Sporting things that are fun at the moment: Women's track is producing several of the greatest ever (this is partly because shoe technology makes them a bit faster without needing to take drugs)
Two of the ridiculous 1980s women's track world records have a very good chance of being broken by two of the greatest athletes of all time.
The 400m world record is 47.60, held by Marita Koch of East Germany. The USA's Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran 47.78 last year in winning the World Championships. She's taken this year off to become a mother (there are no major championships this year), but she's firmly got her sights on the record for the 2027 Worlds or the 2028 Olympics. Breaking that record at the LA Olympics would be absolutely epic!
The only older track record in the book is Jarmila Kratochvílová (of Czechoslovakia)'s 1:53.28 in the 800m - which was set in 1983! Britain's Keely Hodgkinson broke the indoor world record twice in the last couple of months and has said she's going to get a pace made for a serious record attempt this summer. She made 1:54.61 in 2024 (seventh all-time), before her 2025 was completely derailed by injuries, so she's finally fit enough to take a serious attempt at the record.
In the 1500m, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya already holds the record - at 3:48.68; she also has the second, third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth, nineteenth and twenty-second best performances of all time. She's nearly a second and a half ahead of anyone else, and the only woman ever to break 3:50. She's also the only woman ever to break 4:10 for the mile (4:07.64 is her world record - a mile is 1609.344m).
Up in the 5000m, Beatrice Chebet, also of Kenya, broke the 14 minute barrier last year (13:58.06). She also broke the 29 minute barrier for the 10000m (28:54.14) in 2024.
The record books are getting shredded. Even the extraordinary Flo-Jo records at 100m and 200m from the 1980s are finally looking breakable with times only 0.06s away, and several runners from both Jamaica and the USA are starting to eye up those times. Sprint records tend to fall in championship races (they don't need a pacemaker and they do benefit from the extra adrenaline of the big occasion) so they're more likely next year or 2028 than this.
By the end of the LA Olympics, we could go from having four of the seven flat track records being from the 1980s to all seven being from the 2020s.
A bit of an aside, but I really don't like the "researchers estimate that [fun thing] costs US employers $2.7 quintillion of productivity".
This is dumb accounting brain math, as if most people have jobs where they output one work nugget every hour. That's not how most jobs are. People are much more constrained by what they can accomplish over the course of a week or more, an amount that reflects ability, creativity, focus, luck, and ultimately just burn out.
It's annoying because this viewpoint has strong effects on things like vacation policy, where the marginal hour is treated as though it has the same value as the first hour.
This feels a bit underargued/explored to me. Is it good to have things you can connect with other people about? Yes, absolutely. So does it therefore follow that we'd all be better off if there were only 3 TV networks so we all watched the same thing? No, because that risks becoming like the weather -- something anodyne that doesn't feel like a connection at all.
At the dentist the other day he was recommending the series Star Wars Andor to me and while I haven't seen it I'm a star wars fan and that made it feel like a (weak) connection: ohh here is something that isn't universal that we both like. If he'd said: I like watching the Olympics it wouldn't have because it is so common as to not feel like a connection (tho individual sports would).
Ultimately, I'd argue that there is some sweet spot of popularity that is optimal for the feeling of connection: broad enough appeal that you are likely to have a few other people in your office who are also into it but not so broad that it doesn't feel like a connection nor have the issue of feeling exclusionary.
Where does something like March Madness fit in probably depends on where you are. In Matt's world with a lot of 'ohh is that a kind of sportsball' types I think it is probably in the good connection camp. At a construction site I suspect it is so popular as to not feel like a connection but to potentially feel exclusionary. OTOH there are some benefits to a truly generic topic that has more depth than the weather.
That, BTW, is I think why certain people dislike professional sports. Back in the 90s they were so universal that if you couldn't get into them it felt like you were excluded. That happens less when interests aren't shared by a majority just a large minority.
It's easy to forget that in March 2020 one of the first things that didn't happen was the NCAA Tourney as everything shut down during many of the divisional playoffs that were happening a week or so before selection sunday. The lack of sports in 2020 definitely didn't help the social isolation and the still lingering effects of that to this day. Great article!
