Fastest ever in November

WE OFTEN devolve track and field into numbers devoid of perspective. Viewed this way, athletics at the 19th Pan-Am Games hasn’t been much to watch. Contested in Santiago, Chile, from late October into November, it was largely devoid of big stars and, beset by cool weather, has produced modest times in running events.

This year, athletes peaked for the World Championships in Budapest and that ended on August 27. Some hung around for the Diamond League final in Eugene, Oregon, contested September 16-17. Then they went off to rest before starting to train, somewhere around the middle of October, for the upcoming Olympic year.

To view the track and field results from the 2023 Pan-Am Games from any other perspective is to err terribly. Not only were the hemisphere’s best largely absent in Santiago but those who did attend have just come back to train.

From a Jamaican standpoint, I can already hear the discontent. Jaheel Hyde won our only gold medal of the Games on November 3 with a time of 49.19 seconds. He won at a canter, fully 0.50 ahead of second place.

Viewed alone, 49.19 seconds isn’t impressive but history records Jaheel’s Santiago effort as the fastest 400 metre hurdles time in the history of track and field in the month of November.

Let that sink in.

Note well that two and a half months ago, he clocked 48.49 seconds in Budapest.

The doubter may ask why such a modest time would be a world record for November. It’s simple. World Athletics and the IOC typically stage the World Championships and the Olympic Games in the summer, with the Games as late as September into October when they are staged in Australia, as in 1956 and 2000, and the Worlds coming latest in 2019 when Qatar hosted the meet in that same September-October pocket in the calendar.

In Santiago, the men’s and women’s 100 had winners clocking 10.30 and 11.36, with the 200s yielding 20.37 and 22.74 and the 400 finals covered in 45.77 and 51.48 seconds, respectively. Compare them directly to the winning times in Budapest – 9.83/10.65, 19.52/21.41 and 44.22/48.76 and they look bad. Viewed through the proper perspective and they become easier to understand.

When the penny drops, Jaheel’s 49.19 will look pretty good if you see it as an out-of-season effort by an athlete who likely has just resumed training for the 2024 Olympics. Hopefully, it will pave the way for a great season for the 26-year-old, who won gold for his country in Santiago.

Hubert Lawrence has made notes at track side since 1980.