Gold Rush

The short interval between the races challenged all the competitors in terms of what kind of warm-up to do. On our way out to the warm-up track to get ready for the semi-final, Coach said that he had thought a lot about it and decided it would be best if we went back over to the warm-up track after the semi-final, rest for half an hour, then do a modified warm-up of about 50 per cent of what we would normally do. He felt that in view of this awkward and unfamiliar situation it would be best to stick to our pre-race routine as much as possible. The last thing we wanted during the biggest event of our lives was to create a new pre-race routine even in the face of such unusual circumstances. The decision was a brilliant coaching move.

The semi-final went well. When I came out of the curve far ahead, I decided to slow down and conserve my energy for the final. With 75 metres to go in the semi-final of the Olympics, I was so far ahead I could have stopped running and still win. So that’s exactly what I did.

Before the final, I lay on my massage therapist’s table for half an hour, running the race over and over and over in my mind. Coach went to see how the lanes had been allocated. Upon his return I tried to ascertain from his face what lane I had drawn. The preference was lane four or five. Coach didn’t show any emotion. I think he didn’t really care which lane I got because he knew I could win from any lane, but I was intent on running the fastest possible time and wanted every advantage I could get.

Since the 200 is such a short race, I wasn’t as concerned about making an error as I had been in the 400. My main concern was trying to run as fast as I possibly could. Lane five, with its gentler curve than three or four, would be perfect. In addition, it would give me the opportunity to have at least one of the faster qualifiers outside of me in lane six as a rabbit. Instead of lane five, however, I drew lane three. Not ideal, but not as bad as it could have been. Besides, Frankie Fredericks from Namibia, a friend and someone for whom I have tremendous respect, Ato Boldon from Trinidad, and the Cuban Ivan Garcia, who was an incredibly quick starter, would all be in the lanes outside of me. That meant three good rabbits!

I put on my headphones, which I always used when I first arrived at the warm-up track to help me get into my own zone and focus, and to minimise distractions. Although I have always enjoyed a wide range of music from jazz to rap, 2Pac was one of my favourite artists. For the 400, I would always listen to some up-tempo R&B; Dangelo was a favourite. But for the 200 I liked to get into a more forceful mode, so I had a playlist of rap music to match the more aggressive approach needed for the 200 metres. For this race, I chose 2 Pac’s ‘Me Against the World’.

Coach walked over. ‘It’s time,’ he said. I already knew that; I had been looking at my watch every couple of minutes, waiting impatiently for that 30-minute pre-race period to be over so I could start moving again and getting ready. I started to do a modified warm-up which went really well. Then we got back on the bus.

Coach was really serious. I knew he was nervous because he had walked around the warm-up track for almost the entire 30 minutes while I was resting, which was always his tell. He didn’t say anything on the bus back to the Olympic stadium; neither did I. With my headphones back on I started to listen to 2Pac again. Same song – ‘Me Against the World’. The tempo was slower than I wanted, but it was saying all the right things. I did feel it was me against the world. Everyone else in the race – and in any race I was in – could make their careers from beating me. I couldn’t blame them for gunning for me. That’s what they were supposed to do.

‘Watch your start,’ Coach said when we got off the bus, reminding me not to pop straight up out of the blocks, which I tend to do as a result of my naturally more upright running style. Then he just said, ‘Go get ’em.’

In the warm-up area under the stadium where the other athletes waited, I checked in again with the officials, then sat in a corner by myself just running the race over and over again in my mind. I started to think about the camera flashes that would accompany my eighth entry into the stadium that week. I had been told that the flashes actually followed me around the stadium as I ran. That then led me to think about how big this would be if I was successful.

I knew what the next thought would be. How big this would be if I failed. Competing in athletics at the Olympic level is probably more difficult from a pressure standpoint than any other sport. With the Games taking place only every four years, the average Olympic athlete might make two Olympic teams in his career. So he has to go into an Olympics knowing that this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity – he may never get another. To compound that sense of pressure, the athlete also knows that it is the biggest crowd he will ever compete in front of, and that the focus at home is on him. Everyone in his country is watching him and wanting him to win. This is not just any other competition.

