Category Archive: Track and FIeld

Team GB’s Brownlee Brothers: Embodying the Traits of Top-Notch Triathletes

jonny-and-alistair-brownlee-rio-olympics-2jpg
Jonny and Alistair Brownlee on their way to silver and gold at the Rio Olympics.

I have friends who participate in triathlons and ironman competitions, grueling three-stage events of swimming, cycling and running so alien to the ways in which I can or desire to spend my free time, that I can only silently wonder – Are these guys from a different planet?

Alas, triathletes are earthlings like you and me. They are just far more focused, obsessive, competitive and determined about swimming, cycling and running than I am. When I learned that Alistair and Jonathan (Jonny) Brownlee, two brothers from Yorkshire, England, won gold and silver respectively in the triathlon at the 2016 Rio Olympics, I took notice, wondering if the fact that they were brothers helped them to the podium. In fact, this is the second Olympics in a row that the Brownlee Brothers made it to the podium, with Alistair winning gold and Jonny bronze in the London Games.

I learned they are indeed different, not so much that they diverge from homo sapien anatomy and psychology, but that they differ from me by significant degrees. I came across this site entitled “11 Traits of Top-Notch Triathletes“, which showed me that while I may be a tad measure better than some on these traits, I am leagues behind triathletes in all of them.

  1. We can deftly balance a jam-packed schedule.
  2. We are maxed out on self-discipline.
  3. We’re laser-focused about our goals.
  4. We take goals one step further.
  5. Pain management is fun for us.
  6. We welcome obstacles, adversity and pressure.
  7. We’re in love with our sport.
  8. We are persistent and determined (with a dash of stubbornness.)
  9. We are competitive, both with ourselves and others.
  10. We love to share our knowledge and convert our friends.
  11. We know that it takes one to know one.

jonny-and-alistair-brownlee-rio-olympics

Here are quotes from the Brownlee brothers, relevant to some of those traits:

We are maxed out on self-discipline.: “…training is what I love. Those sessions have been harder than races: a few times a week absolutely killing myself, going to bed not being able to sleep because my legs hurt so much, getting up in the morning and not being able to walk because my ankles were so stiff. It’s been like that for the last six months with a few bumps and injuries along the way. That’s all of it, but the training is what I love doing. Killing myself to finish a session.” Alistair (ESPN)

We’re laser-focused about our goals.: “I don’t like this attitude of, ‘I had a bad race but it’s a learning experience.’ That’s a very convenient excuse for a lot of people, why it’s a good reason to have bad performances when it’s not.” Alistair (BBC)

We take goals one step further.: “I thought I’d be an awful injured athlete. I thought it would drive me crazy not being able to do anything, but I’m actually very good at changing my goal to a different one. Instead of focusing my training, I was trying to be the best kind of injured athlete I could possibly be. That involved being the best use of crutches in the world – my left leg didn’t touch the ground for four weeks. Straight away, I got on the phone to the nutritionist to ask how I could heal it. What were the best possible things I could eat? I got told all the usual – protein shakes, eat lots of cherries, that kind of thing. I made myself the best sort of nutrition plan in the world. I don’t think I could have done a better job of giving it the best possible healing.” Jonny (BBC)

Pain management is fun for us.: “It would seem quite strange to a lot of people, that you could actually enjoy physically hurting yourself. It doesn’t seem to make sense. I don’t know where it comes from. I think in some ways that it’s not quite escapism, but everyone has a state of mind, or something that they enjoy doing or something that takes them away from everyone else, and maybe that’s been it for me.” Alistair (BBC)

We welcome obstacles, adversity and pressure.: “I’ve had other days where I’ve thought ‘Yeah, I could have done things a lot better there. I didn’t do that well’. And then I’ve had races where I’ve gone into it thinking ‘I’m going to really struggle to win this, I’m only going to win this either by sheer guts or by being a bit clever about it’, and I’ve pulled it off. They’re very, very satisfying races.” Alistair (BBC)

We are competitive, both with ourselves and others.: “We’ve been doing races that are low key and supposed to be fun. In 2012, we raced the Yorkshire cross country championships, and although we were first and second, we’d had a busy week and should just have been running together. Instead, with a kilometre to go, we were absolutely maxing out. It was a couple of weeks later that Alistair tore his Achilles. That race probably went a long way to doing that. If both of us had backed off for the last 10-15 seconds, which we could have easily done, then we would have been fine. We should really have thought, ‘It’s January 2012, the Olympics are eight months away, why are we racing each other?'” Jonny (BBC)

So, is there any advantage to the Brownlee’s being brothers? The answer, as Alistair related in this Yorkshire Post article, is yes.

