigating the Celtic mythologies of the selkie, tales of skin-shedding and homing which summoned for Trappes the inevitability of her daughter leaving home upon turning eighteen. ‘Blood Moon’ offers a modern take on the Egyptian goddess Isis, purveyor of moon life and magic, protector of women and children, and healer of the sick.
Elsewhere Trappes’ voice sounds out as though surrounded by snippets from a Greek chorus. Vocal loops and loping piano and guitar are cut through by sawing strings on ‘Northern Light’, while there is a jazzy vamp to ‘Red Yellow’. ‘Halfway Point’ tilts blissfully in the direction of dream pop, while the album closer ‘Awkward Matriarch’ finds self-acceptance as the ultimate means of metamorphosis.
The Brazilian architect Paulo Mendes da Rocha died on Sunday at the age of 92 years old, following a battle with lung cancer. Credited for modernising the built landscape of Brazil and inspiring a generation of future architects, Mendes da Rocha achieved late international renown despite working almost exclusively in São Paulo.
Mendes da Rocha graduated from the Mackenzie Presbyterian University College of Architecture in 1954, and soon established a reputation for his work on residential buildings in São Paulo, constructed cheaply and quickly with sympathy for their surrounds in large slabs of raw concrete.
His first major commission opened in 1958. The Club Athletico Paulistano Gymnasium, constructed in reinforced concrete and steel with a seating capacity of 2,000, cut a swathe through the sky with its hovering form and coiled intentionality. The circular roof is supported by six concrete blades and twelve steel cables, giving the stadium a futuristic appeal while the ground level opens out to greet the tennis courts and greenery of the surrounding plaza. At the São Paulo Biennial of 1961, Mendes da Rocha received the Grand Prize for the project.
The same year, Mendes da Rocha became a professor at the architecture and urbanism college of the University of São Paulo, now known as FAUUSP. Following the military coup of 1964, he was eventually forced from his position, although he still won the competition to design the Brazilian Pavilion at Expo ’70 in Osaka, one of the few times he would exhibit outside of his home country.
The bulky forms, primary shapes, and exposed concrete which characterised so much of Paulo Mendes da Rocha’s work led many critics to define his method as a Brazilian form of Brutalism. In a brilliantly combative interview with El País in 2018, Mendes da Rocha rejected the term, too vague for the delicacy and poetry of his architecture. Raised platforms, skylights, and lofty panels of glass reach out in harmony with the surrounding nature.
In 2001, Mendes da Rocha received a Mies van der Rohe Award for his restoration of the Pinacoteca do Estado de São Paulo, the oldest art museum in the city. In 2006 he received the Pritzker Prize, awarded annually for ‘consistent and significant contributions to humanity and the built environment through the art of architecture’, capping his international reputation.
In 2015 he completed the National Coaches Museum in Lisbon, one of his rare forays abroad, but Mendes da Rocha still found the connection with his native Brazil, citing the ships which set sail and wound up discovering his home country. In 2016 he was honoured at the Venice Biennale with a Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement, and received the Praemium Imperiale Award. Then in 2017 his body of work received a RIBA Gold Medal.
Over the past year most major sports blew bubbles or adopted strict testing protocols in a bid for business as usual. Athletics was different. Basketball, American football, baseball, soccer, and tennis looked much the same only without crowds. But the truly global nature of athletics, with its array of disciplines, training sites, and competitors, made the normal modes of competition impossible. The Olympics were postponed for a year, and to survive in pandemic times, athletics was forced to innovate.
Innovation started in the field. In the early days of lockdown, the great French pole vaulter Renaud Lavillenie conceived the Ultimate Garden Clash, encouraging the reigning world champion Sam Kendricks and fledgling world record holder Armand Duplantis to participate.
The three athletes set up makeshift runways in their back gardens, Lavillenie in Clermont-Ferrand, Duplantis in Louisiana, and Kendricks in Mississippi on a patch of land usually reserved for horses. With the bar set at a modest 5 metres, the goal was not height but speed, as the competitors sought to complete as many vaults as they could manage inside thirty minutes.
The Ultimate Garden Clash was streamed live on YouTube to an audience of around 20,000 viewers. Lavillenie and Duplantis ended up in a tie, with 36 successful vaults apiece. Kendricks commented:
‘It was just supposed to be fun, something to eat up some time on a Sunday. Not everybody has the means to do something like this, which is why we got the call. We are professional competitors and we have to find a way to do what we do – and it was a great workout.’
