Race against time
The 2024 Olympics ended after the closing ceremony took place at dawn on August 12 (Vietnam time). The fun of world sports in the summer of 2024 has ended with the promise of Los Angeles 2028, but the echoes of the competitions in Paris will still be remembered and discussed for a while longer.
Time at the 2024 Olympics is likened to "distorted". When telling the time on an analog watch, it is simply 12 numbers and 3 hands. But the Olympics pose a conundrum: What if between each of those numbers there are many smaller numbers? And what if among the smaller numbers, there are hundreds of other numbers? That's what time looks like for many Olympic athletes, for whom success or failure is determined by brutally small metrics.
American sprinter Noah Lyles won the men's 100m sprint by 0.005 seconds. If he had been slower than the blink of an eye, usually counted as lasting 1/10th of a second, he would have finished 7th.
Of course, speed is part of the competition. We talk about the best times, the times to beat. But minutes contain countless fractions that the human brain can struggle to understand. America's Kenny Bednarek won the Silver Medal after running the 200m in 19.62 seconds; Letsile Tebogo of Botswana won the Gold Medal by finishing 0.16 seconds faster. Those hundredths of a second are really small, but they make a huge difference in the experience of two people.
Some athletes even deny paying attention to the clock, and that makes sense: They're not there to contemplate the vicissitudes of time. Their job is simply to get to the finish line before anyone else. Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone of the USA ran the 400m hurdles in 50.37 seconds, breaking the world record to win the Gold Medal. For context, her time was only 0.2 seconds slower than her qualifying time for the women's 400m final.
Chasing time is exactly what these people do, day in and day out. And the amplitude is surprisingly small. America's Quincy Hall, Britain's Matthew Hudson-Smith and Zambia's Muzala Samukonga all ran the 400m in 43 seconds, with just four hundredths of a second separating Hall's Gold Medal time from Hudson-Smith in second place. Samukonga was third just three-tenths of a second behind Hudson-Smith.
Other time perspectives
Water races are similar. The winner of the men's 100m breaststroke, Nicolo Martinenghi of Italy, finished in 59.03 seconds. Britain's Adam Peaty and America's Nic Fink tied for silver, two hundredths of a second slower. The fourth finisher swam in 59.11 seconds.
Even athletes whose achievements are not measured by a clock struggle with the tyranny of time. Think of archers, weightlifters, table tennis players. They practiced for a long time. As the Olympics approach, they must go through weeks of preparation, days of travel, hours of warm-up and minutes of anxiety and tension before stepping into the bright spotlight on the world stage. Probably the only time. The warmth and brightness, if they are felt, usually last only a few seconds.
In her Gold Medal run , 14-year-old Japanese skateboarder Coco Yoshizawa performed a move known as the bigspin kickflip frontside boardlide, among many other moves. The run lasted 45 seconds. As we get older, we often feel like our best years are behind us. What if you felt like your best 45 seconds were over while still in high school? We are always ready to fight against time.
We try to conquer, outwit and outrun. And yet, it still passes. Only a few leave the Olympics with a shiny, tangible medal. But everyone carries something that even the passing of days cannot damage: The indelible memory of a clear time, no matter how long it lasted.
