Olympic champions Parchment and Duplantis look to push on in Paris

Hansle Parchment, Jamaica’s Olympic 110m hurdles champion, came down with a bump in Lausanne on Thursday as he finished last. But he has arrived in Paris ready for the season’s next Wanda Diamond League meeting confident he will get back on track.

Reflecting on his experience on a cold and blustery night at the Stade de la Pontaise, he said: “I was running too quickly towards the barriers. I don’t know if the wind had something to do with that. I was unable to correct it and at the end of the race my technique broke down.”

Parchment’s Instagram post on the day after his Olympic final, when he found the Tokyo 2020 volunteer who had lent him the money for a taxi so he could get to his semifinal after taking the wrong bus and thanked her, repaid her and showed her his Olympic gold medal, went viral.

“I didn’t expect that kind of interest,” he said. “A lot of people have commented on it – right now it seems a lot bigger than the gold medal. When I get interviewed sometimes it seems people forget I was Olympic champion!

“We almost had a similar thing in Lausanne. The bus broke down on a hill and stopped for more than 10 minutes. The driver was trying to start it, but it wouldn’t work so we had to jump off and walk to the stadium. So it was chaotic evening. I have to be aware of the buses now!”

Reflecting on his Tokyo final, the 31-year-old said: “I had the start of a lifetime. I’m usually coming out pretty slowly but I have been working tirelessly on getting closer to everyone on the first barrier.

“I have been looking back at the race in Tokyo to see what I can change to get even faster. In Lausanne I had a really good start as well, so I think I’m getting better at that. I’m definitely looking forward to tomorrow.”

Sitting alongside him ahead of Saturday’s Meeting de Paris, home hurdler and European champion Pascal Martinot-Lagarde, who finished fifth in Tokyo, announced with a broad grin: “I have never won in Paris! You beat me here six, seven years ago, although not in this stadium. I got second two times – I hope to beat you tomorrow! I really want to win one time in Paris!”

Olympic pole vault champion Mondo Duplantis described as a “wake-up call” his defeat in Thursday's meeting in Lausanne, where he finished fourth on 5.62m in a competition where Chris Nilsen won on countback from his US colleague Sam Kendricks after both had cleared 5.82m.

“I did a lot of things wrong,” the 21-year-old US-based Swede said. “There were a lot of tactical errors, jumping on wrong poles. I didn’t have my coach, my dad, there, and I made some poor choices.

“It’s not best feeling. It’s part of the game. You lose sometimes. It’s a nice wake-up call."

Duplantis explained that his father, Greg, a 5.80m vaulter in his time, was the “technical, hands-on guy I need for those numbers”, although he added that he had had good competition without either his father or mother being present.

“I know I can do it by myself,” he said. “But sometimes when you have people like Sam and Chris jumping well you lose your brain a little bit.”

Reflecting upon his Olympic victory, he added: “When you have competition that you have been looking forward to for two years you come crashing down a bit. But I’m starting to feel it now again. Getting my butt kicked by these guys, the motivation is back again.”

In the immediate aftermath of his Tokyo win, Duplantis, who twice broke the world record last year, spoke of his relief, and on Friday he acknowledged the strength of that feeling, after the huge weight of expectation upon him.

“It was nice to have it done with,” he said. “Now I can sit back and try and compete and try and do something nice. The Olympics is something I have been working towards since I was three years old. I always felt I could get to that point to win.

“When I did win in Tokyo it almost felt like I was just checking a box rather than enjoying the feeling. So I’m glad I got it accomplished, let’s just say that.”

Sitting alongside him, France’s former world record-holder Renaud Lavillenie explained that he had not been able to do any “decent training” for “weeks and weeks” following the ankle injury he sustained last month as he fine-tuned for the Olympics, where he eventually finished eighth.

“Right now I am just happy to be able to jump,” the 34-year-old London 2012 champion said. “I didn’t want to end my season with a feeling of Tokyo.”

He confirmed that it was still his target to compete at the Paris 2024 Olympics.

Kendricks meanwhile made no secret of his hurt and frustration at having to quarantine in a special hotel in Tokyo after giving a positive Covid-19 test even though he felt fit to compete.

“I got yanked away from my dream and stuck in a hole,” he said. “You have to deal with it. Now I have nowhere to go but up, because I went to the very bottom.”

Thompson-Herah back on the track

Jamaica’s double Olympic 100m champion Elaine Thompson-Herah, beaten in Lausanne despite running 10.64 – the fastest losing time ever in the event – was upbeat about her possibilities in Saturday’s competition.

“We train our body and mind – that’s what we do,” she said. “I’m tired, but hopefully by tomorrow I can get some more energy. I will take it race by race and see what I can do until the end of the season.