We both know how important we have been, pushing each other on over the years. From everything, to just motivation to get out of the door in the morning – if you know your little brother is going to go training you are going to go training, too – to being able to travel the world together. That has been really important over the years. Over the last three months we have done almost every session together, even the very hard sessions where we are pushing each other as hard as we can. There is no-one else in the world that can do that with each other, but we have done that time and time again, four or five times a week in the last three months, and that has been absolutely crucial.

Continue reading →

Wayde van Niekerk and the 74-Year-Old Grandmother: Another Stereotyped Smashed

Ans Botha, coach for South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk, talks to reporters during media availability at the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro.
Ans Botha, coach for South African sprinter Wayde van Niekerk, talks to reporters during media availability at the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro, Aug. 15, 2016. Niekerk won the gold medal in the 400-meter final with a world record of 43.03 (Jeffrey Furticella/The New York Times)

In the world of leadership development, finding the right executive coach is often a matter of chemistry. We often introduce a coachee to two, sometimes three prospective coaches with the hope that one of them will click with the client. So much of a good coaching engagement is the willingness of the coachee to be vulnerable, to allow him or herself to open up and trust the coach. The greater the openness and trust, the greater the commitment of the coachee to change.

The same is likely true in the world of high-performance sports. Not every coach is right for every athlete. While Bobby Valentine‘s cerebral, in-your-face managerial style was perfect for the World Series bound 2000 New Mets, it was awful for the 2012 Boston Red Sox. While Soichi Sakamoto‘s my-way-or-the-highway approach to coaching championship swimmers was perfect for two-time gold medal-winning freestyle swimmer, Bill Smith, in the 1930s and 1940s, it was anathema to fellow Hawaiian swim star Halo Hirose.

When Wayde Van Niekerk of South Africa blew away Michael Johnson’s 19-year-old world record time in the 400-meter sprint at the 2016 Rio Olympics, almost everyone was surprised to learn that his coach was a 74-year-old woman whose white-haired, grandmotherly appearance fooled security at the Olympic Stadium. They would not let the woman see her prodigy, Van Niekerk. After being reassured profusely by fellow South Afrikaner athletes that Anna Sofia Botha was indeed the coach of Rio’s newest star, the coach finally got to see her coachee.

As she explained in this New York Times article, “we just hugged each other. It wasn’t necessary to say anything. We knew in our hearts and in our minds what we thought and what we had achieved.”

van-niekerk-world-record

Van Niekerk met Botha in 2012, when he enrolled at the University of the Free State, where Botha was the track coach. Even though she seemed to appear out of nowhere, Botha has actually been coaching track for nearly half a century, after competing in track herself. So when she saw this raw talent come to her, and saw a sprinter prone to leg injuries, she recommended that van Niekerk switch from the 200 meters, to the 400 meters, under the assumption that the longer distance would place less stress on his hamstrings.

“I have such a big responsibility to get this athlete to develop to his full potential, and also the responsibility for myself to try to do my very best not to do something wrong which can make or break him,” Botha told the Sunday Times (cited in this Deadspin article.) “The main thing is we listened to what his body said to us. If the body said stop, we stopped, or went a little softer.”

“She’s an amazing woman,” van Niekerk said in this article in The Guardian. “She has played a huge role in who I am today and kept me very disciplined and very focused on the role and who I need to be.” Clearly Niekerk needed someone who could bring the tough love, and Botha confirmed that in the same article.

“I dearly love all my athletes but it’s about being strict … We can laugh, but when we have to work hard, we work hard.”

World-class athletes who self-coach, like javelin champion Julius Yego, are few and far between. The coach can sometimes have a huge impact. Who is the right coach? Well, if you’re serious, you probably should not settle for the first one to come along. The coach right for you is out there. You’ll know it when you meet her.

Continue reading →

The Olympian Rise of Japanese Halfs: Aska Cambridge and Mashu Baker Redefining What It Means to be Japanese

aska cambridge in rio
Aska Cambridge

When around 98% of a nation is perceived to be of the same ethnicity, it stands to reason that nationality and ethnicity are viewed as one and the same.

But Japan has been a magnet for those seeking opportunity as well as for Japanophiles, particularly since the economy boomed in the 1980s. As the influential Japanese television entertainment industry increasingly viewed diversity as a way to get more viewers, Japanese-speaking foreigners became more popular. Children of mixed marriages, those who essentially grew up Japanese, have now become de rigeur on Japanese television.

