Fear: Avoid it All Costs

Bob Schul_Life_30October1964
Bob Schul winning the gold medal in the 5000 meters in Tokyo_Life Magazine, October 30, 1964

 

Bob Schul was in a room under the National Olympic Stadium, mentally preparing himself for the race of his life, the 5,000 meter competition at the 1964 Tokyo Summer Games. Schul was already filling a little uneasy. It was rainy and cold, so he spent most of his time in his dorm. Then he walked 200 meters in the rain, got on the bus and made it to the stadium, where his coaches ran up to him saying, “Where have you been?” Schul told me that his adrenalin shot up, and he thought he had gotten the time wrong. But they told Schul there was still over an hour before the race, which is exactly how much time he had intended to have. So calming himself down, Schul headed to a small room to prepare himself for his race. A member of the US track team and gold medal hope, Willie Davenport walked into the room.

“Willie Davenport, one of the world’s best hurdlers, was standing in the middle of the room dripping wet,” said Schul. “I knew he had just finished one of his trials. The first race for the US hurdlers should have been a cake walk for them. As I walked by and patted him on the back, I asked him how it went. His response was not what I had expected. He turned towards me and looked at me in the eyes and said, ‘Bob, I didn’t make it.’ Now, when somebody says that sort of thing, you don’t want to be there. I had a race to win and I didn’t want anybody saying to me ‘I didn’t make it’. But I couldn’t get away because he kept talking. I thought, ‘come on, I got to get out of here.’ Tears were coming down and he turned away. What do you say? I stood there and reached out and put my hand on his shoulder. I put my bag against the wall, and went to warm up. I tried to forget that.”

Fortunately, Schul was unaffected, winning the first ever gold for the US in the 5,000 meters. Davenport would recover after being eliminated in the 110m hurdle semis in Tokyo, going on to win gold in Mexico City, and bronze eight years later in Montreal.

The acclaimed author, Frank Herbert, once wrote, “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration.” Herbert’s mantra is particularly true for high performance athletes. The anonymous author who wrote the book, The Secret Olympian: The Inside Story of the Olympic Experience, also spoke of fear, its particular odor and its negative impact.

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Kyle MacLachlan as Paul Atreides in the 1984 miniseries, Dune.

“The physiologists can’t measure our sanity. Some of us are going well in training, quick and confident. Probably an equal number are struggling, working harder than they should to make the pace, and it’s those guys (some are friends, some rivals) who are starting to crack up. I can sort of smell this creeping fear of failure, an aura or a vibe around them. It’s like an elephant in the room. No one wants to talk about it. Some have gone very quiet; others are sort of manic. I can tell my best mate has been crying in the loos after training and back in the hotel sometimes. Not good for a grown man.”

The author, Anon, writes that everybody feels the fear. But you need to

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“I’ve Got a Secret”: Four Gold Medal-Winning Lieutenants

Billy Mills on Ive Got a Secret
Lt Billy Mills of the US Marines and his winning smile on I’ve Got a Secret.

Five months after the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, four lieutenants from four different branches of the US Military came together as anonymous guests on the game show, “I’ve Got a Secret”. The popular program that broadcasted on American network CBS from 1952 to 1967 in black and white was the less formal, loosey-goosey version of another very popular game show, “What’s My Line?” (See this link for my post on 5-gold-medalist Don Schollander appearing on that program.)

I've Got a Secret

Steve Allen was hosting that show on March 8, 1965, and guest celebrities asked questions to guess what the secret was, ie: who the heck these four military men did. And the guest celebrities – Jayne Meadows, Gary Morton, Betsy Palmer and Henry Morgan – did not have a clue, although they did tend to get, I believe, a bit racy in their questioning.

The four military men were:

  1. First Lt Lones Wigger of the Army who had set a world record in the small-bore rifle, 22-caliber, three position event at the Asaka Shooting Range in Tokorozawa, Saitama
  2. Lt William Stowe of the Navy and
  3. First Lt Joe Amlong of the Air Force who were two members of the US 8-oar rowing crew which beat heavy favorite Germany on the Toda Rowing Course in Saitama
  4. Lt Billy Mills of the Marines, the first American to win the 10000 meters in the Olympics

Here are the four American Military gold medalists in this 7-minute segment from “I’ve Got a Secret”.

