It takes speed to win some of those medals at the world championships.
Key points:
- World championship podium finishers receive their medals right after finishing their event
- The winners must then return their medals, before a traditional ceremony where they receive a medal to keep.
- The medals are engraved with the winners’ names on a machine that takes 68 seconds to do the job
Speed to dish them all out, too. A little jumping ability doesn’t hurt either.
In a new twist to the biggest athletics event this side of the Olympics, athletes no longer have to wait to receive their awards. Medals are waiting on the track, and once the gold, silver and bronze have been decided, the presenters are positioned to hang them around the winners’ necks, sometimes while they’re still on the run.
One caveat: they need them again.
These “instant medals” are purely placeholders for the athletes to enjoy on the celebratory lap. The takeaways, engraved with their names, are presented in a ceremony later.
“To get this medal so quickly, it’s really nice,” said British runner Laura Muir, who won a bronze medal in the 1,500 meters.
“It’s surreal because one minute you don’t even cross the line and the next minute you have the medal around your neck.”
It’s all part of the plan of Niels de Vos, the executive director of Oregon22. He recalled watching an athlete win at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and receive his medal the next day in an almost empty stadium.
Niels de Vos, the executive director of the world championships, said he got the idea after seeing an athlete being awarded a medal in front of an empty stadium at the 2016 Olympics. (Getty Images: Christopher Lee)
“From an athlete’s perspective, it’s like, ‘But my friends and family are here today.’ They don’t have tickets tomorrow. I don’t want to come back tomorrow for my medal and not have my family,” de Vos explained.
“Everybody likes that.”
The process involves a lot of advanced research work. That is why de Vos, UK Athletics’ long-time chief executive and chief executive of the 2017 world championships in London, brought in a well-informed track team from Britain. Just to help with the task of locating euphoric athletes.
It’s not as easy as it might seem. Through prep work, they know roughly where someone will end up once a race or field event concludes.
Then they spring into action.
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Like when 190cm sprinter Fred Kerley won the 100m last weekend and went down the bend in the track. There, waiting for him, was a much shorter presenter, Cherry Alexander. He reached for the air to get Kerley the medal.
The moment became a meme on social media.
Sometimes the suddenness of receiving a medal takes an athlete by surprise. He did so with high jump champion Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar.
“I was thinking, ‘What are they doing?'” Barshim said.
“I said, ‘I thought we had a ceremony? No, I want a ceremony!'”
Qatari gold medalist Mutaz Essa Barshim holds his son as he shows him the medal he won in the high jump. (Getty Images: Christian Petersen)
Don’t worry, there is ceremony too. This medal is just an extra move. Barshim carried his medal into the stands and placed it around his young son.
“It’s great. My family wanted to come see him and hold him,” Barshim said.
Then he returned it. His perm was not far behind.
In 68 seconds—less time than it takes an 800m runner to finish—a medal can be engraved.
There is an engraving machine (four are used on heavy medal days) located in a room under the seats at Hayward Field. There will be around 252 medals engraved and awarded to athletes at the podium ceremony.
The medals feature an elegant design, with one side featuring a cross section of a tree and seven rings to represent the seven regions of Oregon. The other side, one of seven different landscape images (an athlete can win several medals and not have the same landscape). There is space, of course, for the printer to engrave your name.
Really, though, once that instant medal goes around an athlete’s neck, the moment becomes real.
At least, it did for American heptathlete Anna Hall, who knew she’d won bronze but didn’t quite sink in, as exhausted as she was, until that medal arrived.
“I was like, ‘Wow, I really did,'” Hall said.
American hurdler Trey Cunningham enjoyed everything about celebrating with his silver medal on the victory lap. But that takes some getting used to: “The medal kept slapping me in the chest,” Cunningham said, laughing.
De Vos has thoughts on how to expand the drama. As if Venezuelan triple jump champion Yulimar Rojas had a great initial jump to lead the competition, Rojas takes the medal in the nearby bleachers.
“And then she says, ‘It’s mine!'” de Vos said.
“Almost like they do in boxing with him [championship] belt. You could have all kinds of fun things.”
The one wrinkle to instant medals: Athletes are sometimes reluctant to give up their placeholder award. Muir told organizers she wanted to record the exact medal as it accompanied her on the trip down the track.
“I already felt very attached to it,” Muir said.
AP