I was one of those foreigners who came to Japan in the 1980s, but because I am of Japanese ethnicity, I have been able to blend in. I get neither fingers pointed at me, nor praise for my Japanese proficiency. But even though my cultural background is American, I can see why the attention of Japanese still, to this day, perk up when a non-Japanese is in their midst. The non-Japanese is such a tiny population that they really do stick out. Like the majority of the film, Lost in Translation, the minority experience for the “gaijin” in Japan is clichéd. And yet true.

So when the Japanese men’s 4X100 relay team very unexpectedly took silver at the Rio Olympics, losing only to the vaunted team from Jamaica, it was a very special moment for Japan. Not only did the Japanese excel in an area they are not customarily strong in – the sprint – a 23-year-old named Aska Cambridge (ケンブリッジ飛鳥), the child of a Japanese mother and a Jamaican father – was a proud member of those Japanese speedsters. He ran for the Japanese squad, he speaks fluent Japanese, and yet, he doesn’t fit the everyday look of what most Japanese perceive as Japanese.

Mashu Baker and his mother
Mashu Baker and his mom.

When a 21-year-old Japanese won judo gold in the 90kg weight class at the Rio Olympics, Japan cheered. At the 2012 London Games, no Japanese won gold in judo, the most Japanese of all the Olympic competitions. In fact, no Japanese had won the 90kg weight class since it was introduced in 1980. So who brought back the glory? A person named Mashu Baker (ベイカー茉秋), the son of a Japanese mother and an American father.

At first glance, he looks Japanese. But it’s the name that sticks out. Baker is clearly not a Japanese name, and it is written in the press in katakana, the script reserved for foreign words. Interestingly, the first name “Mashu”, while spelled out in Chinese characters, was likely chosen because of its close approximation to the name “Matthew”. I don’t know what’s written on his US passport, but it’s possible the Bakers decided they wanted their son to be identified in Japan as a “ha-fu”, a child of mixed parentage.

“Ha-fu” over the decades, perhaps centuries, have on the whole experienced more prejudicial than preferential treatment. But I do not underestimate the power of role models. I am sure that the brilliant examples of Aska Cambridge and Mashu Baker will continue to help revise how Japanese, and the rest of the world, perceive what a Japanese is.

And that’s a good thing.

Continue reading →

Vénuste Hiyongabo of Burundi: 5000-Meter Olympic Champion and a Beacon of Hope

Venuste Niyongabo

Burundi is a dot in the middle of the African continent. Agonized by decades of tribal conflict between Hutus and Tutsi, and one of the world’s poorest countries, the former French colony is not a sporting hotbed.

Despite the challenges, the International Olympic Committee finally recognized Burundi when it established a National Olympic Committee (NOC), allowing this landlocked and resource-poor country to join the Olympics at the 1996 Atlanta Games.

New countries rarely do well in the competitions. Their’s is an opportunity to compete, experience and learn. In fact, 75 of the current 206 countries with National Olympic committees have not won an Olympic medal, including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Honduras, Libya, Nicaragua and Rwanda.

But Vénuste Niyongabo helped Burundi beat all the odds, and has given hope to all nations bereft of Olympic glory. He was a 1500-meter runner, a rising star on the international circuit in the 1990s, and in 1996. When the IOC recognized Burundi’s NOC, Niyongabo was indeed considered a favorite for the Atlanta Olympics. But in a nod to an aging compatriot, Niyongabo gave up his spot in the 1500 meters to Dieudonné Kwizera. If Burundi had had a NOC prior to 1996, it is likely that Kwizera would have competed at the Seoul and/or Barcelona Games. Thanks to Niyongabo, the 800-meter specialist became an Olympian for the first time.

Niyongabo moved up to the 5,000-meter competition instead, an event he had run in only twice previously. Although he had won both, he was not favored in Atlanta. And in fact, sat towards the back while the Kenyans led for much of the race. But win he did, and convincingly. Here’s how the New York Times described it in 1996:

With 200 meters left, his (Niyongabo’s) lead was comfortable over the eventual silver medalist Paul Bitok of Kenya and the eventual bronze medalist Khalid Boulami of Morocco. When Niyongabo crossed the finish line, Dionisi was already hopping up and down in the stands, waving a Burundian flag. Before long, that flag was being waved on an Olympic track for the first time in history.

In the end, Niyongbo put his victory in context, reflecting on the decades of internecine conflict in his tiny country. “All I want is peace for my country,” Niyongabo said. “I hope this can help the healing.”

Continue reading →

No Coach, No Problem: Silver Medalist Javelin Thrower Julius Yego and The YouTube Generation

Julius Yego and his only Javelin Throw
Yego’s first and only throw at the Rio Olympics

 

He had won gold in the 2015 Beijing World Championships, so YouTube Man was expected to compete for gold in Rio.