So then how do you approach it from a mental standpoint? You know that it is special and the history and the magnitude of the Olympics can’t be ignored. But if you are to have your best performance, the type of performances you have had to get to this point, you must compete the way you competed in those competitions. So as an athlete you must strike a balance: on the one hand understanding the special nature of this competition and the rarity of the opportunity, on the other preparing and competing the same way you would in any other competition. That’s not easy to do, and it takes tremendous mental toughness to strike that balance and to resist the natural temptation to compete harder when the stakes are higher and the opportunity is greater. Competing harder can be dangerous. You can now run tight or overdo the preparation or the execution.

I was certainly at risk in that way. Having just completed four rounds of 400-metre races, including the final just two days before the start of the 200 metres, I was now about to run my eighth race of the Games. Certainly fatigue would have started to set in. I had known all along throughout my preparation and training for this task that it would be difficult and I would have to run a mistake-free race because so much was at stake. But even thinking about the stakes could easily stymie my ability to execute.

I immediately started running the race in my mind again. I knew that when I needed to be focused it wasn’t enough to tell myself not to think about things that didn’t matter or that were a distraction from the task immediately ahead. That didn’t work. I had to, first, recognise immediately when I was becoming distracted, and then replace that thought with something else. And the best something else was always the task at hand. So I always started with the bang of the gun and me reacting to it, and then visualised, step by step, myself executing the race to perfection.

Finally the official notified us that we had five minutes before going out. It was night-time and the temperature was perfect. I put on my spikes and waited. At this point I would always take the opportunity to look at my competition to see if I could gauge their feelings at this moment. Are they feeling confident, afraid or absolutely scared to death? Frankie’s demeanour was always mellow, which you might take for scared but that would be a mistake. I knew Frankie well and I knew that the fact that he didn’t have an aggressive personality did not mean that he wouldn’t run a fast race. Ato Boldon was the opposite. He always purposely carried himself with confidence. But he had never beaten me and I saw nothing in him that made me think today would be any different.

They lined us up according to lane and we walked out into the stadium. I didn’t look into the stands despite the flashes going off, but I couldn’t help noticing the screams and yells, all of which seemed to be directing me to win this race. ‘Go Michael!’ ‘You’re the best, Michael.’ ‘Give me your shoes!’ ‘I love you!’ Talk about pressure! But I liked being the favourite.

I walked on to the track, sat my bag down and positioned my blocks. ‘If I don’t run as fast as I know I can, it will be because of my start,’ I thought. So I took a practice start, going out about 200 metres. It was a good one. My starts were kind of a mixed bag. Sometimes I would get a good one and sometimes I would get an okay one. Rarely would I get a great one and never would I get a terrible one. I was happy with this one.

I got back to my blocks and settled in for another practice start. I got into the set position and imagined the bang of the gun and took off. I didn’t like my second start at all, but I kept running and focused on the drive phase of the race. If a start didn’t go well there was nothing I could do about it. I had to move on.

The drive phase went well, but it always did. I never had a problem with that part of the race. I walked back to my blocks, sat down and waited for the command to take our warm-up clothes off. I wouldn’t risk another start no matter how dissatisfied I had been with the last one, because that was not part of my routine.

As I sat there I thought about the Olympic 200 metres final I was about to run. Suddenly what had happened during the previous 1992 Olympics in Barcelona flashed in my head. As I normally did whenever I recognised that I had lost focus, I started my automatic default mechanism of visualising myself running the race. But part of my mind continued to dwell on the disappointment I’d suffered in Barcelona. I tried to control my thoughts. ‘Your competitors don’t care about your disappointment four years earlier,’ I told myself. ‘They just want to beat you today.’

Finally, I decided to allow myself to think about 1992. ‘I have run this race over and over again in my mind a million times and I’m ready,’ I told myself. ‘I wanted that gold medal in Barcelona so badly. This is another chance to get it. And I’m not going to let anything stand in my way. I’m healthy and ready to go.’

‘Warm-ups off,’ announced the official. I stopped thinking about 1992 and stripped down to my shorts and tank top. I was happy that I had allowed myself to think about Barcelona. That would be even more motivation for me.

Just moments before the start of the Olympic 200 metres final, I couldn’t help but remind myself, ‘This is not just any other race. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I can win it and I can make history, but to do that I must run a mistake-free race.’ Deep into my focus, I thought about the things that I needed to do in the race along with those areas where I was most prone to making a mistake. I knew that Frankie and Ato, both being 100 metres specialists, were better starters than me. I also knew that a poor start induced by my thinking ahead to the 100-metre mark had caused me to lose to Frankie a couple of weeks earlier. Frankie had improved so much lately that I knew I would have to have a greater advantage over him at the halfway point of the race than I had in previous victories if I was going to beat him again.

