At Olympic track and field, gold isn't the only way to measure success (2024)

Follow live coverage of the 100m final and more track and field competitions at the 2024 Paris Olympics

SAINT-DENIS, France — There was no decision for Joe Kovacs to make.

Three straight athletes throwing in front of him at the Olympic men’s shot put final Saturday had slipped and fallen — the logical and expected conclusion when 300-pound men try to toss a 16-pound ball in a confined space as far as they can as a driving rain falls on them. That it was the Olympics didn’t matter to the rain, or to physics. So, down they went, one after another.

The problem for Kovacs was, this was the last round of the meet. At 35, it may have been his last real chance to medal in an Olympics. And he was in fourth place, and off the medal stand, with one throw left.

So, screw it. Let it rip.

He ripped. And the shot flew through the rain, all the way past doubt, for 22 meters, 15 centimeters. It was an amazing throw, under the circ*mstances. And that put Joe Kovacs on the stand, for the third time, as a silver medalist. And, for the third time, second to his U.S. teammate, Ryan Crouser. No one has beaten Ryan Crouser in an Olympics in eight years. He is the best shot putter of all time.

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Kovacs has won world championships — twice, in 2015 and 2019. He’s won eight medals in international competition. The only human being that’s kept him off the top of the medal stand at the Olympics is Crouser, who became the first shot putter to win three straight Olympic gold medals.

“Of course, Ryan’s No. 1 of all time. I’m No. 2,” Kovacs said afterward.

And this is where we have to discuss what that really means, because there was a lot of second (and a little bit of third) for the U.S. track team on one of the biggest nights of the Games.

We all tend to think of a championship as the only measure of success. People tend to go for the shiny object, or pay the most attention to the loudest person in the room. And in sports, we always gravitate toward the winners, the people and teams that get the hardware and the trophies, and the acclaim, and the money that comes with being No. 1. In this is an infantilization of competition, a nation of Ricky Bobbys exclaiming that if you’re not first, you’re last.

I do it, too. I’m not averse to the notion. We compete, in whatever we do, to find out who the best is in a given year, or season, or in our lines of work. That’s OK. That’s why Julien Alfred, who won the women’s 100-meter on Saturday, wrote in her journal that morning, when she awoke at 5 a.m., “Julien Alfred, Olympic Champion.”

But to say that’s all that competition comes down to is hollow. The person who finishes dead last in an Olympic final was in an Olympic final.

What is left, other than honor, when you max out, spend everything you have mentally and emotionally on a given night, and finish second? Or, third? Outside of our love, the saying goes, the most sacred thing we can give is our labor. This is where Kovacs has been many times in competition with Crouser, who came out Saturday by paying homage to “The Thinker,” the French sculptor Auguste Rodin’s epic work, as he was introduced.

Kovacs wasn’t thinking about art as the rain came down, his chances of medaling washing away.

“The last throw, I probably slowed down a little bit, which is what I needed to do,” Kovacs said. “I’m the shortest guy there, but I’m the strongest guy there. So if I slow down, I can kind of use my strength. I probably should have started the day with that, but of course, I was going after the big throw, and swinging. You know, that’s what you’ve got to do in these meets. I’d be more mad if I went into this throw and went soft. You never want to go soft when you’re at this kind of meet.

“You have that kind of mental check-in. All those days my wife (Ashley Kovacs, Vanderbilt University’s throwing coach, and Kovacs’ coach as well), and I are out there, and our (20-month-olds) are taking their nap, it’s not easy. If I’m going to go in there and just kind of get soft, and let somebody else take my medal, I’m going to go home pissed. Of course, I wanted the gold, but I’m really glad I fought for that silver.”

Of course, later Saturday, most everyone saw Sha’Carri Richardson, one of the Games’ headline stars, finish second, upset in the women’s 100-meter final by St. Lucia’s Alfred, who won the first Olympic gold medal in her country’s history. After almost all of the Jamaican sprinters — most notably, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce — didn’t make the final, Richardson, the reigning world champion, was the strong favorite to take home the gold. But she got beat from the jump out of the blocks by Alfred, who kept her lead over Richardson throughout the final, just as she had in the semifinals an hour earlier.

And many of you probably saw the Netherlands’ Femke Bol run down the U.S.’ Kaylin Brown in the final 100 meters of the 4×400 mixed relay, giving her country an electric come-from-behind gold medal, and leaving the Americans, who’d set a world record Friday night in the semis, with the silver.

WHAT A FINISH FOR THE NETHERLANDS! 😮

Femke Bol outkicks the United States down the homestretch to give the Netherlands the Olympic title in the mixed 4x400m relay.

📺 #ParisOlympics on NBC and Peaco*ck pic.twitter.com/2teuliqlab

— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 4, 2024

But they won the silver!

Also Saturday, U.S. triple jumper Jasmine Moore won the bronze medal, after finishing 24th at the 2021 Summer Games in Tokyo. She posted a season-best 14.67 on her second jump Saturday. For a moment, she was in the lead. But then Dominica’s Thea Lafond blew past her with a national record 15.02, and won the gold medal. It was Dominica’s first gold medal, too. Jamaica’s Shanieka Ricketts then jumped past Moore into second, going 14.87, to win the silver.

But did I mention it’s Moore’s first-ever Olympic medal? And that, for her, a bronze wasn’t a consolation prize; it was a triumph.

“This time last year, Coach Nic (Peterson, the jumps coach at the University of Florida) knows, I was just bawling in his arms, from not making it to the top eight (at the 2023 world championships in Budapest),” Moore said. “I think I needed this moment, and now, going forward. This is really proof to myself that I can do a lot more than sometimes I think I can.”

Richardson, who looked composed and relatively happy with her second-place finish when she was on the track afterward, posing with the U.S. flag alongside Alfred and the United States’ Melissa Jefferson, who won the bronze, can be forgiven for not totally embracing the notion that coming in second was OK. I’m sure it was a crushing disappointment for her, given her travails the last few years, how she painstakingly came to grips with her mistakes and rebuilt her psyche and running career, to great acclaim, and became the best sprinter in the world.

I would have liked to have asked Richardson about all of this, but she didn’t speak to the media after the race. And that is disappointing. You can’t only show up when everything goes the way you want, no matter the reasons.

But we don’t always get what we want. Tell Joe Kovacs that his best on Saturday didn’t measure up to your standards of success. For that matter, tell Sha’Carri Richardson. Some days, it rains.

(Top photo of Joe Kovacs celebrating his silver medal win Saturday: Kirill Kudryavtsev / AFP via Getty Images)

David Aldridge is a senior columnist for The Athletic. He has worked for nearly 30 years covering the NBA and other sports for Turner, ESPN, and the Washington Post. In 2016, he received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Legacy Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. He lives in Washington, D.C. Follow David on Twitter @davidaldridgedc