His first throw was strong 88.24 meters. But quite unexpectedly, that would be Julius Yego’s last throw. While it is still unclear what happened, Yego severely injured his ankle and was carted off in tears. Instead of attempting to throw over 90 meters, which he did in Beijing, the Kenyan had to watch from the stands as German Thomas Rohler managed a throw of 90.3 meters. Still, amazingly, his first throw was good enough for silver.

One could only imagine the pain of inactivity was greater than the pain in the ankle. Yego promised he would be back though. “It was that painful, but I thank God it not serious as I thought! I am going to be back stronger guys, love you all my fans wherever you are. Your tremendous support can never go unnoticed! You always cheer me up even in hard times! God bless you all.“

Yego was a favorite to win gold, which is amazing if you consider his story – a teenager from a farmer’s family who liked throwing a javelin so much he learned how to do it on the internet.

Way back in 2000, Thomas Friedman wrote the seminal book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree. He posited that globalization, particularly the pace of global commerce was occurring due to three factors: the democratization of technology, the democratization of finance and the democratization of information.

In reference to the last factor, the democratization of information, Friedman swooned at the thought of a future pioneered by the likes of Netscape, and its gateway browser to the internet, and the promise of high-speed broadband. “Never before in the history of the world have so many people been able to learn about so many other people’s lives, products and ideas,” wrote Friedman.

Only a few years after Friedman published that book, a school boy named Julius Yego of Kenya got hooked on the javelin throw watching his fellow primary school students send their wooden javelins flying, and was inspired by his brother who was pretty good at the discipline.

But he did not have the resources, nor were there any coaches at his school. In 2009, believing he had a chance to become a world-class thrower, he was frustrated that he could not get the help he needed. That’s when he turned to YouTube. “Nobody was there for me to see if I was doing well or not, so I went to the cybercafe,” he told CNN.

He would watch champions Jan Zelezny and Andreas Thorkidsen, examining their technique, and learning the right ways to train to thrown a two-and-a-half meter spear nearly the length of a football pitch.

In 2010, the self-taught Yego won bronze at his first international tournament at the African Championships in Nairobi, throwing the javelin 74.51 meters. Finally gaining visibility, Yego got some support, earning a scholarship to train in Finland for two weeks in the cold of winter of 2011. There he met leading javelin coach, Petteri Piironen, who saw potential in Yego, who was then reaching distances of around 78 meters. Yego visited Piironen again for three months in the run-up to the London Games, where he finished 12th.

Petteri Piironen and Julius Yego
Petteri Piironen and Julius Yego

While he continues to seek advice from Piironen, Yego continued to self coach, and also to progress, winning championships at The Commonwealth Games, African Championships in 2014, and the World Championships in 2015.

In a CNN interview, the javelin world champion recalled in 2011, when he found success at the All Africa Games, “people wanted to talk to his coach, to know what I did before the competitions, the championships. By then seriously I didn’t have a coach. I didn’t go with a coach. They asked me, ‘Who is your coach,’ and then I told them, ‘YouTube’.”

Continue reading →

What if All Russian Athletes Had been Banned from the Rio Olympics? Let’s Speculate

Rio Medals Table sans Russia

A little less than two weeks prior to the start of the 2016 Rio Olympics, the IOC made a fateful decision. A report from the World Anti-Doping Agency recommended that all Russian athletes be banned from international competition, including the Olympic Summer Games. The IOC, which had the final say, chose to defer judgment on eligibility for Olympic participation to the various international sports federations. While the international track and field organization, IAAF, had decided much earlier to ban the entire Russian track and field team, many other federations chose to allow the Russians to compete. In the end, 278 Russians were cleared, while 111 were ruled ineligible.

At the end of the Olympic Summer Games on August 21, Russia had tallied the fourth highest number of gold medals (19) and total medals (56), behind the USA, China and Great Britain. Russia finished ahead of Germany, France and Japan.

But what would have happened if all Russian athletes were banned from the Rio Games as WADA had recommended?

  1. Would the medal tables have changed significantly?
  2. Would any individual or team have won for their country a medal in a specific category for the first time?
  3. Would any nation have won its first medal of any kind, ever?

Would the medal tables have changed significantly? The answer to the first question is no. if the Russians had to give back all of their 56 medals, around 30 nations would be getting additional medals. America could have added two medals but they were already 50 medals ahead of China. China was actually impacted the most by Russia’s presence, as they could have had as many as another 7 bronze medals without the Russians in the mix. But that would still have left them far behind the US in the overall medal race.

Italy may have felt the pain considerably. Like the Chinese, they lost out potentially on as many as 7 bronze medals in a wide variety of sporting areas. Azerbaijan potentially lost out on 5 bronze medals, if not for the Russians.

