Kiwi track great Nick Willis caused some bemused looks as he was stuck on the tarmac at Detroit Airport this morning.
The upside of having his flight delayed was that the two-time Olympic medallist was able to watch fellow New Zealander Geordie Beamish make history and become the first Kiwi runner to win a world championship title.
Beamish recovered from a fall in the heats two days earlier to win the World Athletics Championships 3000m steeplechase final in emphatic fashion.
Heading into the final bend at Tokyo’s National Stadium, Beamish was in seventh place but flew home over the last 150m, making his move just after the water pit to make up more than 10m of ground on race leader and two-time Olympic champion Soufiane El Bakkali of Morocco.
In a fashion reminiscent of his 2024 World Indoor 1500m win, Beamish kicked strong and took the lead with less than a metre remaining in the race, finishing in a time of 8m 33.88s.
Willis told Herald NOW he was able to watch the race because of his delayed flight and erupted with joy when Beamish crossed the finish line, much to the bemusement of his fellow travellers.
“It was so epic to watch that. I was stuck on the tarmac at Detroit Airport and I thought we were going to take off and I wouldn’t see the last two laps. But our flight was delayed and I got to see Geordie make his way up. I think he was 11th place with 300m to go, moved up the back straight and I thought ‘he’s got this’.
“The water barrier was a little bit challenging for him but he summoned an amazing sprint in the last 50 metres and I erupted on the plane. Everyone was looking at me thinking ‘what’s going on here?’ but it was all worth it,” the Kiwi track great said.
“Geordie has the best kick in the world in nearly any distance...he would have just been licking his chops when the pace was super slow the first lap. Nerves would have been out the door and he would have been riding high on that adrenaline, thinking ‘okay, okay, I’ve got a shot at this’. He would have been savouring and licking his lips at the opportunity,” Willis added.
A disappointed El Bakkali took silver in 8m 33.95s, while Kenya’s Edmund Serem claimed the bronze medal in 8m 34.56s.
The US-based Havelock North runner is the first New Zealander to secure a gold medal on the track in 42 years and 20 editions of the outdoor World Athletics Championships.
The win comes just two days after his heart-stopping fall in the heats, getting stamped on the head in the process, before getting back up and earning a spot in the final.
It’s a second world title for Beamish after claiming the World Championship indoor title in the 1500m at Glasgow last year.
“It’s unreal. I never thought I’d be world champion once... to do it again is pretty unbelievable. I’ve just been enjoying the last hour or so, it was a special moment in the stadium,” the 28-year-old said after the race.
“It was unreal, I felt like I could feel it in my chest how loud it was.”
A distraught El Bakkali, who has claimed the past two world titles and two Olympic titles, collapsed to the ground sobbing after being chased down by the Kiwi, needing to be consoled by teammate Salaheddine Ben Yazide.
“It’s very difficult for me to accept this result but I have to because this is high-performance sport,” he told AFP.
El Bakkali eventually joined Beamish in his victory lap before both runners took a dip in the water pit.
“He’s a legend in the sport,” Beamish said after his win. “Probably made the steeplechase what it is over the last five to six years. He’s got four in a row, I’m never going to win as many races as he has, I’m never going to run as fast as he has, I’m sure, but that’s fine by me. It was special to share a victory lap with him. He’s a legend.”
New Zealand’s six previous titles at the World Championships were in field events - one in discus (Beatrice Faumuina in 1997) and five in shot put (Valerie Adams in 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013; Tom Walsh in 2017).
“I made headlines for all the wrong reasons two days ago,” Beamish said of the photo going viral of a competitor’s foot on his head after he fell in the heats.
“Made some new headlines today. Push those ones out. I fell with a lap to go but got up and felt really comfortable coming by everyone still and realised that the fitness, that was a bit of a question mark having not raced for a long time, was as good if not better than what I thought it was going to be, so maybe a blessing in disguise,” Beamish said of his heats run.
Olympic champion Hamish Kerr will look to join Beamish as world champion when he competes in the high jump final at 11.35pm.
It was a big night at the National Stadium in Tokyo with Armand Duplantis breaking the pole vault world record for a 14th time.
The Swede retained his crown with a vault of 6.15m before having a crack at his own world record which he beat with his third and final attempt at 6.30 metres.
Duplantis first broke the world record in 2020 when he cleared 6.17m and he gets a US$100,000 bonus from World Athletics each time he does it, meaning he’s cashed in $1.4m in bonus money over the past five and a half years.
“I felt the only way to leave Japan was to set the world record,” said Duplantis.
“That was my mentality. I don’t know what is next for me at this moment, I don’t care.
“I will just enjoy this right now. I was feeling really good the whole day. I knew I had the record in me.”