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Brazil’s Olympian Challenge: Everything

sisyphus
Sisyphus

We’re only 8 months away from the launch of Olympiad XXXI. Olympic infrastructure plans are generally on time. Brazilians are generally excited. But the economy is taking a distinct dive.

Unemployment at nearly 10%, despite all of the Olympic-related construction, is the highest it has been in six years, when Rio was awarded the Olympics. Inflation is around 10%. The real has devalued by a third. Brazil’s credit rating dropped to “junk” status in September. And while international athletes will be flowing into Brazil next year, international investment has been flowing out of Brazil. This, as well as the plummeting price of oil in this petro-economy, have contributed heavily to the shrinking of the Brazilian economy again this quarter, the ninth quarter in a row.

The once booming member of the so-called BRIC economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China) is experiencing one of its worst economic crises in a while. How is this impacting the upcoming Olympics? There was a brief social media uproar when Rio Olympic officials announced the need to cut 30% of their budget, including air conditioning in the rooms of the Olympic Village, a decision that was quickly reversed after athletes balked.

It’s unclear what those cuts will impact, but big issues continue to concern…issues that will cost the country not only in expense but also in emotional well-being.

In addition to security in the areas of the Olympic activities, security along Brazil’s massive borders is a “big concern”, as a government auditor revealed “flaws” in the plans to control the 17,000 kilometer border that runs through remotes part of the Amazon and touches 10 other countries in Latin America.

The Associated Press has continued to test the waters planned for Olympic events and have found that “high viral and in some cases bacterial counts are found not just along shorelines where raw sewage runs in, but far offshore where athletes will compete in sailing, rowing and canoeing.” According to this AP article, Rio won the Olympic bid with a promise to clean up the city’s waterways, but “Brazilian officials now acknowledge that won’t happen.”

Garbage on the shore of Guanabara Bay_1June 2015
Guanabara Bay

 

On top of that, unprecedented levels of corruption in the government-

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The Not-Quite-News on Marathons This Week: The Half-Marathon that Wasn’t, Santa Claus Ditches the Sleigh, and Running in Space

bangkok marathon
Bangkok Marathon

We have three stories today on the marathon.

First we take you to Bangkok, Thailand, my residence from 1994-2004, where Standard Chartered Bank hosted the annual Bangkok Marathon on November 15. As a part of the day’s event, a half marathon is held. Now for most of the world, half of the 42 kilometer marathon should come to 21 kilometers. And yet, as runners approached their expected times for 21 kilometers, they were surprised to see how far they were from the finish line, and disappointed at how slow their times were. As it turned out, the organizers had extended the length of the course a bit…if 7 extra kilometers is a bit….due to incorrectly informing runners where to make their u-turn. Unlike Singapore Math, Thailand Math won’t be coming to a neighborhood near you any time soon.

Brian Land_Santa at the Philadelphia Marathon
Brian Land had previously run a 1:20 half marathon in the Santa suit. Photograph by Island Photography

Next we take you the City of Brotherly Love, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, my residence from 1981-1985, where a Guinness World Record was broken at the Philadelphia Marathon on November22. Brian Land, 29, a miler who raced at my alma mater, the University of Pennsylvania, decided to run the Philly Marathon….in a Santa Claus suit. Having run a marathon in 2 hours and 31 minutes, he was seeking to break the record of faux Santa Claus, Paul Simons, who set the then record at the 2009 London Marathon with a time of just under 2 hours and 56 minutes. Training in full Santa regalia at Planet Fitness in early November, and running a half-marathon in the suit, Land was confident. So when Santa Claus came to town for the marathon, he did so in the record time of 2 hours, 54 minutes and 2 seconds.

Tim Peake_astronaut marathoner
Astronaut Tim Peake

And finally, we take you to outer space, overlooking the planet earth, my home planet since 1963, where British astronaut, Tim Peake, plans to run the London Marathon on April 24, 2016. Yes, he’ll technically be in space on the International Space Station, and yes, he’ll be running on a treadmill alone while the other 37,000 run the roads of London. Peake will be tethered to the treadmill so he won’t float away, and will watch a video of the London course as he runs. Apparently, Peake isn’t the first to do so. NASA astronaut, Sunita Williams, also ran a marathon in space in 1997 racing in synch with the Boston Marathon that year. And yet, Peake’s goal is amazing. As he quipped, The London Marathon is a worldwide event. Let’s take it out of this world.”