Of course, these are guestimates I’ve made based on what individuals or teams came in fourth. Complicating matters, in sports like judo or wrestling or boxing you have at least two people each tied for third and fourth. In the case of the men’s lightweight boxing tournament, there were four people who finished just below one of the bronze medalists, a Russian. Who knows who would have actually gotten the bronze without Vitaly Dunaytsev in Rio?

Dipa Karmaker
India’s first Olympic gymnast, Dipa Karmaker
Would any nation have won its first medal in a specific category? The answer to the second question is yes. Dipa Karmaker is a female gymnast from India, and her score of 15.966 in the individual vault competition left her 0.15 points behind Giulia Steingruber of Switzerland. If silver medalist, Maria Paseka of Russia, had her medal revoked, Steingruber, Switzerland’s first gymnast to win a medal of any kind, would be awarded a silver medal. Her bronze medal would go to Karmaker, who is the first ever Indian to compete as a gymnast in the Olympics, and could possibly have been the first to win a gymnastics medal if the Russians were not allowed to compete.

Would any nation have won its first medal of any kind, ever? The answer to the third question is yes: two countries could have finally broken the high-performance glass ceiling with a bronze medal.

If not for Russia, Cameroon could have taken home a bronze in women’s freestyle wrestling (75kg). Annabelle Ali, Cameroon’s flag bearer in the 2012 Games, tied with Vasilisa Marzaliuk of Belarus one notch below the Russian Ekaterina Bukina.

Additionally, Mauritius could have experienced its first medal. Kennedy St Pierre was one of four heavyweight boxers to place fifth at Rio. If Evgeny Tishchenko were not in Rio, a favored boxer would have been out of the competition. Who knows who would have beaten whom? Out of 8 quarterfinalists, four get medals, so St Pierre’s chances would have increased significantly if the Russian was not in the ring. Yes, you can say that for the other competitors, but for Mauritius, it would have been party time if St Pierre brought home the bronze.

Kennedy St-Pierre
Mauritius’ Kennedy St-Pierre beat Algeria’s Chouaib Bouloudinats
Continue reading →

Promoting Tokyo 2020 Part 1: How Olympic Sponsors Do It

Coca Cola Booth Roppongi Hills 1
Coca Cola booth at Roppongi Hills

 

It was August 6 and I had just watched the opening ceremonies of the Rio Olympics, which was being broadcast live in Japan that lazy Saturday morning. Quite coincidentally, my wife and I reserved a Brazilian barbecue place in Roppongi for dinner that evening.

Roppongi is a hive of activity, a center of commerce, entertainment and shopping that bustles 7 days a week. In our stroll through Roppongi that day, I came upon two examples of how official Olympic sponsors have begun marketing the Olympics, not only as a lead in to the Rio Olympics, but also as a proud reminder that Tokyo will be the host of the XXXIII Olympiad in 2020.

Coca Cola is one of 12 worldwide Olympic sponsors, part of the so-called TOP program – TOP standing for “The Olympic Partner”. Like other TOP sponsors, Coca Cola has exclusive rights in the food and beverages industry to use the word Olympics and the five-ring symbol of the Games in its global marketing and advertisements, among other exclusive rights.

And in the popular Roppongi Hills square was a Coca Cola booth, with kids and adults lining up to get in. Inside the booth was a large screen displaying a swimming competition computer game. A pair of contestants would line up in front of the screen, get a motion-sensing band attached to their wrist, and then furiously roll their arms as their watched their avatar on the screen race to the finish. At the end, they were awarded a medal with a bottle of Coca Cola attached.

After dinner, we walked to my old work haunt – Midtown Tower. This popular office complex was built by Mitsui Fudosan, a major real estate developer in Japan. Mitsui Fudosan is not a TOP partner, but is instead a Tokyo 2020 Gold Partner. In the Olympic hierarchy of sponsors, the IOC allows the local national Olympic committee to select local sponsors that have exclusive rights in Japan to market and advertise using the word “Olympics” and related logos.

Sumitomo Fudosan Midtown Tower Olympics Exhibition 1

Mitsui Fudosan used the open area in front of Midtown Tower artfully. Dotted throughout the square were sculptures of figures in athletic pose, gleaming white and geometrically fashioned. A female basketball player and a wheelchair tennis player greet us at the entrance. A sprinter climbs the glass cover of the escalator leading down to the underground shopping areas. Synchronized swimmers rise from a shallow pool of water, a paralympic runner strides, and a pair of judoka negotiate a fall.