Lavillenie was back in his own backyard a month later in the middle of June, as part of the Impossible Games which were ostensibly set in Oslo. Serving as a small-scale substitute for the scheduled Diamond League, local athletes met up inside an empty Bislett Stadium. Competing over unconventional distances, the home-grown favourites Karsten Warholm, Line Kloster, and Filip Ingebrigtsen set new records in the 300 metre hurdles, the 200 metre hurdles, and over 1,000 metres. Competition streamed in via video link from abroad.
Over 2,000 metres, a team led by the Ingebrigtsen brothers in Oslo faced off against a team led by Timothy Cheruiyot in Nairobi. Competing live via video link, Jakob Ingebrigtsen came out on top, crossing the finish line in a time of 4:50.01, breaking an old European record held by Steve Cram. Meanwhile Lavillenie again battled valiantly against Armand Duplantis, with the Swedish athlete vaulting live and in-person while Lavillenie’s attempts had been recorded a couple of days earlier, once more from his back garden in Clermont.
Taking their cue from the Impossible Games, in July the Inspiration Games placed 30 athletes into three teams over eight events and seven venues. A replacement for the annual Weltklasse Zürich, the meet saw Pedro Pablo Pichardo outleap world and Olympic triple jump champion Christian Taylor, while Allyson Felix held off Shaunae Miller-Uibo and Mujinga Kambundji over 150 metres, all via split screens which stretched from tracks in Zürich and Karlstad to Florida and California.
There were inevitable hiccups. Over 200 metres at the Inspiration Games, Noah Lyles briefly wondered whether he had set a new world record. He crossed the finishing line in a time of 18.90, shattering the mark set by Usain Bolt back in 2009. But in this era of do-it-yourself social distancing, the starting blocks had been improperly placed, and in turned out that Lyles had in fact only covered a distance of 185 metres.
Most of this can-do attitude came from local organisers or the athletes themselves. World Athletics, the global governing body, continues to flag in its attempts to foster engagement, implementing gimmicks which can seem to have a pernicious effect on the sport.
Often these gimmicks seem eager to exploit field athletics, conceived somewhere between a sideshow attraction and a moveable feast. The Great CityGames, the brainchild of Brendan Foster, scored some success over its ten years between Manchester and Gateshead, bringing world-class athletes to city centres in conjunction with the Great Manchester Run and Great North Run. Star names like Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis-Hill, and David Rudisha put in stellar performances and boosted the standing of athletics crammed between historic buildings, art galleries, and thronging crowds.
Last September in lieu of the annual Diamond League meet in Lausanne, Athletissima put on a city centre pole vault exhibition which wowed onlookers as Sam Kendricks pushed Armand Duplantis to a world-leading height of 6.07. Meanwhile in the women’s competition, Angelica Bengtsson outlasted Holly Bradshaw, Angelica Moser, and Michaela Meijer then pressed on in her pursuit of the Swedish record.
As part of larger spectacles or one-off exhibits, the field events can occasionally thrive against the backdrop of bustling cityscapes. Less convincing is the attempt to incorporate some of these ideas into the bloodstream of the Diamond League. As part of the changes to the Diamond League which were approved by World Athletics ahead of the 2020 season, isolated field events can now find themselves shunted out of stadiums, with jumpers and vaulters forced to take to the windswept streets like carnies advertising the circus.
At the end of 2020, World Athletics rolled back some of its more contentious changes to the Diamond League. In an attempt to streamline the series for broadcasting purposes, ahead of the 2020 season popular events like the 200 metres and triple jump had been scrubbed from the card. This year the Diamond League returns with a full programme of 32 disciplines. Still one format change which debuted last summer in Stockholm has stuck around to bedevil the field events.
In the field from the long jump and triple jump to the shot, javelin, and discus, five rounds of competition now culminate in a sixth and final round of sudden death. The top three athletes over five rounds earn a sixth effort, with their previous scores scrapped and the best performer over the final round declared the winner.
The new format hopes to leave audiences hanging until the last. Instead it demeans the rest of the field, disrupts the flow of competition, and diminishes the chance of surprises. Straggling athletes can no longer save their best until last and leapfrog their way into a winning position. A record throw or jump in an earlier round counts for naught come the finale.
In events like the long jump and triple jump, elite competition is marked by the back-and-forth between athletes, as early benchmarks spur rivals to greater feats of brilliance. With only one throw or jump determining the top three positions, athletes instead adopt an attitude of safety first. Versus fouling and being left without a score in the final round, a legal attempt becomes more important than any push to the limit.
