Ethiopian takes a thrilling gold in the 10,000 metres, but there are no crowds to cheer a victory lap
At 8.14pm Tokyo time, as the public address burbled weirdly and a crew of Lycra-wrapped athletes, male and female, collapsed together in a narrow corner of the Tokyo Olympic stadium, Marvin Schlegel, a 23-year-old German runner, leapt up on to a concrete walkway above the running track and began to roar into the empty space.
Fists clenched, neck muscles fanned, Schlegel continued to roar, a kind of wild-man victory bark. Ten minutes earlier he had run the anchor leg in Germany’s mixed 4×400 relay team. His quartet, two women and two men, had just qualified for Saturday’s Olympic final by the finest of margins.