While that was good knowledge to have before the race, I knew it was a mistake to be thinking ahead. You must take one stage of the race at a time and you must be focused only on the present stage of the race as opposed to two stages or even one stage ahead. Thinking about what I needed to be doing at the halfway mark meant that I wasn’t fully focused on the start and reacting to the gun. I vowed I would not repeat the mistake that had cost me a win just 14 days before.

After the introductions, which seemed to take forever, the starter finally called us to the starting blocks. At his cry of ‘On your marks’ I wanted to get into my blocks right away because I was ready to go. But that wasn’t my routine. I hated to be in position and have to wait for someone to finally start getting into theirs, so I always delayed a few seconds.

When I saw that everyone was getting into their blocks, I got into mine and waited. The starter announced, ‘Set!’ I rose to the set position and focused on the impending sound of the gun. Bang! I exploded out of the blocks.

My reaction time, 0.161 seconds, my best ever, was so good, I wasn’t ready for it. I drove my left foot off the rear block, pushed with my right foot on the front block and, with all of the force that I had, thrust my right arm forward and swung my left arm back, keeping my head down all through the first driving step out of the blocks. It went perfectly. Then everything switched and now I was pulling my right foot forward and pushing on the ground with my left foot and driving my left arm forward and swinging my right arm back with equal force as in the first stride. That all went perfectly as well.

Normally this process of driving out of the blocks with these steps goes on for at least ten steps. Ideally, the way the blocks are set up, during these ten steps your body is at a maximum 45-degree angle in relation to the track, which allows each step not to push down on the track but to push against the track, propelling your body forward with each push. In order to overcome gravity, a sprinter must utilise upper body strength and power and exaggerate the swing of the arms to prevent tripping and falling over.

I had shot out of the blocks so rapidly – probably due to a surge of adrenaline along with my intensified focus on the start – that my body bent at an angle deeper than the ideal 45 degrees. And my arm swing was not sufficient to keep up with the angle that I had achieved. That caught up with me on the third step. I was going back to my right foot driving forward, and my left foot had already made contact with the ground and I was starting to push with it. Just as I was switching over I felt my upper body start to fall over. To catch myself and stay upright, I had to shorten my right foot stride to hit the ground quicker than it should have.

I had allowed the moment and what I was about to do to take me out of my normal start which, while maybe not as great as some of the other sprinters, was good for me. I had just gotten the best start of my life, but I couldn’t handle a start that good. Focusing on the magnitude of the event and what was at stake, instead of executing the best I knew how, almost cost me Olympic gold and history. Fortunately one of the things that I was always good at and always prepared for is holding composure and getting over mistakes and moving on.

Mistakes are part of competing. You know that they will occur and you always try to minimise them, but when one happens during the race you must move on and determine quickly whether there is an adjustment to be made as a result of that mistake or if you continue with the same plan. I knew that having made a mistake you could not dwell on it or allow it to impact negatively on the rest of your race.

Luckily I had trained myself to deal with mistakes, so despite the stumble I was able to continue executing. I began making ground on the fast-starting Cuban, who I figured had left his best race in the semi-final in which he had come in second. I continued to drive and started to focus on Frankie Fredericks, two lanes outside of me. He was running well, but not making any ground on Ato Boldon, who was also running well.

I stopped thinking about them and focused back on my race, which was going excellently. At 60 metres into the race I was up on the Cuban and gaining on Frankie. I had already taken a lot out of the stagger, which meant that even though Frankie was still ahead of me I was winning the race because he had started ahead of me due to the staggered start. I was beginning to prepare for the transition from running the curve to running on the straight, which would happen at the 90 to 110 metres stage, the halfway point of the race. I was positioning myself so that during that transition I would start to gradually go from the inside to the outside of my lane. In addition to that small adjustment, I also started to gradually straighten up, since my left shoulder was slightly lower than my right as I leaned into the curve. When I came out of the curve I was far ahead of Frankie, Ato and the rest of the field.

At this point I knew I wouldn’t see any of the competition again. I also knew that I had won the race. Now it was all about maintaining form. Unlike the end of a 400-metre race, where you try to maintain form and fight against fatigue, in the last 100 metres of the 200 you try to run as fast as possible and maintain your technique, which is everything when it comes to efficiency and quickness. I was going well. Everything had been perfect except for that stumble. I reminded myself to run five metres past the finish line to ensure I didn’t slow down in trying to lean.

