The good part

 The only thing worse than track is field.

- The late, great Dan Jenkins

Or to put it another way: Sometimes even legendary sportswriters are as wrong as ketchup on a hot dog. Or, I don't know, room-temperature beer, maybe.

See, we're into the second half of the Paris Olympics now, or, as the Blob prefers to call it "the good part." And that's because (with apologies to Mr. Jenkins) track and field has begun.

Track and field is the jewel of the Games, unless it's swimming or gymnastics. Jesse Owens made it so when he outran Adolph Hitler. Abebe Bikila did when he won the marathon in Rome in his bare feet. Emil Zatopek ...Wilma Rudolph ... Kip Keino ... Bob Beamon ... Bruce Jenner ... Lasse Viren and Steve Prefontaine ... Carl Lewis ... FloJo ...  

On and on. There's a reason why almost every movie ever made about the Olympics is about track and field. There's a reason why, when you visit the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic museum in Colorado Springs, there's a whole display devoted to Beamon and his astounding 29-feet, 2 1/2-inch long jump. There's even a tape measure painted on the floor to show you just what 29-2 1/2 looks like.

It looks otherworldly, is how it looks. It looks barely human.

So, yeah, bring on track-and-field, and I'm not just saying that because once upon a time lost in the mists of the ages I was a spectacularly bad middle-school distance runner. I weighed about 12 pounds and had no speed, but I made up for it by also having no endurance. My coach said I had good form, however.

Anyway ...

Anyway, it's not personal bias that makes me look forward to track and field. It's everything else I've mentioned above, plus what happened yesterday on the very first day of the competition. 

Grant Fisher happened.

Grant Fisher is an American distance runner from Michigan. He was competing in the 10,000 meters yesterday when something extraordinary occurred: Dave Wottle possessed his body.

Wottle, you might or might not recall, was the guy in the white painter's cap who surged from ridiculously off the pace -- the guy was dead last on the backstretch -- to steal the 800 meters in Munich back in 1972. Fisher didn't quite do that, but if you squinted just right as the field turned for home you perhaps could see a spectral painter's cap hovering above his dark hair.

OK. So maybe that was just me.

In any event, Fisher was churning along in fifth rounding the last turn, and then he began to Wottle, for want of a better term. Launched a kick from either Dave or the gods that jetted him past everyone and nearly reeled in the eventual winner, Joshua Cheptegei of Uganda. He wound up with the bronze only because Ethiopia's fast-closing Berihu Aregawi out-leaned him at the tape to snatch the silver in a photo finish.

No matter. He was still only the second U.S. medalist in the event in 56 years.

And if it's a stretch to say he came out of nowhere to do it, he could see nowhere from where he was. A former Stanford runner, Fisher finished fifth in the event at the Tokyo Olympics but had never before medaled in an international competition. At 27, he came to Paris with just the 11th-fastest 10,000-meter time in the world in 2024, and Friday he nearly fell after becoming jostled in the early going.

But he didn't.

Instead, he gave us one of those Olympic Moments that make the Games worth watching. I'm guessing he'll be part of NBC's closing montage next week, along with Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky, French swimmer and four-for-four gold medalist Leon Marchand and Pommel Horse Millhouse From The Simpsons, aka Stephen Nedoroscik.

Oh, yeah: And that 52-year-old Turkish dude who just sort of showed up in blue jeans and a team shirt -- no goggles no special gear, nothing -- and won a silver in pistol shooting with one hand tucked in his pocket. Looked like your neighbor plinking away at empty beer cans while grilling burgers in his backyard.

That guy is now king of the internet memes.

And Grant Fisher?

Grant Fisher is why the good part of the Games has just begun. Or so it says here.