This decade included the exploits of Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill among others

Super Saturday

“Super” just doesn’t seem like a strong enough word to properly do justice to the events which unfolded on August 4, 2012. The London Olympics were already a smash hit by that point but a truly astonishing evening sent them careering off the charts. For British athletics fans, there has never been anything quite like what is now known as “Super Saturday”.

With the sport at centre stage and the Olympic stadium pulsating to a cacophonous crowd which was absorbed and roared every run, jump and throw, the stage was set for three home athletes to shine. They did just that during an unforgettable hour.

At 9:02pm, Jessica Ennis-Hill – the poster girl of the Games – proved herself capable of handling the most intense pressure by securing heptathlon gold, the release of emotion all too evident as she finished the job in style by winning the 800m.

By 9:24pm, Greg Rutherford had seized his opportunity and jumped his way to becoming a household name, emulating 1964 gold medallist Lynn Davies in becoming a British Olympic long jump champion.

Come 9:46pm, cheered on by the new long jump champion who was also soaking in his lap of honour, Mo Farah was accelerating away from the rest of the field to land the first of his four Olympic golds, in the 10,000m. The feel-good factor has rarely felt so good.

Rudisha’s remarkable 800m

A breathtaking performance, which chairman of the London 2012 organising committee, Sebastian Coe described as: “The most extraordinary piece of running I have ever seen,” saw David Rudisha strike Olympic gold and dismantle the 800m world record. 

With his long, ranging stride and searing pace, the Kenyan’s extraordinary display of front running was just about as close to two-lap perfection as is humanly possible.  

“Because I was a front runner, it was much easier for me to execute the splits,” he told AW. “My plan was to close the first 400m in 49 seconds, and do something like 1:14 for 600m, which I was able to achieve because I can really control my pace in a calculated way.”

He went through 23.5, 400m in 49.28 and 600m in 1:14.4, finishing 0.18 clear with his time of 1:40.91 that was 0.10 inside his previous record mark. In second, 18-year-old Botswanan Nijel Amos clocked a World U20 record of 1:41.73 as seven of the eight finalists recorded personal bests. 

“To break a world record in an Olympic final is a great achievement and I was really happy to win a gold medal,” said Rudisha. “That was my ultimate point to go to.”

“Good v evil” in Beijing

The men’s 100m final at the 2015 World Championships, and specifically the match-up between Usain Bolt and Just Gatlin, had been billed as good v evil. In one corner was Jamaica’s multiple Olympic and world champion while, in the other, sat the American who had twice been banned for doping offences. 

Gatlin had been in fine form – the 33-year-old was unbeaten in 29 races and had recorded the fastest times in the world that year. He had also sailed through his semi-final in 9.77, while Bolt looked some way short of his best on his journey to the start line. 

The world record-holder was behind, too, at the halfway stage of the final as Gatlin led the field but, with his trademark finishing speed, Bolt found just enough to force his way through and marginally deny his rival in 9.79. Trayvon Bromell and Andre De Grasse tied for bronze, each of them running 9.92.

“He’s saved his title, he’s saved his reputation – he may have even saved his sport,” enthused BBC commentator and former world champion Steve Cram.

Gatlin turns the tables

Two years on from their Beijing showdown, Bolt and Gatlin lined up against one another in the world 100m final, this time in London. The Jamaican had become the 100m and 200m champion for the third time in a row one year previously in Rio, but had announced his impending retirement. The 2017 World Championships, where he opted to run only the 100m and 4x100m, would represent his final bow on the global scene. 

Once again, the majority of the watching world was willing him on to a golden farewell but Gatlin, running in lane eight, had other ideas. 

His USA team-mate Christian Coleman got the fastest start and led the way but just as he was starting to gain ground, Bolt appeared to tense up and, suddenly, Gatlin flew through to win his first world title since 2005.

