Sha’Carri Richardson’s surge to the gold in the women’s 100m chimed perfectly with the “Witness the Wonder” publicity for the athletics world championships. Something very wondrous had just been wtinessed. The 23-year-old American scraped into the final as one of the fastest losers and was thus shoved out into a galaxy far, far away from the white heat of the competition.
And for 70 metres on the third night of action, Shericka Jackson and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce were conducting their very own Jamaican national championships.
In the very quick end, they came second and third respectively. In the outer limits, Richardson had surpassed her own and etched herself into legend in a championships record time of 10.65 seconds.
Her celebrations on the track at the National Athletics Centre were visceral. No need to wonder why.
Last summer, she did not make the US team for the world championships in Eugene due to poor form. And she did not not take part in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 because she was serving a ban for using cannabis just before the US Olympic trials.
Her explanation was that she was taking the drug to numb the pressure of trying to qualify for the Olympics team and to cope with grief following the death of her biological mother. Richardson could have been eligible for the women’s 4x100m relay team in Japan but she was not selected.
Honour
“I am honoured and I am blessed,” Richardson said shortly after the world championships triumph. "You bring who you are onto the track. You bring your athlete into your life,” she added. “There is no separate, honestly. So I'm glad that I can display who I really am.”
On Friday night, Jackson stopped Richardson from joining Silke Gladisch-Moeller, Katrin Krabbe and Fraser-Pryce as the only women to win the sprint double in the 40-year history of the world championships. The 29-year-old Jamaican also retained her title.
"It feels good to be back-to-back champion after the disappointment in the 100m," said Jackson.
"I was, like look, the 100 is already gone. It's time to focus on the 200.
"I love all events but the 200 is my baby and I just wanted to come out and execute my own race. And I think I did pretty good."
A championship record would suggest better than good. And while denying Richardson access to the greats, Jackson's victory in her preferred event offered up a metaphysical strand to the proceedings. Noah Lyles - in the last event on Friday night - duly sealed the symmetry with a transcendant run in the men's 200m.
Personal
"The 200m ... it's personal to me," said Lyles an hour or so after securing a third world championships on the trot over the distance.
"This is where I've learned how to race. So when I said I took this personally, I knew that I had many guys who are coming out here with the idea of taking this from me. And to be honest, they have the ability to do so."
Lyles' win in 19.52 seconds - to go with his 100m triumph on Sunday night - propelled him through a portal.
Before Usain Bolt acquired his first 100/200m double in 2009, only three men - Maurice Greene, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay - had won both the sprints at the same championships.
Bolt entered the pantheon and then the Jamaican set up his own Living Legend suite adorned with two more doubles in 2013 in Moscow and 2015 in Beijing.
Lyles' first double takes him a step nearer emulating Bolt’s run of four 200m titles between 2009 and 2015.
The 26-year-old American - à la Bolt - talks a great game. “I don't have a problem saying what my dreams are,” he relayed on the eve of the championships.
“I don't care if people think I can do it or not. I don't even care if I can't do it. But if I don't say it to myself, it's never going to happen."
Boast
He was good value as he and compatriot Fred Kerley adjusted their big buckles just before the heats for the 100m.
And Lyles was spraying out the testosterone after the first round of the 200m on Wednesday.
"When I was coming off the turn I saw Andrew Hudson on the outside and I knew he was going to try to make a big push for it just because he wants to tell himself that he's not intimidated.
"So I had to show him back that I am not intimidated at all as well. I still have many gears left in the tank. They just aren't needed right now.”
A few more were engaged on a sultry evening to shoot him into another stratosphere and back the boasting. That kind of muscular posturing plays out well in the whirligig whizz for quick, easily projected tales even if they are a tad commedia dell’arte.
But Lyles has also displayed a depth off vision which could set a template for athletes.
"Yes, I am the guy who wants to move past just being track famous.
Challenge
"Yes, the medals are first because if you don't have the medals who's going to want to pay attention to you? And then after you get the medals, then you get the times and then more and more people gain interest.
"And now you start being able to go into different directions. You can start collaborating with other people. You can start meeting bigger and better athletes.
"And then from athletes you go to artists and from artists you just go to the world and now you have connections and everybody is just like: 'Oh wow, he knows him or her.' You know, just being in that crowd and just boost the whole idea because right now the bar is low. It's low. I mean, it's low."
What Lyles is essentially proposing is an individual predisposed to self- aggrandizement who will allow the international athletics complex to share the glory.
This zeitgeist has truly descended on this son of Gainesville, Florida, There was a palpable fear that after Bolt retired, athletics would lose its lustre and relevance.
Sebastian Coe, the head of World Athletics - the outfit that runs the championships – said Bolt had the same impact as the former boxer Muhammad Ali.
Move
Speaking at a Leaders in Sports summit just after Bolt’s adieu, Coe said: 'I don't think I've ever witnessed anybody in virtually any sport that's had that global reach. You've got to go back to Ali.
'His reach is extraordinary and young people are where we have to be. He can help us engage with young people and talk about the things that matter and let them believe that it's a sport for them.”
Fast forward six years and Coe’s message appears to have struck a chord. The Australian athletics association's biographical details of 20km walker Jemima Montag presents a story of a dynamic, socially engaged woman who is putting her medical studies on hold to train for the Paris Olympics..
Fabrice Hugues Zango is another marketing executive’s godsend. The 30- year-old Burkinabe won gold in Budapest after silver in Eugene in 2022 and bronze in Doha in 2019.
A tale of throbbingly clear upward mobility. What is not to like, love and parade to the world? He is the country’s treasure trove possessing the only medals ever gained at a world championships.
And all because he wanted to see if it was possible to pursue sports while studying his first love of electrical engineering. His message before returning to Paris to finish off his PhD was to show African youngsters that it was possible to dream big.
"The object was never to be a star and to have money," Zango told RFI.
"It was just to be a better person - a person who wants to open new doors, break the mental barriers and to show that they must not say: 'It's not possible for me to do this.'"
Planet Zango aligns perfectly in the Lyles universe. Olympic glory in Paris next year could provide the Big Bang.
