After the Stade de France on Sunday night, where the men’s 100m final was decided by five-thousandths-of-a-second, you suspected we might have to wait a long time to see a finish quite so close. Well, less than 12 hours later, here was a rival. Okay, so on the clock, the margin was not quite so minuscule.
But for drama, for accessibility of the fractions to the naked eye, it was right up there. In a thrilling three-way finish, at the end of a mixed triathlon relay that had engrossed across four frantic legs of swim, bike and run, Germany took gold, officially one second ahead of the US and Great Britain, who were awarded the same time. So tough were they to split that initially the British quartet of Alex Yee, Georgia Taylor-Brown, Sam Dickinson and Beth Potter seemed to have been awarded silver, later downgraded to bronze behind the States in a photo-finish.
Yee, the individual gold medalist here, and Taylor-Brown were part of the British quartet that won the inaugural edition of this race in Tokyo by clear daylight three years ago, but here the event came into its own. Training on two previous days had been cancelled, again due to concerns over water quality in the Seine. Organisers confirmed on Sunday night, however, that the race would go ahead, answering teams’ call for clarity after verdicts on the individual races last week had been delayed until only hours before the planned off.
On a glorious morning, thousands of expectant French supporters lined the Champs-Elys.