The Great Race: Why is the 1500 meters so diverse?
Unlike the sprints and the long distances, no racial group has a near-monopoly on the middle distances. Much of the world is in the running for medals.
Yesterday’s men’s 1500 meter running race, following the fun, sprinter-like trading of insults across the North Sea by the champions of Scotland, Josh Kerr, and Norway (who, whenever I see Jakob Ingebrigtsen, I think, “Wow, Morrissey is looking great for his age”),
is being widely heralded as the greatest metric mile in Olympic history. You can watch it here. If you don’t know what happened, go ahead and watch. You may think track is boring, but in this case you won’t mind the 3 minutes and 27 seconds it takes.
The middle distances, 800 and 1500 meters, are particularly entertaining races.
Why? Unlike the sprints, they involve strategy. Unlike the longer distances, the strategic laps are over quickly and you are into the frantic bell lap in which history is made.
And, not unimportantly, unlike the sprints and the long distances, no racial group has a near-monopoly on the stars. Much of the world is in the running for medals.
How come?
My anthology Noticing (which Amazon continues selling in Kindle digital download version for only $9.95; you can get the paperback for $29.95 here) includes my 1997 article “Track and Battlefield,” which features this graph (accurate as of 27 years ago):
My basic theory was that runners of white-European descent tend to be pretty good at all distances, but runners of West African-Bantu descent are great at the sprints and runners of East African-Nilotic descent are great at the longer distances (although the marathon back then was more of a crap shoot than the 3000-10000 meters races). But nobody is all-powerful at 800-1500 meters, so it’s hard to predict who will win in the end.
Which is fun.
One conundrum is that Northeast Asians tend to be pretty good at the 100 meters and at the marathon, but are not so hot in-between.
Why?
The steeplechase was fun. Track and field overall has been great. The hands up and false starts lend drama. The upsets have made it interesting too. The people look so healthy. “They have the best figures” Mother said. She finds their little style choices interesting to parse as well.
It actually is about the best looking group of athletes I can recall seeing.
My elderly father pronounced water polo “as boring as soccer” which may or may not be true (I doubt he understands the game) in re watching but seemed to be very exciting for the people playing.
So glad Simone Biles was successful. Mother: “She’s darling.”
I missed the other events but the balance beam had us gasping out loud.
Women’s platform diving was cool. Not many Americans. I blamed lawyers. I can’t remember the last time I jumped off or even saw a platform. Even the high diving boards have mostly been removed.
My enjoyment may be enhanced because I don’t have TV. Summer is great for old people and TV between the tennis and golf and now this awesome Olympics.
“Tell me again?”
“Snoop Dogg.”
She turns and tells my father, that’s Snoop Dogg, for the 4th time.
“What does he do?”
“He raps or used to rap, unspeakably vulgar lyrics, but has since slipped into the role vacated by Bill Cosby, and he cooks with Martha Stewart.”
“Rapping? Is that singing?”
“No.”
She sets a lot of store by Martha though, and seems to like Snoop Dogg.
One may conclude that any DNA differences are masked by the nature of the event (as you elucidated well).
It does make it fun, IMHO.