“Last night I didn’t get the start I wanted, but I finished strong.”

Her 34-year-old compatriot, the Beijing 2008 and London 2012 champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, decided she was too fatigued to compete in Paris two days after winning in Lausanne in the third fastest time ever, 10.60.

But Thompson-Herah agreed with the suggestion that she and her rival, who took silver behind her in Tokyo, had helped each other to produce special performances this season.

“I would say that, yes. When I ran 10.54 in Eugene, I knew that once I hit that target other persons will say ‘I can do that too’,” she said.

“Shelly-Ann ran 10.63 earlier this year in Jamaica. I know she is a hard-working woman. And the fact that she is running so fast at 34 gives me motivation that I can do it again at the next Olympics in Paris when I am 32. She has done it so I can do it too.”

Asked about plans to break the 1988 world record of 10.49 set by the late Florence Griffith-Joyner, she said: “If I get a chance I will do that. This year it is not my target. I was concentrating on retaining my Olympic titles. I think next season I can put everything together and see how well I can do.”

Olympic high jump champion Mariya Lasitskene, normally so calm in competition, showed huge emotions in the wake of her victory in Tokyo.

“This season was very hard, and I had problems with my injury. When I became Olympic champion all these emotions come out and I could not control it. What I normally keep inside, it all came out,” she said.

“In Moscow when I came back with my coach everybody greeted us like heroes. So many people told me how they cried together with me in front of the TV. I’m so happy to feel that so many people love me and shared my victory with me.

“I did everything in my power and in my feelings to do my job 100 per cent. It was a special competition for me because it was my first time at the Olympics.”

Speaking of her previous day’s competition in Lausanne, where she won on countback with a clearance of 1.98m, she said: “Yesterday was not easy because of the weather – I didn’t like it, but I won and feel happy. I feel good. I hope the weather will be better tomorrow and I am ready to compete.”

Allyson Felix, whose two visits to the podium at the Tokyo 2020 Games mean she now has, at 35, more Olympic medals than any other female track athlete, will be one of the most popular competitors on show at the Stade Charlety.

“Paris holds a very special place in my heart,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to come back here.”

Felix has earned at least one medal at each of the last five Olympics, the latest being a bronze in the women’s 400m and gold in the women’s 4x400m relay.

Her total of 11 medals also surpasses by one the total accrued by Carl Lewis, making her the most decorated US Olympian in track and field.

But she insists that making history in that manner was “never a goal”, adding: “It was not something that I set out for. It is nice to be able to look back now and appreciate my career and what I have been able to do, but it was never a thing for me.

“It has been an amazing journey, an amazing ride, and I feel very grateful.”

Felix said that Tokyo would be her final Olympics, but she has not closed the book on her career and she said her thoughts were now turning towards next year’s postponed World Athletics Championships to be held at Hayward Field in Eugene.

“I am still kind of deciding,” she said. “Having the World Championships at home is very appealing to me. We will see in next month what my plan is.”

Asked to reflect upon the fact that her Olympic bronze medal-winning time of 49.46 was her second-fastest ever, and only two tenths off the personal best she set in winning the 2015 world title in Beijing, Felix responded: “That was always the goal. I didn’t know if I would be able to get back to that form but I had some glimpses before the Games that it would be possible.”

Home discus thrower Melina Robert Michon, who missed the Tokyo final by three places with a best of 60.88m having taken silver at the Rio 2016 Games at the age of 37, is hoping to finish her season strongly.

“I wish to be better than I was in Tokyo, and 62 or 63 metres may be possible tomorrow,” she said, adding that a lack of training opportunities before the Olympics meant “something important was missing” when it came to the Games.

After earning what she hopes will be a good result on Saturday she will compete at the Brussels Diamond League meeting on 1 September in an effort to earn enough points to qualify for the Final in Zurich.

Looking further ahead, to the Paris 2024 Olympics, the 42-year-old mother-of-two said: “A home Olympics will be an unparalleled occasion, and it is really a motivation for me.

“I want to be there, to be a part of a home Olympics, able to compete in front of family and friends. It was something missing in Tokyo. I want to show that age is just a number and if you work hard enough you can do it.”

Meanwhile 21-year-old Femke Bol of the Netherlands, who won Olympic bronze in the 400m hurdles in 52.03, putting her third on the all-time list, has explained why she is still keeping her 400m flat career going.

Having earned the European indoor title in that event earlier this year she has switched back to the flat for this weekend's meeting.

“It is important for me because I think I need to have a good 400m flat to have a good 400m hurdles,” she said. “And we have a relay team with the girls, and a mixed team which won silver in Tokyo of course, so that’s why it is also really important to me.”

Mike Rowbottom for World Athletics