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Blood Doping: Is it Doping If it’s My Blood?

red blood cells

The fuel for muscles are oxygen. The more oxygen, the more rapidly and powerfully muscles can flex. Some people thanks to their genetic makeup have a significantly higher aerobic capacity, or ability to consume oxygen, which enables them to go harder and faster in highly aerobic sports like running, swimming or biking over longer distances.

In the 1970s, those seeking to gain an edge used hormone treatments, for example epitestosterone. The sometimes dramatic effects on the body created suspicion of doping, particularly with regards to the East German team. But a new treatment, which was at the time legal, was becoming popular – blood doping. Also known as blood packing or blood boosting, blood doping was the act of drawing an athlete’s blood prior to a competition, and then after a time, re-introducing that blood back into the athlete’s system via transfusion.

The pioneer research from Sweden, Dr Bjorn Ekblom, discovered that separating the red blood cells from a quart of blood, refrigerating it, and then re-injecting it a month later increased the efficiency of that athlete by 25%, according to Daniel Rosen, who wrote the book “Dope: A history of Performance Enhancement in Sports from the Nineteenth Century to Today.” This research was no secret. Ekblom published it in a paper called “Responses to Exercise After Blood Loss and Reinfusion.”

Dope Daniel Rosen

Blood doping was not illegal at the time. However, in the realm of competition, it was considered sneaky enough not to talk about. But people did whisper about it. And people whispered about Lasse Virén, the Finn who accomplished the only Olympic Double-Double, by winning the grueling 5,000m and 10,000m races in two successive Olympiads – Munich in 1972 and Montreal in 1976.

People whispered that Virén only performed well in the big tent events, but in the years between the 1972 and 1976 Olympics, Virén did not reach champion levels. As Rosen wrote, “given the seemingly few and admittedly poor results in between the Olympics, some have argued that there must have been a secret source from Virén obtained his speed. Virén, on the other hand, insists that he has never blood doped and never needed to. By focusing on the Olympics, to the exclusion of other events, he built up his fitness specifically for those few events every four years.”

Blood doping was officially declared an illegal practice in 1986. But autologous blood doping, the act of reinjecting your own red blood cells back into your system, is not reliably traceable. One test that currently exists requires an athlete to breathe in carbon monoxide, which understandably, athletes balk at.

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Lasse Virén and the Double-Double

Lasse Viren wins 5000m gold in Montreal
Lasse Virén of Finland winning gold in the 5,000 meters in Montreal

When you fall in a highly competitive race, it’s over for you, particularly for sprinters. But even in long-distance foot races, falling not only places you way in the back of the pack, it becomes a psychological burden as you see your competitors fly by you.

And yet, Lasse Virén of Finland was not fazed. Virén was competing in the 10,000 meters in the Munich Olympics in 1972. It was the 12th lap of a 25-lap race when Virén’s leg hit the leg of Belgian runner, Emiel Puttemans, sending Virén tumbling to the cinder track. Famed Tunisian runner, Mohamed Gammoudi, also took a nasty spill tripping over Virén’s body. Virén, who fell behind by 20 meters, got up quickly, and re-started those long strides, getting back into the race after four laps.

In the last lap and a half, Virén stepped on the gas. But as this thrilling account from The Guardian relates, the man whose leg sent Virén to the ground 12 laps earlier was now breathing down Virén’s back.

At the bell, Virén raised the pace yet again, and Yifter was unable to respond. The air was suddenly too thick for his limbs. But Puttemans held on. The small Belgian, his face contorting with determination, closed the slight gap that Virén had opened up. ‘I believed I had a chance to win the gold medal,’ he said later. ‘Lasse was five metres ahead and I knew I must take my chance going into the final bend.’ So Puttemans moved on to Virén’s shoulder. The Finn accelerated. ‘As we came round to the home straight,’ Puttemans said, ‘I knew the gold was his.’ You could see Puttemans absorb this painful truth, but make an instantaneous reappraisal of ambition: he looked over his shoulder, to make sure Yifter was far enough behind him to be no threat, and settled for silver.

Virén not only won, but smashed the world record for the 10,000 meter race that had stood for seven years. Virén went on to win the 5,000 meter competition in the Munich Games, accomplishing the so-called “double”, which had been done only three times prior to Virén, and three times after him. Even more amazingly, Virén did it again, winning both the 5,000m and 10,000m races at the Montreal Games in 1976, the only “Double-Double” ever.

You can watch Virén years later watching himself win the 10,000 meter race in Munich on video below.