The NBA bubble was so great for that exact reason; unlike WWE and MLB, it didn't feel like you were watching athletes risk their lives or their health for your entertainment; it felt like a responsible and sensible approach to safety.
Pickleball, pickleball, pickleball. Young, old, fat, thin, boy, girl, athletic, can’t hit a ball if your life depends on it. There is a large group of people out there dying to play with you.
I would also add climbing gyms, though it skews much harder to the physically fit. But there’s a suprisingly broad cross-section of the population that enjoys it. Kids are naturally excellent climbers, so there are a lot of families. The problem-solving aspect appeals to nerds of all stripes, but the physicality appeals to lots of non PMCs. I meet a lot of people I would normally never cross paths with, and it’s inherently cooperative, because you place your life in your partner’s hands on every climb.
On another sporting note, this weekend marks the final three races (well, one of them has already happened) in the career of America's greatest cross-country skier, Jessie Diggins, who is hanging up the racing boots at season's end. It's overwhelmingly likely that she will go out on top, winning the overall season title for the fourth time.
In addition to being remarkably good at a sport in which the US has historically been, uh, not (winning our first EVER gold medal in 2018 and three other Olympic medals since, in addition to numerous World Cup and World Championship wins), she has worn several other hats-- she did a documentary for Peacock about her battle with an eating disorder, and is a big supporter of Protect Our Winters, an anti-climate-change initiative of winter-sports enthusiasts concerned about the steady erosion of natural snow from traditional resorts. As a Minnesotan, she's been vocally opposed to the terrible crimes being committed there over the last several months. She is universally beloved among cross-country fans and fellow athletes, especially in Scandinavia where liking Jessie is probably the only thing that Swedes and Norwegians will ever agree on; you can find countless cute videos where little kids who've barely started English classes are starstruck by meeting her. The King of Norway has given her the Holmenkollern Festival Award for cultural significance. I have recounted all of this without looking at her Instagram or Wikipedia page, because I am that much of a Jessie Diggins stan.
Great athlete and an even better person. Congrats on a career, Jessie, and I hope that competitive drive and giant heart leads you to Congress someday.
College sports are the great Chesterton’s Fence of American education. Easy to ask at a glance “what does this have to do with school” but we knock down this particular bit of American exceptionalism at our own peril.
Sometimes I'll say 100 million to indicate 1 significant figure, but what happens if it actually is 100 million with 3 significant figures? Highly inconvenient.
You could give a confidence interval in nerdy contexts where people want you to quantify your uncertainty, and not worry about significant figures otherwise. Your listener might not even care about basics like "what's the unit of measurement?" or "is this number per day, per year, cumulative over history? Is it in my state, my country, some other country, worldwide?" and similarly, may not be sensitive to differences of several orders of magnitude. One million dollars? One hundred billion dollars? One zillion, gagillion, fafillion, shabalabadooo ... illion ... yen? Close enough. Why make trillions when we can make ... billions? (DOGE seemed to function on similar logic, at least when it came time to justify their cuts.)
Can we have a dumb thing to care about that isn't sports? Like, just once, just for a change? Or are we obligated to care about whatever dumb sports thing is on TV right now, forever?
My whole social circle, friends and work colleagues and family, is watching Drag Race like a hawk. I’m hosting a giant party for the Lalaparuza episode next month.
This piece is some good $#!%. 👍
Sporting things that are fun at the moment: Women's track is producing several of the greatest ever (this is partly because shoe technology makes them a bit faster without needing to take drugs)
Two of the ridiculous 1980s women's track world records have a very good chance of being broken by two of the greatest athletes of all time.
The 400m world record is 47.60, held by Marita Koch of East Germany. The USA's Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone ran 47.78 last year in winning the World Championships. She's taken this year off to become a mother (there are no major championships this year), but she's firmly got her sights on the record for the 2027 Worlds or the 2028 Olympics. Breaking that record at the LA Olympics would be absolutely epic!
