The man dubbed the "the greatest athlete you've never heard of" blew that moniker into irrelevance with a supreme performance in the 800m final on Thursday. Now as the Olympic track & field programme ended on saturday everybody will be reflectiing on what has been a week of top class athletics in London and the great moments that we will remember for years. Not suprisingly most of the plaudits will go to Usain Bolt as the biggest star in athletics retained both his sprint titles winning 3 gold medals in the process and Mo Farah for doing the long distance double in front of a joyous crowd and rightly so.
However a certain performance from David Rudisha needs to be mentioned alongside those two. Many people would have not heard of the Kenyan runner before these Olympics but they certainly have now. Being an athletics fan myself I have watched him for a couple of years and have marvelled at his brilliance but even so I was suprised at what he did on Thursday and how easy he made it looked.
Hebecame the first athlete to set a new world record on the track at London 2012 as he won 800m gold.
The 23-year-old Kenyan stormed to victory in his debut Olympic final to become the first man inside one minute 41 seconds, clocking 1:40.91. Reigning world champion Rudisha led from the off, running an opening lap of 49 seconds and storming further clear down the back straight to beat his own world record. With the rest of the field dragged along by his pace, only Abukaker Kaki in seventh failed to record a personal best time.
Rudisha was supreme as he dictacted the pace in what was the fastest 800m race of all time. To put it into perspective Great Britain Andrew Osagie's time of 1:43.77 is a world record for a last place finisher in an Olympic 800m final. He have would have won him a gold medal at the last three Olympic 800m finals with that time. That statiistic in itself speaks volumes for Rudsiha's achievement in a race that he made look so easy. He holds the three fastest, six of the eight fastest, and half the twenty fastest times ever for the 800m, so quite frankly he owns this event.
Now the "quiet man" of athletics who is also the World Champion at 800m becomes a living legend for the nation of Kenya at only 23 which suggests he can go on to even greater things. So anytime you look back and reminise on the athletics at London 2012 as well as recalling the great performances of Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, Jessica Ennis & US relay teams etc, please give an honourable mention to a young man from Kenya by the name of David Rudisha who for me gave the standout individual performance on the track at London 2012.
Ben (Kwesi)
Twitter: @kwesitheauthor | @creativafr