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Remembering John Lennon: All They Were Saying in Munich Was Give Peace a Chance

 

lennon and ono
John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Today in Japan, it is December 9, but in the US, it is still December 8, the day John Lennon was murdered, the day the music died.

On the closing day of the Munich Olympics in 1972, the torch was extinguished, the lingering waves of joy of Olympic competition and camaraderie merging with countervailing waves of sadness. Eleven Israeli athletes had been killed by the hand of terrorists. According to the book, Secret Olympian: The Inside Story of the Olympic Experience, athletes left the closing ceremony and gathered in the Olympic Village. And as the athletes struggled with their mixed and roiling emotions, a song by John Lennon unified them all.

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At the John Lennon memorial event at Central Park on December 14, 1980_photo taken by Roy Tomizawa
Following the closing ceremony, the athletes returned to the Village and converged on the discotheque. John Lennon’s ‘Give Peace a Chance’ was played several times with its poignant relevance. Fencer Susie Murphy’s overriding memory of Munich was a touchingly united scene with athletes of all nations singing along to Lennon in one unified voice, arms round each other’s shoulders, in defiance of the atrocity.

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The Munich Olympics Massacre: Revelations and Finally Recognition

Munich Massacre
West German policemen wearing sweatsuits, bullet-proof vests and armed with submachine guns, take up positions on September 5, 1972 on Olympic Village rooftops where armed Palestinians were holding Israeli team members hostage

The terrorist attacks on Paris last month are still likely jagged memories for many. I shudder to think of what could have been if the suicide bomber had successfully made her way into the Stade de France during the football match between the French and German national teams.

The singular most horrific terrorist attack in an Olympic Games are when eleven members of the Israeli Olympic team were taken hostage and killed during the 1972 Summer Games in Munich, Germany. A Palestinian group called Black September, a faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) smuggled rifles, pistols and grenades into the Olympic Village on September 5, 1972, before dawn, while athletes slept.

Details of those events have been depicted in articles, books and film. But until recently, the level of cruelty the Israeli athletes suffered had not been known, according to this New York Times article. The reporter explains that German authorities had hundreds of pages of reports depicting the 20-hours the athletes were held hostage, but until recently denied they had existed.

Israeli victims
Six of the 11 Israeli hostages killed by the Palestinian ‘Black September’ cell at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Yossef Romano, the torture victim, is top center

The families of victims were actually aware of these reports and never-released photos of the massacre since 1992. A documentary called “Munich 72 & Beyond” will be released in early 2016.

Munich-1972-Beyond

The International Olympic Committee has had a long, uneasy relationship with families of the Munich victims. According to this New York Times article, they have been lobbying the IOC for official recognition of those killed during the Munich Olympics. They are hoping that the IOC will create awareness of that day in September to the Games in August, 2016, in Rio.

In fact, progress has been made and a memorial will be built in Germany, very near the building where the Israeli athletes were taken hostage. The memorial, which will open to the public in September, 2016, is being funded by the local Bavarian government, the German federal government, as well as the IOC and the Foundation for Global Sports Development.

Perhaps progress has been due to a change in IOC leadership in 2013. The current IOC head is Thomas Bach, a German. In addition to the memorial in Germany, Bach announced there will also be a memorial erected in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Olympic Games.

“We want to give the athletes the opportunity to express their mourning in a dignified way and environment in the Olympic Village where representatives of the whole world are living peacefully under the same roof,” (Bach) said. “At the Closing Ceremony, the Games come to an end and many people feel that it is a moment to remember people who have died at the Olympic Games.”

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Mohammed Al-Khatib’s Quest for a Palestine Olympic Medal

Mohammed Al-Khatib
Screen capture from Ak-Khatib’s youtube appeal.

His request was straightforward. Mohammed Al-Khatib of the State of Palestine needed funds to train in the United States so that he could represent his homeland in the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The yoga and fitness instructor from Hebron has a dream – to win an Olympic medal in the 100 meters or 200 meters competition “on behalf of every Palestinian.”

As he explains in the request video below, understandably, Palestine lacks the facilities and the professional coaches all athletes need to advance to a world-class level.

