Athletics Australia – NEWS – The best of Beijing – our top ten moments

They came and they conquered. Athletes from around the globe flew in the nest to make sure they will be remembered in history. Here's our favorite moments.

1.       Steve Hooker        

The first gold medal in a field event since John Winter (High jump) in 1948, the first by an Australian male following Ralph Doubell back in 1968 and Australian track and field’s first since Cathy Freeman in 2000.

How fitting that the male counterpart of the team captaincy should lead his team to victory on the closing weekend of Olympic competition in the Chinese national stadium – the Bird’s Nest.

However, the highlights were surely doubled when Steve’s coach, Alex Parnov, made a leap of his own clearing the spectator fence and bolting, bare foot, over to Hooker embracing the athlete he’s coached to become Olympic Champion recording a height of 5.96m.

2.       Usain Bolt

Bolt. The name says it all.

The 6 foot 5 Jamaican entered the Bird’s Nest 21 years old and full of ability and left and year older and triple world record holder and Olympic champion.  With a vibrant and holistic attitude and supernatural ability it is nearly impossible not to be mesmerized by the world’s fastest man.

You have to question how long it will be before Bolt breaks his own record in the 100m after he began his celebrations with around 20 metres from the line. To see Bolt really turn it on in the 200m was 19.30 seconds to behold not to mention his blistering third leg in the men’s 4 x 100m which made the crowd almost oblivious to the depth of his world class teammates.

3.       Jared Tallent

Jared Tallent’s boots were made for walking – just less than five hours worth in fact earned him the status of dual Olympic medalist in Beijing.

Falling short of his personal best by just one second in the 20km walk Tallent then returned in the 50km event to smash his lifetime best by 5 minutes 18 seconds.  Defeating world record holder, Denis Nizhegorodov of Russia on his way to a silver medal, Tallent is the first track and field athlete in nine Olympics to become a dual medalist, the last being Raylene Boyle with two silvers in 1972.

The talent, that is Jared, will illustrate it’s not always  about the quantity of walking but also the quality  when he walks down the aisle in Walkerville SA in the first week of September to marry fiancé and fellow race walk Olympian, Claire Woods. It’s not only the bridal dance that will be a quickstep!

4. Sally McLellan

Sally McLellan won Australia’s first ever medal in the 100m hurdles.

A personal best performance was required by Dawn Harper of the USA to win the gold, with a blanket finish between the main field.  A result of 12.64 was given to both second and third places it was an anxious wait for Australia’s Sally McLellan before the photo finish result awarded the youngest competitor in the field a silver medal.

Sally’s refreshing response of elation and shock were shared with bronze medalist, Priscilla Lopes-Schliep, of Canada with the two celebrating trackside and bringing the essence of the Olympic Games to life.

5.       Liu Xiang

Imagine Sydney 2000, if Cathy Freeman came out of the blocks from a false start in her heat and then walked off the track.

Then imagine, the Australian population was a about 100 times bigger.  That’s how big a shock it was to the Chinese when this happened to their 110m Hurdler Liu Xiang, who was the defending Olympic champion and former world record.  They were so shattered, they simply started leaving the stadium, the crowd had literally halved by the time the race finished (and it only takes 13seconds).

6.       Personal bests

No matter what age or level you are, the ultimate goal in athletics is to perform a personal best.  Whether you are a junior or Olympic athlete, a lifetime best performance is always going to bring a smile to an athlete’s face.

For that reason, we’d like to congratulate the following Aussie athletes, who set personal bests on the world’s biggest sporting stage; Kylie Wheeler (high jump, javelin and heptathlon points), Luke Adams (50km walk), Jared Tallent (50km walk), Claire Woods (20km walk), Youcef Abdi (3000m steeplechase), Sean Wroe (400m), Joel Milburn (400m),

7.       Kenny Bekele

When attempting to sum up the greatest track and field moments witnessed at the Beijing games Ethiopia’s, now greatest of all time, Kenenisa Bekele would have to be in contention. Completing a combined total of 50 laps in almost as many minutes the 26-year-old surpassed compatriot, Gebrselassie and took the 5000m/10000m double.

Though there was very little doubt he wouldn’t win the 10,000m, the 5,000m was always set to be a great battle.  Most impressively, it was the way in which he did it.  Taking up the lead in the middle of the slowly run race, he just wound it up, consistently knocking out sub 60sec laps to run the legs out of the world’s best.  In the process, he smashed the existing world record by 8seconds.

8.       Women’s steeplechase  WR and dunking

A new event is naturally going to set new standards, but Beijing saw 11 national records fall in this event from the heats and final.  Galkina’s effort of leading all the way and knocking 3seconds off her own world record was impressive.

It was also one of the most entertaining events from the Bird’s Nest.  When you have 17 athletes all attempting to leap a barrier filled with water at the other side, one must brace for a mishap.  It happened in the heats, with a competitor not only falling down in the drink, but being given multiple dunks from fellow race-goers as they balanced themselves on her head in an attempt to get out of the water.

9.       Men’s marathon

Absolutely phenomenal.  When people were expecting conditions to be so bad it will affect their long term health, no one would have imagined that 21 year old Samuel Wanjiru was going to create such a storm.

In a race that was perhaps the fastest ever without a pacemaker, the Kenyan went about crushing the field from his first step, doing much of the front running, so fast it set a new Olympic record that has been around longer than he has.

10. Yelena Isinbayeva

To anyone who follows international athletics, the women’s Pole Vault world record isn’t worth remembering, because Yelena keeps breaking it.

However, this victory was impressive with the way she blitzed the competition.  She won the competition with her second jump, no fouls at either height.  Then went on to win by 25cm.  It was her third world record in 2008, each time eclipsing the previous mark by 1cm.

These achievements were just part of the Bird’s nest story and we were proud of every Aussie who set foot in the place, athlete, coach, manager or spectator. It was a fantastic week in a great stadium where the world truly did bring their best.