No sooner had day two closed at the World Athletics Championships Budapest 23 than the Hungarian capital launched into national party mode, a fireworks show on the Danube marking St Stephen’s Day, celebrating State Founding Day and the country’s first king, patron and founder.
The show inside the National Athletics Centre had been some spectacle to behold. There were thrills, happily no spills, but several surprises as the US sprinter Noah Lyles, the Ugandan distance running king Joshua Cheptegei, the British all-rounder Katarina Johnson-Thompson, the Serbian long jumper Ivana Vuleta and the unheralded Canadian hammer thrower Ethan Katzberg all hit the gold medal standard – as Spain’s Maria Perez had done on the roads in the morning in the women’s 20km race walk.
Happily for the hugely passionate home crowd, there was also a first medal to celebrate on St Stephen’s Day – not quite the gold that Bence Halasz craved in the men’s hammer but a battling bronze.
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