The only older track record in the book is Jarmila Kratochvílová (of Czechoslovakia)'s 1:53.28 in the 800m - which was set in 1983! Britain's Keely Hodgkinson broke the indoor world record twice in the last couple of months and has said she's going to get a pace made for a serious record attempt this summer. She made 1:54.61 in 2024 (seventh all-time), before her 2025 was completely derailed by injuries, so she's finally fit enough to take a serious attempt at the record.
In the 1500m, Faith Kipyegon of Kenya already holds the record - at 3:48.68; she also has the second, third, sixth, ninth, twelfth, thirteenth, fifteenth, nineteenth and twenty-second best performances of all time. She's nearly a second and a half ahead of anyone else, and the only woman ever to break 3:50. She's also the only woman ever to break 4:10 for the mile (4:07.64 is her world record - a mile is 1609.344m).
Up in the 5000m, Beatrice Chebet, also of Kenya, broke the 14 minute barrier last year (13:58.06). She also broke the 29 minute barrier for the 10000m (28:54.14) in 2024.
The record books are getting shredded. Even the extraordinary Flo-Jo records at 100m and 200m from the 1980s are finally looking breakable with times only 0.06s away, and several runners from both Jamaica and the USA are starting to eye up those times. Sprint records tend to fall in championship races (they don't need a pacemaker and they do benefit from the extra adrenaline of the big occasion) so they're more likely next year or 2028 than this.
By the end of the LA Olympics, we could go from having four of the seven flat track records being from the 1980s to all seven being from the 2020s.
A bit of an aside, but I really don't like the "researchers estimate that [fun thing] costs US employers $2.7 quintillion of productivity".
This is dumb accounting brain math, as if most people have jobs where they output one work nugget every hour. That's not how most jobs are. People are much more constrained by what they can accomplish over the course of a week or more, an amount that reflects ability, creativity, focus, luck, and ultimately just burn out.
It's annoying because this viewpoint has strong effects on things like vacation policy, where the marginal hour is treated as though it has the same value as the first hour.
This feels a bit underargued/explored to me. Is it good to have things you can connect with other people about? Yes, absolutely. So does it therefore follow that we'd all be better off if there were only 3 TV networks so we all watched the same thing? No, because that risks becoming like the weather -- something anodyne that doesn't feel like a connection at all.
At the dentist the other day he was recommending the series Star Wars Andor to me and while I haven't seen it I'm a star wars fan and that made it feel like a (weak) connection: ohh here is something that isn't universal that we both like. If he'd said: I like watching the Olympics it wouldn't have because it is so common as to not feel like a connection (tho individual sports would).
Ultimately, I'd argue that there is some sweet spot of popularity that is optimal for the feeling of connection: broad enough appeal that you are likely to have a few other people in your office who are also into it but not so broad that it doesn't feel like a connection nor have the issue of feeling exclusionary.
Where does something like March Madness fit in probably depends on where you are. In Matt's world with a lot of 'ohh is that a kind of sportsball' types I think it is probably in the good connection camp. At a construction site I suspect it is so popular as to not feel like a connection but to potentially feel exclusionary. OTOH there are some benefits to a truly generic topic that has more depth than the weather.
That, BTW, is I think why certain people dislike professional sports. Back in the 90s they were so universal that if you couldn't get into them it felt like you were excluded. That happens less when interests aren't shared by a majority just a large minority.
Late to chime in but this was an excellent piece, Halina. Your conviction on the topic really came through.
This is as good of a time as any to announce that I feel the urge to throw a punch whenever I hear the word "sportsball".
It's easy to forget that in March 2020 one of the first things that didn't happen was the NCAA Tourney as everything shut down during many of the divisional playoffs that were happening a week or so before selection sunday. The lack of sports in 2020 definitely didn't help the social isolation and the still lingering effects of that to this day. Great article!
The NBA bubble was so great for that exact reason; unlike WWE and MLB, it didn't feel like you were watching athletes risk their lives or their health for your entertainment; it felt like a responsible and sensible approach to safety.
I got into early morning Korean baseball for a little while.
I can only hope you love MEDIUM RARE as much as I love this essay
Pickleball, pickleball, pickleball. Young, old, fat, thin, boy, girl, athletic, can’t hit a ball if your life depends on it. There is a large group of people out there dying to play with you.
