paris olympics: athletics, day 1
Jun. 23rd, 2025 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
twoelevenwe had excellent seats for the first day of track and field. the finish line for all the races is just off to my left, and we had a great view of the first turn. there were lots of races. the middle of the field is set up for flinging javelins, so we had a good view of the throws. but we had a lousy view of the long jump. the pits for that are the tan rectangles in the purple area to the right of the track.
the stadium is the stade de france, in st. denis, an inner northern suburb of paris. it's usually for playing what most people call football. it's the largest stadium in france.
the day's events started with the women's 1500 m qualifiers. i took a lot of pictures of the first heat, since i was trying to get a feel for what were good photographs of a race i knew nothing about other than the length.
tanaka nozomi got off to a good start, or perhaps simply got too excited and didn't pace herself, because by the second lap, she was merely in the lead rather than running away with the race.
by the third lap, she'd faded to fourth
she was, rather literally, out of the picture at the finish.
and the first of the day's photo finishes:
wikipedia notes that she was advanced to the semis by the ref, so maybe she was fouled by another runner when she was on the far side of the track.
the second race wasn't as exciting, though shamrock-enhanced people may be interested in healy's performance. the first turn:
and the runners were still in roughly the order on the last turn:
the finish:
the next set of races were the 110 m hurdles, which are more my thing. typical footraces are largely a matter of winning the genetic lottery. while athletes do need to train their asses off to compete in the olympics, people without the right genes don't stand a chance. the running and leaping events have less of a genetic lottery to them, since leaping the hurdles is a learned skill.
the first heat was another photo finish. but first, the last hurdle, which is two different compositions of the same exposure. this one emphasizes the athletes and how closely spaced the are:
but this one emphasizes the remaining distance to winning:
and the finish:
an even closer finish in the second heat:
in heat three, the best hurdler (qin weibo, competing for china) barely holds his lead against a better sprinter (wilhem belocian, competing for the home team). on the penultimate hurdle, qin (second from the right) is a tiny bit ahead of belocian (rightmost):
and he's still a tiny bit ahead at the last hurdle:
but belocian nearly catches him at the line:
after the 110 m running and leaping, time to hurl pointy things! all but one of my good pictures from the first round were of Curtis Thompson, competing for the US of A. he missed the cut to qualify, and ended up in 27th place overall.
he did well on his first throw:
that was measured at 76.79m (253').
he scratched his second throw, but here he is standing like a classical warrior waiting for his third:
and loosing his lightning, fateful or otherwise:
the other good photo from the first round was julian weber's first throw:
he placed third in the round, tossing that pointy stick 87.76m (just shy of 290') and sixth overall.
then back to running, this time the men's 200m:
a tight finish in the first heat:
and in the third:
the israeli runner has an interesting biography.
for the men's second round of javelin hurling, i just have pictures of interesting or amusing follow-throughs. javelin throwers need to develop a lot of momentum to throw olympicly, not just in their arm, but with their whole body. but, they need to stay on their side of a white arc at the front of the throwing area for their throw to count. so, there are landings that look silly, but meet the requirements.
the last event of the day was the men's 400 m hurdles (repechage round). that's another of my favorites, though i prefer the steeplechase. since an american, travor bassitt, was competing in the first heat, i have a bunch of pictures of the race.
in the second heat, sweden's carl bengtström (in yellow, in left lane) overtakes botswana's victor ntweng (light blue, next to rightmost lane) and holds off costa rica's gerald drummond (dark blue, rightmost) to win by 0.15 seconds, and gerald overtook victor at the line to qualify for the finals by 0.01 second.
the stadium is the stade de france, in st. denis, an inner northern suburb of paris. it's usually for playing what most people call football. it's the largest stadium in france.
the day's events started with the women's 1500 m qualifiers. i took a lot of pictures of the first heat, since i was trying to get a feel for what were good photographs of a race i knew nothing about other than the length.
tanaka nozomi got off to a good start, or perhaps simply got too excited and didn't pace herself, because by the second lap, she was merely in the lead rather than running away with the race.
by the third lap, she'd faded to fourth
she was, rather literally, out of the picture at the finish.
and the first of the day's photo finishes:
wikipedia notes that she was advanced to the semis by the ref, so maybe she was fouled by another runner when she was on the far side of the track.
the second race wasn't as exciting, though shamrock-enhanced people may be interested in healy's performance. the first turn:
and the runners were still in roughly the order on the last turn:
the finish:
the next set of races were the 110 m hurdles, which are more my thing. typical footraces are largely a matter of winning the genetic lottery. while athletes do need to train their asses off to compete in the olympics, people without the right genes don't stand a chance. the running and leaping events have less of a genetic lottery to them, since leaping the hurdles is a learned skill.
the first heat was another photo finish. but first, the last hurdle, which is two different compositions of the same exposure. this one emphasizes the athletes and how closely spaced the are:
but this one emphasizes the remaining distance to winning:
and the finish:
an even closer finish in the second heat:
in heat three, the best hurdler (qin weibo, competing for china) barely holds his lead against a better sprinter (wilhem belocian, competing for the home team). on the penultimate hurdle, qin (second from the right) is a tiny bit ahead of belocian (rightmost):
and he's still a tiny bit ahead at the last hurdle:
but belocian nearly catches him at the line:
after the 110 m running and leaping, time to hurl pointy things! all but one of my good pictures from the first round were of Curtis Thompson, competing for the US of A. he missed the cut to qualify, and ended up in 27th place overall.
he did well on his first throw:
that was measured at 76.79m (253').
he scratched his second throw, but here he is standing like a classical warrior waiting for his third:
and loosing his lightning, fateful or otherwise:
the other good photo from the first round was julian weber's first throw:
he placed third in the round, tossing that pointy stick 87.76m (just shy of 290') and sixth overall.
then back to running, this time the men's 200m:
a tight finish in the first heat:
and in the third:
the israeli runner has an interesting biography.
for the men's second round of javelin hurling, i just have pictures of interesting or amusing follow-throughs. javelin throwers need to develop a lot of momentum to throw olympicly, not just in their arm, but with their whole body. but, they need to stay on their side of a white arc at the front of the throwing area for their throw to count. so, there are landings that look silly, but meet the requirements.
the last event of the day was the men's 400 m hurdles (repechage round). that's another of my favorites, though i prefer the steeplechase. since an american, travor bassitt, was competing in the first heat, i have a bunch of pictures of the race.
in the second heat, sweden's carl bengtström (in yellow, in left lane) overtakes botswana's victor ntweng (light blue, next to rightmost lane) and holds off costa rica's gerald drummond (dark blue, rightmost) to win by 0.15 seconds, and gerald overtook victor at the line to qualify for the finals by 0.01 second.