Mitsui Fudosan wants you to “Be the Change”. In a missive at the display area, the JOC Olympic sponsor states that like athletes, whose daily efforts and countless beads of sweat and tears, have shaped them into Olympians with unique and wonderful stories, Tokyo is also being shaped on a daily basis, building by building, each with their own stories. The last line of the missive states, “Next, it’s Tokyo’s turn. The Olympics will be on our stage. What fantastic stories will be told?”

Sumitomo Fudosan Midtown Tower Olympics Exhibition 2

Continue reading →

Anatomy of a Pole Vault Finals: Thiago Braz da Silva Launches Out of the Blue to Hometown Glory

Thiago Braz da Silva and his winning vault
Thiago Braz da Silva and his winning pole vault

Renaud Lavillenie was above them all, figuratively and literally. The man from Barbezieux-Saint-Hilaire, reigning Olympic champion, didn’t deign to pole vault the first two heights of 5.50 and 5.65 meters. He was after all the world record holder at 6.16 meters. The men’s 800-meter finals were on, and he wasn’t doing anything anyway…so he watched David Rudisha win gold while he waited on his competition to get through their pedestrian heights.

When his rivals reached 5.75 meters, Lavillenie decided to join the competition. With the crowd clapping and cheering, the Frenchman rose above the bar with ease. As he did at 5.85.

The bar was raised to 5.93, which the announcer said was about the same as “vaulting over the average house”. In other words, the bar was getting pretty high.

Renaud Lavillenie making a vault
Renaud Lavillenie making a vault

Lavillenie is up first and he makes it with a roar. The Frenchman is yet to miss. But 5.93 proves to be a few centimeters too high for Jan Kudlička of the Czech Republic, Piotr Lisek of Poland and Sam Kendricks of the US, the eventual bronze medalist. Hometown favorite, but relatively unknown Thiago Braz da Silva of Brazil, also misses his first attempt at 5.93. But the 22-year old from the town of Marília, Brazil, running to the cheers of the crowd, makes it over the bar.

And now there are two. The Champion versus the Kid.

Lavillenie readies himself to win his second consecutive Olympic championship in the pole vault. He is up first, waits for the bar to be raised to 5.98, and clears it easily. By making 5.98 meters, Lavillenie has set a new Olympic record.

The young Brazilian, on the other hand, has never won a medal at an international event of any significance. He’s young, is improving very quickly, and clearly ballsy. Instead of trying to match Lavillenie at 5.98, da Silva says he wants the bar raised to 6.03. da Silva’s never cleared 6 meters, and yet he’s going for it.

Lavillenie calmly sips from a water bottle, sharing laughs with others. Da Silva fidgets with his poles, deciding which one he should use to propel him to new heights. With the new height, it’s back up to Lavillenie. He makes it over on his first attempt, but grazes the bar with his right hip on the way down – it’s the Frenchman’s first miss.

The pressure is intense. da Silva runs to the pit, extends the pole, but just as he raises off the ground, he gives up and falls harmlessly to the ground. It’s back to Lavillenie, a man who’s cleared this height many times in his career, encouraging the crowd to clap. And again, Lavillenie clears the bar only to knock it off as his stomach hits the bar. That’s two misses.

da Silva settles into the runway, victory potentially within his grasp with a miracle leap. He runs, he stabs, and he climbs into the air. He makes it! “What a jump,” shouts the announcer. “What a leap into the record books. What an all mighty chance he has now of taking the gold. Six oh three. The 20th man to go over 6 meters!”

Thiago Braz da Silva new Olympic record

Lavillenie sits in preparation, his face clearly showing concern. He’s likely thinking, “Where did this guy come from?” Looking for answers in the ground. he walks around to screw up his concentration for one final, enormous leap. Lavillenie decides to raise the bar, setting it at 6 meters 8 centimeters. If he makes it, da Silva has to make a very high leap. But the stakes are high for Lavillenie – miss it and the gold falls from his grasp.

The champion zips up his suit as he readies his pole for flight. He runs, he plants his pole, and he launches into the air. But this time, on the rise, Lavillenie’s feet hit the bar, which falls to earth. A new champion has been crowned – Thiago Braz da Silva is an Olympic champion, and Brazil’s newest hero.

No Brazilian has ever qualified in the Olympic pole vault. But in these Rio Olympics, da Silva not only competed, he set the Olympic record and ripped gold from the champion’s hands, vaulting into the hearts of Brazilians all.

Lavillenie loses

Continue reading →

The Trials of Gabby Douglas: Fighting Faux Patriotism with the Better Nature of Our Angels

gabby douglas rio
Gymnast Gabby Douglas in Rio.

The Twitterverse can be very petty.

