Moments after they zoomed across the finish line on Tuesday night in Tokyo, the three fastest women in the world at 200 meters each wrapped themselves in their country’s flag and posed for TV cameras.
The women draped in the Jamaican and American flags had trained for years for this moment. The one in the Namibian flag began focusing on the 200 meters only a month ago.
At a meet in Poland in late June, unheralded Namibian teenager Christine Mboma embarrassed a 400 meters field of bigger-name European pros. No other runner was even close to Mboma when she crossed the finish line in a world-leading 48.