That inevitability reared its head on Sunday night, as the Diamond League season opened with a washout in Gateshead. The first meet of the season had been set for Rabat, but coronavirus restrictions and other sporting postponements led to changes in the schedule. Gateshead stepped up to the plate, but with the International Stadium last hosting the Diamond League in 2010, athletes who made the long journey north arrived to a chilly reception.
Rain lashed track and field and pounded down on the local cagoules and continental ponchos of the couple of thousand hardy spectators. Wind whipped the flags and rafters. The conditions made some of the jumping events especially precarious.
In the women’s high jump, the typically imperious world champion Mariya Lasitskene disappointed for the second time in several days following the meet in Dessau on Friday. The Russian, who will compete at the Tokyo Olympics as an authorised neutral athlete, only managed a height of 1.88, some way short of her usual fare of around 2 metres. World silver medalist Yaroslava Mahuchikh opted out on the day of the event, and her compatriot Yuliya Levchenko finished only in ninth position. That left the Polish veteran and former world bronze medalist Kamila Lićwinko on top with a first time clearance at 1.91, a height only matched by a personal best from Emily Borthwick.
There was more floundering in the men’s pole vault, where Valentin Lavillenie and Charlie Myers failed to clear a height, while a frankly abysmal performance from Armand Duplantis left Sam Kendricks to paddle his way to victory. The winning height was a relatively meagre 5.74. Duplantis made better use of his time protecting Kendricks from the elements with an umbrella. The Swedish starlet and pole vaulting icon thought he had cleared his solitary attempt at 5.80, only for the bar to fall with a little bit of wind assistance.
Things picked up on the track. The wet conditions spoiled any prospect of quick times, but the big names still put in sturdy performances. Jakob Ingebrigtsen led the field in the men’s 1500 metres, and secured a season’s best with a winning time of 3:36.27. Mohamed Katir even managed to excel in the men’s 5000 metres, as the young Spanish runner smashed his personal best, coming through in a time of 13:08.52.
Saving the best until last, some of the standout performances of the night came from two of the top British women. In the hotly anticipated women’s 100 metres, Dina Asher-Smith stormed to the head of the pack, beating the multiple-time world and Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, the perennial contender Marie-Josée Ta Lou, and the freshest American prospect Sha’Carri Richardson.
Back in 2014, the designer Thomas Heatherwick unveiled plans for a floating island park at Pier 55 on the Hudson River. Conceived as a ‘treasure island’ with an undulating topography, dense foliage, and public spaces for performance, the artificial island would replace the dilapidated Pier 55 and adjacent Pier 54, where the RMS Carpathia once docked carrying the survivors from the Titanic.
Pier 55 would come in at a cost of $130 million, with the bulk of the money coming from the power couple Barry Diller and Diane von Furstenberg. The American media mogul and Belgian fashion designer pledged $113 million for the building of the park, the largest private donation to a public park in New York history, with the rest of the cash stumped up by the state and the city.
Construction on the site started in 2016, but drew to a halt the following year amid soaring costs and legal challenges from the City Club of New York, who cited environmental concerns and received backing from the real estate developer Douglas Durst. The project appeared to be dead and buried, but forty-three days later Andrew Cuomo kicked off his gubernatorial campaign by brokering a deal which secured additional funds and took steps to protect the marine estuary.
Little Island comprises 132 playful tulip planters delicately poised atop concrete pilings which press deep into the riverbed. The structural integrity of the park was overseen by Arup Group, and from two esplanades which jut out from the edge of the Meatpacking District and Chelsea, the park can welcome as many as 1,000 simultaneous visitors, with free entry via timed tickets.
The original Pier 54 piles remain to provide a habitat for the local aquatic life. Nestled atop all of the concrete are more than 350 species of flowers, 114 trees which hope to grow as high as 60 feet, lawns, a central plaza with concession stands, and three stages for performance including a 687-seat amphitheatre dubbed ‘The Amph’. Little Island will host live performances six days a week, with the tap dancer and choreographer Ayodele Casel, the playwright Tina Landau, the actor, singer, and musical director Michael McElroy, and the storytelling troupe PigPen Theatre Co. the first artists in residence.
Programming will commence on 14 June and reach an early climax come 4 July, when Little Island will welcome the American Ballet Theatre and Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra. In the meantime visitors are encouraged to enjoy the exclusive Little Island cocktails and the landscape design by Signe Nielsen of MNLA, which promises to change by the season while offering dazzling views over the Hudson River.
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