The mixed zone: the rawest place in sport

Sport works at various speeds. It takes four-and-a-half seconds for Neeraj Chopra's javelin to fly takes four-and-a-half seconds for 88.88m in Hangzhou last month. Then it takes over 20 minutes for him to walk the roughly 30m of the media mixed zone. The TV guys are hogging him, the print guys are swearing, Chopra is smiling. He's a gentle hero with a word for everyone.

- ROHIT BRIJNATH

A metal barrier separates us from him, across which are thrust a tangle of arms holding phones. Words are recorded, emotion makes for interesting listening. When the Singapore sprinter, Shanti Pereira, wins the 200m, she cries at the mixed zone and there are tiny portions of the recording where all you hear is silence and a choked voice.

Footballers disappear post-match into tunnels. Cricketers trudge into pavilions. Silence is a superstar prerogative.

Lionel Messi, for years, said little. Roger Federer charmed in multiple languages but so many stars find shelter behind sterilised quotes in press releases and one-sided posts on Instagram. But at a major Games, at the mixed zone, all athletes are revealed. Every one, from medalled god to 45th-place finisher, has to walk past a line of barricades after an event. There is no hiding.

Even in sportswriting, a hierarchy is in place. Access is doled out on the basis of influence and circulation figures. But on this classist planet, the mixed zone is a democratic place. Like sport itself, everyone has a chance. Every journalist, irrespective of the reach of their paper, can request an athlete to stop for a chat.

Not everyone does, but most do. At the Olympics, Michael Phelps would. In Hangzhou, Mutaz Barshim, probably the finest high jumper ever, kept stopping for groups of reporters, a rangy evangelist for defeating gravity.