The Journey of Improving the 100m Times in Lebanese Athletics
20 Apr. 2021
By Christel Saneh
The Lebanese 100m race is one of the most exciting races to watch especially when there is a strong competition among the athletes and records are broken.
This race in particular is the most watched worldwide in athletics, as it determines the fastest athlete in the world. The same is applicable to the local level as the national record holder is considered the fastest in Lebanese athlete in history.
There is a famous that says: “Records are made to be broken”. If records remain unbroken, it is either because the record is too strong and the competition is weak, or both combined.
In a sport that is about performances which are measured by numbers, there is always the first in every event; the first to break 10 seconds on the 100m, the first to go over 8m in long jump, the first to throw beyond 23m in shot put and the list goes on.
Numbers are exciting as they measure athlete’s abilities and are a tangible proof of how the human body can go beyond its limits, and when they do, it is often translated into a new record performance.
“The first man to run under 11 seconds on the 100m using the Full Automatic Timing (FAT) is Jean-Yves Mallat. He ran 10.83 back in 1983 in Amman, Jordan, during the Arab championship,” said Gaby Issa-El-Khoury, who is the indoor record holder in long jump, an Olympian, and the only person in Lebanon who thought about creating a database for Lebanese athletes’ results and national records.
“We should note that the previous record was hand timed and is 10.6 seconds. Back then, they considered the difference between hand timed performances and electric timing is 0.24s.Therefore, Mallat might not be the first person to go under 11 seconds if we consider manual timing as well,” added Issa-El-Khoury.
Today, 38 years later, we have an incredible athlete who not only went under 11 seconds but is the only one to break the 10.50s on the 100m (multiple times!!). Nour Hadid is also the first Lebanese athlete to run sub 21 seconds on the 200m.
Two other athletes went under 10.70s, Christophe Boulos who ran 10.62 at the Lebanese Championship back in 2017, and Mohamad Siraj Tamim, who was the National record holder before Hadid’s rise with 10.59 seconds.
In the women’s 100m, Gretta Taslakian was the first woman to run under 12 seconds and was only followed by one other athlete, Aziza Sbaity. The main issue in the women’s event is that both athletes didn’t have a strong competition which usually contribute a lot in pushing the limits and improving performances.
This lack of competition translated in the results below, showing that only 9 athletes ran under 12.40 seconds.
Taslakian and Sbaity tried to compete internationally in search for strong competition, but had the opportunity to compete against each other on the 200m. Taslakian remains the only woman to go under 24 seconds on the 200m, she also holds the 400m national record that no one had come close for almost a decade.
We should mention that only two athletes ran under 25 seconds on the 200m, Aziza Sbaity and a young high jumper and sprinter, Mayssa Mouawad, who ran 24.97s in 2020.
Today, Hadid and Sbaity are in their top shape, and they are both able to push the limits on the 100m, but we must have a closer look at their successors. The sport has been on hold due to the pandemic, especially for the younger categories, therefore, we haven’t seen any rising star especially in the men’s category.
In the women’s, aside from Mayssa Mouawad, Haya Kobrosly recently improved her perosnal best on the 100m crossing the finish line in front of Mouawad to stop the clock at 12.32s, joining Taslakian, Sbaity, Mouawad, Nathalie Saikali, Maha Al Mouallem, Lea Obeid, Ola Baajour, and Lina Bejjani on the top nine all-time list.
Lea Obeid is still in the competition as she is returning after a long break. The 21-year-old won silver at the Asian U18 Championship and ran an amazing 12.22s at that time.
The journey must go on.