It would appear that swapping from buttons to stick for the running is a good idea, as my time for the 100m dropped from 12.40-ish to 9.09s, and everything else improved somewhat too.
I even managed to pass the hammer throw, and clear two high jump settings, although faulted too many times and failed the qualifying jump. That puts me ahead of “I’m the bestest ever at Track and Field” Zomoniac from ugvm. So HA.
I feel stupid now. If I’d known the buttons wouldn’t work properly I’d have kept my stupid mouth shut.