After the US women’s team dominated the team gymnastics competition and won gold at the Rio Olympics, gymnast Gabby Douglas got hit by a social media storm. Why? Because she did not have her hand over her heart during the medal ceremony.

One of the uglier images that made the rounds was an image of two photos placed in contrast to each other: one of the US women’s gymnastics team and the other of the US 4×100 men’s freestyle swim team. The top caption was “Understand the difference”. Under a picture of the swim team, in which Ryan Held is wiping tears from his eyes, are the words “took hand off of heart momentarily to hide tears of pride, joy, and accomplishment.” Underneath the picture of the US women’s gymnastics team, which shows Gabby Douglas with her hands at her side, are the words “blatant disrespect”.

Douglas is an American star of the 2012 London Olympics, a member of arguably the hardest working gymnastics team in history, who has spent countless days and hours in practice and pain to help bring golden glory to the US again in Rio. Here she was, being ripped apart online because she did not have her hand on heart.

The onslaught was so swift and vicious, Douglas felt compelled to apologize:

In response to a few tweets I saw tonight, I always stand at attention out of respect for our country whenever the national anthem is played. I never meant any disrespect and apologize if I offended anyone. I’m so overwhelmed at what our team accomplished today and overjoyed that we were able to bring home another gold for our country!

Douglas had no reason to apologize. Fortunately, the better angels of the Twitterverse nature agreed, and came to Douglas’ defense.

David Wottle on Winners Podium
David Wottle at the Muinch Games in 1972, Munich, Germany  Image by © Bettmann/CORBIS

But we’ve seen this movie before.

  • In 1968 at the Mexico City Olympics, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were expelled from the Olympic Games after their respective first and third-place finishes in the 200-meter finals because they lowered their heads and raised their fists in protest of the state of Blacks in America.
  • In 1972 at the Munich Olympics, Dave Wottle won the 800-meter finals in dramatic fashion. At the awards ceremony, he stood at attention, his hand on heart and his trademark white golf cap on head during the playing of the American national anthem. Well, tongues wagged, and the press kept asking Wottle if he was protesting something. Wottle replied very sheepishly that he simply forgot he was wearing it. Wottle is lucky that the Internet was not a factor our lives yet.
  • And for decades, the simple act of carrying the flag in the opening ceremony was a matter of consternation for Americans. Perhaps it’s the fact that America was born out of war of independence from a King in Europe. But it became customary for the flag bearer leading the American team in an Olympic opening ceremony would not dip their flag to the host country’s leader as sign of respect. While Americans dipped and not dipped over the decades, the USOC then decided in 1936 after the Berlin Games to make it policy for the US flag bearer not to dip.

In 1964, during the Tokyo Olympic Games, then head of the International Olympic Committee, Avery Brundage, went as far as to recommend that the medal ceremony be dropped from the Olympics. According to a AP report, Brundage said at a press conference that “he doesn’t want national flags raised and anthems played after medal performances in the various sports because they only help to generate extreme nationalism.”

Brundage hopes to eliminate olympics victory ceremony
October 24, 1964 AP

Americans can have thin skins. Raw interpretations of what acts, what behaviors, what words are viewed as patriotic are openly voiced at the water cooler, in the press, and of course in the 21st century, most flamboyantly on the internet. This is true in sports competitions between nations as it is true in the political discourse of the US presidential campaign.

Perhaps it’s fruitless to say that calmer heads should prevail, other cheeks should be turned. But for what it’s worth, President Abraham Lincoln said it best. America’s 16th president presided over one of the most politically tumultuous periods in American history, and in his first inaugural address on March 4, 1861, he addressed a country on the verge of civil war. The quote below are the most famous from that address, and resonate today:

We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory will swell when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Abraham Lincoln

Continue reading →

Expect the Unexpected: Japan’s Sprinters Take Silver in the 4X100-meter Relays, and Trailblaze a Path to Tokyo 2020

Silver Samurai Japan Team pose
The Japanese men strike a pose – as if pulling out swords for a fight – during the introductions to the 4×100-meter relays finals.

Upstage Usain Bolt? Hard to imagine doing that. But in Japan, the four young men of Japan’s 4×100 team, Ryota Yamagata, Shota Iizuka, Yoshihide Kiryu and Aska Cambridge, did just that.

Very unexpectedly, against such traditionally strong competition as Jamaica, America, Canada and Trinidad and Tobago, Japan sprinted to second place at an Asian record of 37.60 seconds, a fair distance behind champions Jamaica, but ahead of the United States and Canada.

