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Onto the Kiwis and their extraordinary day of success, including high jump gold for Hamish Kerr. For the second Olympics in a row there was the potential for two gold medals to be awarded but the New Zealander prevailed in sudden death.
This time around, no one wanted to share the gold. Three years after Mutaz Barshim and Gianmarco Tamberi decided to go 50-50 on first place in the men’s high jump at the Tokyo Games rather than jump-off for it, two of their competitors found themselves in the same situation but decided to work it out the old-fashioned way.
The USA’s Shelby McEwen and New Zealand’s Hamish Kerr were tied in first place after they had both failed three attempts to clear 2.38m. “You may recognise this situation,” the man working the stadium PA told the crowd, “what are they going to do this time?” Kerr and McEwen didn’t even stop to discuss it. The kumbaya spirit of the competition during the Covid years is long gone, and both men wanted to press on into the sudden death round.
And so 10 games was all it took for Hayes to leave her mark. Yet while this still feels like preamble, this was a title she badly needed. Defeat would have set her on the back foot from the start, raised legitimate questions about her suffer-ball style, about Rose Lavelle not getting a minute in the final, about Crystal Dunn at left-back, about the whole “program”. Instead she now has credit in the bank, buy-in from players and public.
