EUGENE — Allyson Felix felt a rush of adrenaline as she completed the final strides of her legendary career.
“Just joy,” the 36-year-old said.
For 400 meters, Hayward Field was Felix’s stage. In her final international race, inside a stadium that was constructed for moments like these, Felix was 20 years younger, donning the Team USA logo for the first time. She was winning silver in Athens, golds in Beijing, London, Rio and Tokyo.
It was all there in the second leg of the mixed 4×400 relay on the opening night of the World Athletics Championships. In the 50.51 seconds Felix held the baton, and much of the world, in her hand.
Spend some time around Eugene over the next 10 days and you’re bound to hear predictable gripes.
Eugene is too small for an event of this scale. Lodging is too limited. The east grandstand was sparsely populated.
And did you see the rental car line at the airport?
If you wouldn’t stage the NBA All-Star Game in Springfield, Massachusetts, why would you bring the world championships of track and field to Eugene?
Those 50.51 seconds are why.
The most decorated American in track and field brought her career to a close on the most hallowed ground in American track and field.
So what if she ended up settling for a bronze after teammate Kennedy Simon faltered at the end of the final leg?
No venue but Hayward Field could provide a stage truly befitting the final moments of Felix’s international career.
Nowhere else would those precious seconds have been so appreciated.
“I felt the love,” Felix said. “I saw the signs.”
No, Eugene is not a cosmopolitan metropolis. But it gets track and field.
In the 39-year history of this biannual championship, the University of Oregon campus sticks out as a glaring anomaly. There is almost no doubt that some athletes traveling from the far reaches of the globe — heck, maybe even Indiana — would vastly prefer to have been in L.A. or New York.
Those are the American cities others might expect to host a competition of this magnitude. But Eugene?
The pastoral university town, with its robust and mythic reputation for track and field, is not London or Paris or Beijing. It lacks key infrastructure. It’s difficult to get to.
And you know what? It was still the unquestioned best choice to serve as the United States’ first host site for the world championships.
Until other U.S. cities are ready to show the same care and love to track and field that this verdant patch of the Pacific Northwest long ago decided to, Eugene is going to continue to be the preferred home field.
That is a fact that says far more about the state of track and field domestically than it does about Hayward Field and the city it occupies.
Don’t blame Eugene for being rewarded for its love affair.
This has been long established as the beating heart of American track and field, and Friday, the opening day of the 10-day championship, was the hard-won result of the groundwork laid by visionaries like Bill Hayward, Bill Bowerman, Vin Lananna and the patron saint Steve Prefontaine.
And perhaps especially Phil Knight.
This sleek, beefed-up reimagination of Hayward Field was Knight’s gift to Eugene and to Oregon, but also to American track.
And therein lies the issue the sport must eventually answer, and is at the root of any grumbling about Eugene hosting.
Just in the last two months, Hayward Field has hosted the annual Prefontaine Classic, the NCAA championships, the U.S. championships and now the world championships. It has hosted the past four consecutive Olympic trials.
Can track and field grow in the United States if it stages all of its biggest events in Eugene?
The short answer is probably no. Track and field owes it to the future of the sport, and its athletes, to diversify its top locations.
Knight understands that, too.
He wants track to succeed and not just in Eugene. Now that Hayward Field has hosted its crowning event, Knight should be leading the charge to develop hubs in other parts of the country.
The world championships arrived in Eugene with a clever slogan: “Hello world. Meet Oregon.”
And the track world likely responded, “We’ve met.”
No place does track and field better than Eugene.
But for the sport to grow, others should try.
Until then, Hayward Field will keep providing the backdrop for moments like Felix’s exit.
And no one will complain.
— Bill Oram | boram@oregonian.com | Twitter: @billoram
Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories
