SPRING FORWARD. The reminder meme for direction of the nearing clock shift, with “spring” also a verb full of energy and promise, echoes with an impulse I think we’re seeing in a few of our sport’s stars this winter.
I’m talking about those of a mind to change up their events. While we see some event switching every season, is there a touch more of it in the air right now? Two world champions have joined the brigade.
•Two-time 400H world champ Femke Bol has set aside jumping hurdles to take a swing at the 800, just after her prime rival, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, indicated the flat 400 WR may remain her main motivation after she returns from maternity.
•It was just last fall that Cordell Tinch asserted 110H primacy with his Tokyo WC win and No. 1 World Ranking. Now after a Millrose hurdles win, he has announced, “The rest of my indoor season will involve me long jumping.”
If ever there’s been a time, this season after the unprecedented global champs domino fall from Covid-2020 — a five-years-straight run of OG-WC-WC-OG-WC — feels right for channeling Monty Python: And Now For Something Completely Different.
Tinch and the Long Jump — He’s 25 and history’s equal-4th-fastest 110 hurdler at 12.87. Yet he can jump too. Apparently, he’d like to remind the world. Perhaps the press conference emcee before the recent New Balance Indoor GP struck a nerve with a question that flew off target by a mile: “Between you two [Noah Lyles and Anna Hall], who would win in a high jump?”
Tinch, the only other athlete on the stage and ignored by the interviewer’s question, reacted with a bemused and mildly exasperated shrug.
“What have you done, Cordell, for high jump?” Another “you can’t be serious” uplift of his arms.
Answer: In 2023 Tinch cleared 7-3¼ (2.22). He also long jumped 27-½ (8.24) with healthy wind aid that May and 26-9¼ (8.16) at altitude two weeks later.
Asked about this at T&FN’s USATF Championships tour dinner last summer, Tinch replied, “I don’t see myself going back to high jump. I don’t see me going to do a multi. I don’t see me doing the 400 hurdles. I’d probably only ever long jump again.”
He then added, “This isn’t a shot at any of the long jumpers currently. It’s more so of just how I feel as an athlete. I think that the long jump currently is as wide open as it’s ever been. Any of those jumpers that were in the [Nationals] field yesterday could have had a jump and they would have won. Therefore, there’s no real single person in The United States that is the person that’s consistently jumping in the 8.20s.
“It’s we’re all around 8.01, 8.02, therefore, why not go out there and show what you can do, especially when I know for a fact I have 8.30s, 8.40s in practice. But hurdling is what got me here. Therefore, I need to go handle that first before I even think about venturing out everywhere else.”
With a hurdles world title banked in Tokyo and no OG or WC to point toward this summer — yet two of those on the horizon for ‘27 and ‘28 — it’s time to venture out. Full credit to Tinch’s confidently adventurous spirit.
Bol and the 800 — Count me all in as a fan, also, of the Dutchwoman’s “the unknown is something very exciting, but also something very fun” alacrity. For my money, the jump from covering a lap of the outdoor track at world class level to covering two is the thorniest, rockiest frontier to cross in foot racing. The ratios of anaerobic to aerobic energy expenditure more or less flip.
“Slower, I’ve been hearing that word a lot lately,” said Bol in early January. “Slower, slower!”
Of her “new chapter” Bol — who so far is a low-mileage trainer at 25–35 miles (40–55km) per week — told European Athletics last fall, “I’ve never run farther than a 600 all out. So, the last 200 is something new territory for me.”
As we send this column and issue to press, Bol has now raced longer than 600, winning her much anticipated debut in Metz with a 1:59.07 Dutch record from the 1:59.90 of Tokyo semifinalist Valentina Rosamilia. Though her 26.99/29.67/32.20/32.21 200 splits befit a rookie, Bol’s game is afoot.
“I’m not afraid of failing on the track,” Bol has declared. “I’m not living in a fairy tale. It’s an illusion that I can immediately compete with the best in the 800 and win.
“That will take time; I just have to see if I get there.” ◻︎