But despite that, Al-Khatib has nurtured this dream of representing Palestine in Rio for the past three years, training hard after being encouraged by a US track and field coach, Crystal Dunlap, who saw him run a 10.4 second 100 meters without spikes or starting blocks. Coaches and role models are so important. In fact, Al-Khatib was inspired by two people, as he explains here: a 15-year-old Lithuanian swimmer named Ruta Meilutyte who won gold in London in 2012, as well as a Palestinian named Mohammad Assaf who won a singing contest in Arab Idol. Learn more in this great profile of Al-Khatib here

Mohammed Al-Khatib_Ash Gallagher
Palestinian yoga and fitness instructor Mohamed al-Khatib trains for track and field events in the hopes of attending the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, Nov. 18, 2015 | Ash Gallagher

Al-Khatib wanted to raise $7,850 so that he could participate in a 3-month training camp in Texas from January. In only 4 days, he reached $12,160! So yes, Al-Khatib is on his way to Texas!

You can actually continue to make contributions here – funds beyond his budget will be donated to the Jericho Youth Club’s Running Team in the West Bank.

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General George S. Patton: War Hero and Olympic Pentathlete

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General George S. Patton on the warfront.

I recently learned that one of the Olympians from the 1912 Summer Games in Stockholm, Sweden was General “Old Blood and Guts” George S. Patton – American military hero from World War II. As this wonderful Wired article relates, Patton put in a wonderful effort in the modern Olympics first modern pentathlon. The pentathlon is composed of shooting, swimming, fencing, horse riding and running – the concept being that the officer of that time might have to do all those kinds of things in order to get a message safely to its receiver in a time of war.

In 1912, Patton was a promising junior officer with a reputation for being dedicated, and a hard-driving leader. And despite Patton’s short time to prepare, he finished fifth in the pentathlon, behind four Swedes. Here are a few remarkable anecdotes related to one of the most well-known military leaders of the 20th century.

Patton had a bigger gun: Patton fired 20 bullets with a .38 caliber pistol, while his competitors were using .22 gauge pistols. When judges examined the paper target and saw only 17 holes, Patton claimed that all of his shots hit the target, but because of his higher gauge bullets, larger holes were found in the target. Patton claimed that the missing shots went through existing holes. The judges did not agree, and so he finished 20th, instead of first if he was to be believed.

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Patton entering the stadium after his pentathlon run at the 1912 Stockholm Summer Games.

Patton was doped up: The final event of the pentathlon was the 4k race (about 2.5 miles), although it included a run through a thick forest and very muddy pathways. Patton, who had known for only two months that he was heading to Stockholm to represent the US in the pentathlon was not in the condition he would have preferred. But Patton was a ferocious competitor, training hard on the ship – SS Finland – from US to Europe, and then applying a level of energy and aggressiveness that could only be described as all out. In the 300-meter run, he simply swam to exhaustion, but took seventh. In the 4k run, the US trainer decided that Patton could use a little help with a bit of “hop”. That was the nickname for opium, a legal pick-me-up back in the day. Patton ran hard, ended up walking into the Stadium, crossing the finish line in third, and promptly passing out, for several hours.

Patton was an aggressive fencer, but not as aggressive as his wife: Patton approached fencing like he approached warfare – aggressively. In fact, Patton placed fourth in fencing, defeating the French fencer, Jean de Mas Latrie, who had lost only to Patton. As the Wired article quotes a Patton biographer, “Throughout his career, disdain for defense was a Patton trademark. To attack was to succeed, to defend was to invite defeat.” But in this passage from Michael Keane’s book, George S. Patton: Blood, Guts, and Prayer”, Patton was no match for his wife, who was preparing for the family’s move from France to the US, after Patton’s assignment to the École Militaire in Saumur, France.

George and Beatrice Patton
George and Beatrice Patton

As the family prepared to return to America, Beatrice was left to pack their belongings while George attended the fencing academy. The day before they departed, Patton casually remarked to his exhausted wife, “I hope you remembered to pack all those swords under the bed.” Walking into the bedroom, Beatrice discovered dozens of swords and scabbards of which she had been completely unaware. Frustrated that her husband had not appreciated her efforts or informed her of the swords he had been collecting, she angrily picked up one of the weapons and began chasing him around the house. A frantic Patton scurried over chairs and tables, pleading with his furious wife, “Don’t! Don’t! Please don’t!” Beatrice eventually brought the sword down on a table, missing her husband, but hard enough to embed the sword in the edge of the table. A newly compliant husband now offered to help his wife pack his collection.

Here is a clip from the movie, Patton, which has nothing to do with the Olympics, but is still fun to watch.

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