I would also add climbing gyms, though it skews much harder to the physically fit. But there’s a suprisingly broad cross-section of the population that enjoys it. Kids are naturally excellent climbers, so there are a lot of families. The problem-solving aspect appeals to nerds of all stripes, but the physicality appeals to lots of non PMCs. I meet a lot of people I would normally never cross paths with, and it’s inherently cooperative, because you place your life in your partner’s hands on every climb.
Absolutely spectacular note. Bravo!
On another sporting note, this weekend marks the final three races (well, one of them has already happened) in the career of America's greatest cross-country skier, Jessie Diggins, who is hanging up the racing boots at season's end. It's overwhelmingly likely that she will go out on top, winning the overall season title for the fourth time.
In addition to being remarkably good at a sport in which the US has historically been, uh, not (winning our first EVER gold medal in 2018 and three other Olympic medals since, in addition to numerous World Cup and World Championship wins), she has worn several other hats-- she did a documentary for Peacock about her battle with an eating disorder, and is a big supporter of Protect Our Winters, an anti-climate-change initiative of winter-sports enthusiasts concerned about the steady erosion of natural snow from traditional resorts. As a Minnesotan, she's been vocally opposed to the terrible crimes being committed there over the last several months. She is universally beloved among cross-country fans and fellow athletes, especially in Scandinavia where liking Jessie is probably the only thing that Swedes and Norwegians will ever agree on; you can find countless cute videos where little kids who've barely started English classes are starstruck by meeting her. The King of Norway has given her the Holmenkollern Festival Award for cultural significance. I have recounted all of this without looking at her Instagram or Wikipedia page, because I am that much of a Jessie Diggins stan.
Great athlete and an even better person. Congrats on a career, Jessie, and I hope that competitive drive and giant heart leads you to Congress someday.
College sports are the great Chesterton’s Fence of American education. Easy to ask at a glance “what does this have to do with school” but we knock down this particular bit of American exceptionalism at our own peril.
Santa Clara really got screwed.
They didn't play defense on the last play of regulation.
Agree, at least one guy was celebrating, but the Kentucky player caught the ball and dribbled before the clock started.
Not to mention they didn’t give Sendeck a timeout even though they granted a questionable one to uk earlier.
Wonderful, insightful essay, Halina. I loved it.
[Drops the mask and the feckless pedant emerges]
But please don't say "roughly 125.6 million"; four figure significance is no one's idea of "roughly."
Otoh: "There are roughly 9.2 quintillion possible bracket outcomes." Now that's how you do it.
Sometimes I'll say 100 million to indicate 1 significant figure, but what happens if it actually is 100 million with 3 significant figures? Highly inconvenient.
This is known as Heisenberg's Corollary.
You could give a confidence interval in nerdy contexts where people want you to quantify your uncertainty, and not worry about significant figures otherwise. Your listener might not even care about basics like "what's the unit of measurement?" or "is this number per day, per year, cumulative over history? Is it in my state, my country, some other country, worldwide?" and similarly, may not be sensitive to differences of several orders of magnitude. One million dollars? One hundred billion dollars? One zillion, gagillion, fafillion, shabalabadooo ... illion ... yen? Close enough. Why make trillions when we can make ... billions? (DOGE seemed to function on similar logic, at least when it came time to justify their cuts.)
Can we have a dumb thing to care about that isn't sports? Like, just once, just for a change? Or are we obligated to care about whatever dumb sports thing is on TV right now, forever?
My whole social circle, friends and work colleagues and family, is watching Drag Race like a hawk. I’m hosting a giant party for the Lalaparuza episode next month.
Reality TV? Marvel movies? Politics?
Oooh! Oooh! I vote for Marvel movies!
The new Spider-Man trailer looks cool!
No.
:'-(
There's always The Bachelorette drama
Like March Madness and Football there are also Bachelor and Bachelorette brackets and fantasy leagues. https://bracketology.tv/the-bachelor
My friend is in a Survivor pool.
All I know is I need enough left in my Turbo bar that Hillary Clinton can manage a Monster Jam to win the game...