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Kick of the Year - Christine Ohuruogu

Kick of the Year - Christine Ohuruogu

Dec 28, 2013 by Mitch Kastoff
Kick of the Year - Christine Ohuruogu
Christine Ohuruogu
Kick of the Year - Best of 2013
We enjoy watching Christine Ohuruogu race because we don't like having fingernails.
 
Let’s talk about the golden rules of real estate, shall we? Location, location, location, and space.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve purchased the most luxurious condominium known to man if it’s within earshot of a volcano. It’s the same reason why people pay an absurd amount of their annual income for a tiny box apartment so they can be be close to something iconic, like, let’s say, Central Park in New York City or hipsters in Brooklyn.

In the other world where people want comfort over a lavish lifestyle, space is a hot commodity as well.

Great Britain's Christine Ohuruogu followed both rules of real estate at the 2013 World Championships in Moscow. Her late win the women’s 400m final - and we mean every sense of the word “late” - over Botswana's Amantle Montsho is Flotrack’s Kick of the Year.


Why could Great Britain’s team captain make a good realtor?

Ohuruogu drew lane four in the 400m final, which meant she could watch her frival (friend/rival) Montsho the whole way since the pre-race favorite and world leader was in lane five. Location, location, location.

Like any good Kick of the Week, Ohuruogu made it look like everyone else was running backwards in the final 50m. But what makes this kick the Kick of the Year was that she left it so late, we wondered if she was going to have any room left to do something so daring, so patient, that it made us rise out of our seats and pretend for just a moment that we were British. Space.

Ohuruogu and Montsho had squared off five times that summer, with Montsho taking the win on four occasions. It was going to take something special to overtake the favorite.

The finish line photo tells the whole story. Four one-thousandths of a second was the winning difference.

That too small of a margin for you? How about the fact that Ohuruogu broke Kathy Cook’s UK 400m record by 0.02. How about the fact that the record stood for 29-years? Of course you already know that it came in a World Championship final, but just for emphasis - it came in a World Championship final.

As we said back in August, this race was simply vintage Ohuruogu. Back in 2008, the '07 World Champion became the Olympic Champion with a powerful last homestretch. Then last year in London, she had the same kick, but fell short to USA's Sanya Richards-Ross. You would think that since she's raced like this so often, she would have stopped giving friends and family heart attacks.

While we expected this sort of nail biting tactic from Ohuruogu, we also saw something most peculiar from Montsho.

Admittedly, I don’t know much about real estate, so please don’t take any tips about living situations from me. But I do know a thing or two about sprinting, and just like any distance runner who’s done a few strides in his hay-day, I know to lean at the line.

So when Montsho possibly eased up five meters before the line and most definitely stayed upright as she crossed the line, we were at a loss for words. We literally had no idea what happened. Here’s Montsho’s post-race interview, where she explains why she didn't dip at the line (spoiler: we still can’t explain it).

Perhaps Montsho should have heeded the advice of a famous poet from Atlanta, Georgia when he said "when I dip, you dip, we dip."

Montsho could have made history. Australia’s Cathy Freeman is the only woman in history to win back-to-back world 400m titles. Instead, Montsho’s run remains a mystery and it’s Ohuruogu who gets to write her name in the record books, again.

She’s the first British athlete to win three world titles in the same event. Her trophy case already had an Olympic gold (2008) and silver (2012), one World Championships gold (2007), two bronze medals in the 4x400m relay (2005 and 2007), plus a few more individual and relay golds from the Commonwealth Games, World Indoor Championships, and European Indoor Championships. She also just recently won Sunday Times & Sky Sports Sportswoman of the Year for 2013.

She’ll have to make room on that mantle for Flotrack’s Kick of the Year.

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