backwards on the tight rope

So I have been watching the Commonwealth Games.

Principally I watch either Table Tennis or Track and Field events. I have occasionally flipped to watch weight lifting, beach volleyball, 1m spring board diving, and a few others.

The most memorable event I watched was the women's 10,000m race. Eilish McColgan from Scotland is a tall lanky runner who ran the first six km of the race in what the announcer described as a "metronomic " method. She led the field of runners pushing a pace of almost exactly 3:05 per km for each of those first six kms. At around the 6km mark Kenya's Cheptai and Kiprotich, who had been the only two by that time that kept up with Eilish went ahead of her, but she stayed right with them until about the 8km mark. At that time Kiprotich fell away, so now it was between Eilish and Cheptai for the Gold medal, Cheptai the one who, before the race even started, was expected to win. It went between the two of them leading, back and forth for the last 600m, both of them accelerating continuously until there was about 200m left at which point Eilish simply found another gear and took it home in a Commonwealth Games record time.

I saw an interview on yTube where she was interviewed and she explained that it was the crowd in the stadium that was so extremely loud, she used that as energy to give her that extra gear.

It is moments like these which is why I like to watch sports - to see things that are unexpected, or are exceptional.