MARKUS ROOTH: WORLD’S GREATEST ATHLETE.BUT AMERICANS HARDLY NOTICE

By ELLIOTT DENMAN
 
   Are these  the gloriest of track and field’s glory days ?
   Just ask the “yes” voters.
   They point to: The whole sport gone truly global.  Top stars earning (well, relatively, speaking) good money, on the track and off it. Huge crowds (well, Europe, anyway.)  TV cameras everywhere. The whole planet wired. Results to the 100th of a second available within 100th of a second
in 100s of nations.  Super shoes. Super tracks. Lots more.
  And a cast of global celebrities.  Noah Lyles, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone,
Femke Bol, Mondo DuPlantis, Ryan Crouser, Jakob Ingebrigtsen, Sifan Hassan, Faith Kipyegon, Rai Benjmin. 
Karsten Warholm. Grant Holloway. Gabby Thomas, Yaroslava Mahuchikh, Valarie Allman. And a wealth more.

  But it still goes far beyond all that.  Specially so to those of a deca-bent.
   Not very long ago – and certainly in my earlier days – track and field’s decathletes were forever – and rightfully – saluted as “the world’s greatest athletes.”
  The American deca-guys most certainly so:  Bob Mathias, Milton Campbell,
Rafer Johnson, Bill Toomey, Bryan Clay, Ashton Eaton.
   They ranked above and beyond the best of the best of all those other sports out there. They had the speed and the strength and the skills that would have made them all-stars in all those other athletic activities.
  Now fast forward. Sad to say, these deca-greats are mostly an afterthought in 2024. Specially so despite the obvious: They’ve risen to the top 10 different ways – at an Olympic Games
designed to determine  the kings and queens of all athletic realms.
   There’s only so much NBC/Peacock time for Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, Leon Marchand, Summer McIntosh, Novak Djokovic, 
Ariarne Titmus, Xander Schauffele – or track’s own Lyles, McLaughlin-Levrone, Bol, DuPlantis, and Crouser, et al, - to monopolize.
   Getting straight to the point, there’s not much of the media spotlight left out there to shine ona man named Markus Rooth.
  He’s a solid 6-2. He’s 22, he’s the first Norwegian to win the Olympic decathlon title since Helge Lovland in 1920, and he’s going to get a lot better.
The 8,796 deca-points he rolled up over two days of action at Stade de France may be just the beginning.
 “Altius, Citius, Fortius?”
  Yes, for sure. In the years ahead, he’s destined to get faster, jump higher, and strong-arm his favorite implements some really prodigious distances.
   He opened Friday by dashing the 100 in 10.71; long jumping 25-7 ¼;  putting the shot 50-0 ½;  high jumping 6-6 ¼, and dashing a lap in 47.69 seconds.
   That still left him in seventh place, behind early leader Leo Neugebauer, the University of Texas NCAA champion and record-breaker competing for Germany.
   But just wait.   His best was just ahead.
   Rooth really got into gear Saturday, leapfrogging over six men by running the 110 high hurdles in 14.25; flipping the disc 163-5; pole vaulting 17-4 ½; spearing it 219-4 and having enough zip to run 1,500 meters in 4:39.56.    Give a big assist to Norwegian teammate Sander Skotheim, who’d no heighted in the PV, but came back to help Rooth get through the 1,500.
   Said Rooth: "I'm so lucky that I had my friend to run with me.
     “I was exhausted. It's mentally hard. I just ran as hard as I could. It was great."
  As Neugebauer began to fade (to an eventual silver medal) and Grenada’s Lindon Victor (a Texas A&M grad and ex-NCAA king, too) was snaring bronze, the applause for the  Norwegian – understandably – got louder and louder,   Euro-fans have no trouble expressing their emotions in this sport. They rooted home all three medalists and every one of their pursuers.
    Would Rooth still have climbed to the top of the podium if  French super-hero, Kevin Mayer, the world record-holder for the last six years with his 9,126  total, had not bailed out beforehand with injury? Or if Canadian Pierce LePage, the 2023 world champion, hadn’t taken a similar exit? Or if Canada’s defending Oly champion Damian Warner, or Norweigan buddy Skotheim, hadn’t no-heighted in the PV?
  Didn’t matter.
  Do it on the day or don’t do it at all.  And Rooth sure did it.
He woke up Saturday morning “feeling great.”  And the zip in his legs and oomph in his arms reached golden heights by early evening.
  The Oslonian –“is that the word?” – who trains with the IK Tjalve club - has some terrific athletic genes.
  His mom is a champion at team handball. His sister and cousins run the hurdles. Two uncles were Norwegian international runners.
  He ranked 8th at the Budapest World Champoinships just a year ago, so top of the world just a year after represents amazing deca-progress.
  Will he soon be racking ‘em up at over 9,000 points and chasing Mayer’s
world record sometime soon?
   Will he be planning – by LA2028 - to join Mathias (1948-52), Britain’s Daley
Thompson (1980-84) and Eaton (2012-16) on the very brief list of men who’ve ever been
Oly deca-doublers?
    Yes-yes.   
   But the parallel question remains:  Will he be properly recognized as “the world’s greatest athlete?”
  In Norway? For sure. Elsewhere in Europe? Quite probably.
   In the USA?  Don’t risk the rent money on it.
    The 50,000 World Athletics bucks he collected for these two days of heavy lifting may help him acquire improved residential quarters.   Of course/of course/of course, that would be “The House That Rooth
Built.”