His winning time of 9.92 was the slowest to win a world title since 2003, but it represented a Masters world record for the 35-year-old. Coleman held on for second in 9.94, with Bolt finishing third in 9.95. It was not the way he had wanted to say goodbye and, to make matters worse, he finished those championships flat on his back, a hamstring injury forcing him to pull up on the anchor leg of the 4x100m.

Ingebrigtsen and Duplantis come of age

The athletics world is now very much accustomed to seeing Jakob Ingrebrigtsen and Mondo Duplantis winning major titles and breaking records but it was at the 2018 European Championships in Berlin when, as teenagers, they came of age.

First, the Norwegian grabbed the headlines when, at the age of 17, he completed a remarkable and unprecedented 1500/5000m double at the Olympic Stadium. On back-to-back evenings at his senior championships debut, Ingebrigtsen became the first athlete in history – male or female – to win the 1500m and 5000m titles at the same championships, as well being the youngest ever male athlete to win a European title.

With performances of confidence and authority that belied his tender years, Ingebrigtsen followed brothers Henrik and Filip by winning European 1500m gold, winning in 3:38.10 to edge out Marcin Lewandowski.

Jakob then led an Ingebrigtsen one-two in the 5000m, breaking the European U20 record with 13:16.06 as Henrik finished almost two seconds behind. 

Duplantis seized his chance to shine on the final night, the 18-year-old overcoming a top class field to win the pole vault in a world U20 record of 6.05m. It made him the youngest ever to win a men’s field event in the history of the championships.

Duplantis was pushed by neutral athlete Timur Morgunov, who took silver with 6.00m, but the Swede was in complete command with a series of first-time clearances from 5.85m.

Renaud Lavillenie, whom Duplantis would eventually succeed as world record-holder, was third in 5.95m.

The mother of all wins for Fraser-Pryce

Given the avalanche of medals she has accrued, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is spoiled for choice when it comes to choosing the highlight of her career. Winning her fourth 100m world title at the Doha Championships of 2019 is arguably her most significant, however. 

Just 13 months previously, she had given birth to her son Zyon and there were question marks over how potent a force the then 32-year-old would now be. The answer was emphatic as she made her customary lightning fast start in the Khalifa Stadium and rapidly established a gap on the rest of the field, moving clear with 30m gone. 

From that point, the outcome was never in doubt and she hit the line in 10.71, the same time she had run to win her second world title in Moscow in 2013, and within 0.01 of her then personal best. Dina Asher-Smith took silver in a British record-breaking 10.83 while Marie Josee Ta-Lou of Ivory Coast took bronze in 10.90.

“Standing here having done it again at 32, and holding my baby, is a dream come true,” said Fraser-Pryce, who would win the title again in 2022. “Zyon and my husband have been my strength. When everybody else doubted me, they never did. It’s down to them that I am here again.”

Kipchoge’s Viennese waltz

The event might not have been record eligible and he was assisted of course by a fleet of big-name pacers, as well as a pair of Nike super shoes that sparked considerable debate, but after clocking 1:59:41 in the autumn of 2019 Eliud Kipchoge will forever be known as the first man to break the two-hour barrier for the marathon.

In as controlled an environment as possible and over a looped course in Vienna’s Prater Park, the Kenyan – world record-holder at the time with a time of 2:01:39 – strode to his target. 

“He made it look easy,” wrote Jason Henderson in the pages of AW. “The remarkable 34-year-old waved and smiled to the crowd in the final stages, showboating down the Hauptallee with his peloton of pacemakers cheering him from behind.

“For years it has been described by experts as ‘the impossible barrier’, but Kipchoge achieved what many felt was beyond the ability of a human by shattering the mark at the INEOS 1:59 Challenge.

“The mark will not be ratified as an official world record by the IAAF but it will go down in athletics history as one of the greatest performances in history alongside Roger Bannister’s first sub-four-minute mile and Usain Bolt’s sprints world records.” 

Did you know? The Athletics Integrity Unit was formed in 2017 to combat integrity breaches in athletics