No sprinters from Japan had ever done so well. Famous for long distance runners, particularly with its share of marathon Olympic champions, Japan had only one sprinting exception: a bronze medal finish in the men’s 4×100 relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. As Andre De Grasse, who won silver in the 200 meters and bronze in the 100 put it, “Japan probably surprised us a little bit. We didn’t expect to see them up there. But congrats to them as well.”

After all, at the beginning of the track and field competition in Rio, there was very little to indicate that Japan had the talent to medal in any sprint competition, as seen early on in the men’s individual 100 meter heats.

Cambridge Bolt and Brommel
Aska Cambridge and Usain Bolt face off in the final let of the 4×100-meter relays final.

 

In Heat 8, Yamagata came in second with a time of 10.20, qualifying behind South African Akani Simbine. In the semis, Yamagata finished fifth in his heat with a very solid run of 10.05 seconds, but did not qualify for the finals. Iizuka, who did not compete in the 100 meters, failed to qualify in the 200 meters with a time of 20.49 seconds.

In Heat 7 with Usain Bolt, Kiryu placed fourth, his time of 10.23 not good enough to quality for the individual finals. Cambridge qualified with the second fastest time in Heat 4 at 10.13 seconds, behind Canadian star, De Grasse. In the semis, Cambridge did even worse with a run of 10.17 and crashed out of the running for the finals, finishing last in his heat.

Fortunately for Japan, the individual sprints were one thing – the team sprints were another. In the two preliminary relay heats, Japan was not intimidated. In heat 1 of the 4X100 men’s relay, the United States team bested China, which set an Asian record time of 37.82. Japan won the second heat, not only topping the Jamaican team (sans Bolt), but also setting a new Asian record time of 37.68 seconds.

After the heats were completed, the eight teams competing in the men’s 4×100 relay were set. In order of lanes 1 to 8 were Great Britain, Brazil, The US, Jamaica, Japan, China, Canada, and Trinidad and Tobago. But in the finals, most of the teams were able to conserve the energy of their super stars in the heats, while Japan stuck to their four thoroughbreds. The Japanese were in lane 5, next to the Jamaicans, as the lead runners settled into their starting blocks.

Yamagata exploded out of the blocks, which is what you want from your lead runner. He seemed to gain ground vis-a-vis the lead runner for China in lane 6, but exchanges between runners for the Canada and Jamaica seemed to have happened a split second before Japan’s.

Yamagata passed off to Iizuka, who was Japan’s 200-meter runner. The runner of the second leg has to run in the baton exchange lanes twice, which means he runs about 125 meters. You want someone who’s speedy at longer distances, so Yamagata fit the bill. When Iizuka took off at the 100-meter mark, it appeared nearly all teams were tied.

Iizuka passed the baton to Kiryu for the third leg. The third leg is often a make or break leg. Not only does the runner in the third leg have to run 125 meters, he also has to ensure a smooth baton exchange while rounding a curve. Kiryu handled that responsibility to perfection. At the 300-meter point, Jamaica, Japan, China, Canada, as well as Trinidad and Tobago were looking equal, with a slight edge to Jamaica, Japan and Canada. Great Britain and Brazil had fallen significantly off the pace in the inside lanes, while the USA seemed to be slow on the exchange.

The fourth leg, or anchor, is often run by the swiftest on the team. Cambridge was the anchor, and his personal best was 10.1 seconds. Not only did he have the fastest time for Japan in 2016, he was seen as capable of going faster. As we all know, or could expect, Bolt was a runaway freight train and Jamaica was heading for its inevitable golden finish. But Japan’s Cambridge burst out of the exchange, and for a while appeared even to keep pace with Bolt.

silver samurai asian record
The new giants of Japan.

While gold was out of the question, Cambridge’s job was to hold onto silver. Trayvon Bromwell of the American team exploded through the anchor leg and was pushing hard for second, so desperate that he went flying to the track while crossing the finish line.

The citizens of Japan, fortunate to be able to watch this race on a lazy Sunday morning, worked themselves into a frenzy as the race came to a finish, holding their collective breath as their hearts caught up with their eyes.

And then Japan erupted. Cambridge crossed the line in front of Bromwell. Japan had taken silver.

“Nippon! Nippon!” the announcer from NHK shrieked as Cambridge flew past the finish line. The Japanese quartet instantly became the new giants of Japan. We expected the Japanese men’s gymnastics team to do well. We expected the Japanese women’s wrestlers to do well. We did not expect the Japanese men’s sprinters to beat the Americans, the Canadians and push the legendary Jamaicans and Usain Bolt.

But the Silver Samurai did. And heading into the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, pre-teens and teenagers all across the islands of Japan will be saying, “maybe, just maybe, that could be me.”

Continue reading →