World records tumble on warm night in Paris

Some kind of magic was in the air as the distance runners took to the track in the Diamond League on Friday

“It doesn’t get any better than this. This is track and field at its true best.”

This past weekend there was a lot of important sport going on. There was a lot of sport in the news. Manchester City won their first ever Champions League title. Novak Djokovic won his record-breaking 23rd Grand Slam tournament. Something was going on in the cricket.

Fewer newspapers and radio reports were being made about the athletics over in Paris. The sport of track and field is firmly on the fringes these days, but for those of us still keeping our eye in, still believing in the simple, brutal, pure magic of men and women racing each other around an oval track, something special seemed to be going on.

My Twitter timeline - mostly a mix of politics and running - was jumping between Boris Johnson resigning, and astonishment at the performances in Paris. I only caught a few glimpses, but this morning I finally sat down to re-watch the races and to see what everyone was talking about. And boy oh boy, what a night of the good stuff it was in the Stade Sébastien Charléty in Paris. In case you missed it, here’s my little recap …