Five metres from the finish line I felt my hamstring go. Had the strain happened 20 metres earlier I wouldn’t have finished the race. But at this point I didn’t even slow down, even though it made the injury hurt worse. I only focused on the clock, which stopped at 19.32. Overjoyed, I threw my hands up in the air. ‘Yes!’ I screamed. I had shattered my old record of a month before. At the Olympic trials I had shaved 12 hundredths of a second off the record of 19.72 that had stood for 17 years. And now I had bettered that by just over a third of a second (34 hundredths to be exact). As the crowd screamed, with everyone on their feet and clapping, I continued to yell ‘Yes!’

As I walked back, Frankie came towards me smiling. I shook his hand and hugged him. Then Ato came over and started to bow down to me as he laughed. I hugged him and he congratulated me.

That’s when I finally grasped what had really just happened. I had completed the double. Relief, joy and elation swelled. Then I started to feel pain in my hamstring. It had been there since crossing the finish line, but the excitement had overridden the pain. I continued to ignore my leg. At that point I didn’t care if it fell off. I had won double Olympic gold!

2.

CATCHING OLYMPIC FEVER

I was an unlikely superstar. I was shy when I was growing up and used to get embarrassed very easily. My biggest fear was always – and to a lesser degree still is – the notion that everyone’s laughing at me but I don’t know it.

My older brother and three older sisters were the exact opposite, so they teased me a lot and embarrassed me even further by pointing out how I would do anything to avoid embarrassment. They thought that was pitiful. I didn’t care what they thought. I just knew that I didn’t like the feeling of being humiliated.

Unfortunately as a youngster that happened to me fairly consistently. When I was seven years old I had a friend named James who was the same age and lived two houses down from me. We played a lot, but whenever he didn’t like something that I did he would hit me. Each time that happened, I cried and slunk back to my house. When we moved to a new neighbourhood a year later, a kid named Keith, who was exactly like James, took over the role of friendly bully. We played together a lot, but it bothered him that I was better at sports than he was. So whenever he wanted to show me that he was better than me at something, he would want to fight me, because he knew I didn’t like to fight. So he would hit me. Once again, I would slink back home instead of retaliating.

My brother and sisters didn’t like that at all. Determined that I shouldn’t go on embarrassing the family by allowing myself to get beaten up, they tried to teach me how to fight. But I just didn’t like fighting. This went on for about three years. One day Keith took my bicycle and wouldn’t give it back. When he finally stopped and threw my bike down, I was so angry I punched him in the face. He tried to hit me back but I pushed him down and jumped on top of him and beat the crap out of him. ‘Don’t stop,’ yelled my brother and one of my sisters, who happened to be present at the time. ‘How many times has he hit you? Hit him back for every time.’ Eventually they pulled me off him and he ran home. After that we played together for years, without a single fight. I had evened the playing field and claimed my own sense of power. I felt good about myself after that and knew I would no longer have to live with that fear and embarrassment of not being able to take care of myself.

Although I could best Keith in sports, I wasn’t great in that department. Of course, that’s a relative statement. At the informal knockabout games at the park that defined my afternoons and weekends during elementary school, I’d get chosen first by my buddies for soccer and (American) football because of my speed. I was not as good at basketball. Not being considered one of the best didn’t sit well with me. So after finishing my homework or in the summers when school was out, I would take the basketball my grandfather had given me and go up to the court to practise shooting baskets. That was the only way I would learn to play better and get chosen first in that sport as well.

Even though I loved playing all sports, I loved experiencing the sensation of speed the most. I loved to run – and run fast. I would ride my bike fast. I had a skateboard and I would ride my skateboard fast. I would find a hill and ride my bike down the hill still pedalling fast, or I would run down the hill because I discovered that I could go faster if I was going downhill.

I was fast from the beginning. I think I first realised that I was fast at age six while playing with a few kids in my neighbourhood. About ten of us had decided to have a race at the park near my house. My friend Roderick who was also six was there, along with some older kids. One of them, Carlos, was my sister Deidre’s age, so he had to be about ten or eleven years old. We all lined up and we were running about 50 yards to a football goalpost. One kid called the start. He said, ‘On your marks, get set, go!’ and by the time he said go half the kids had already taken off. Even though I was late on the take-off, I managed to catch everyone, including the older kids, and won the race. ‘I didn’t even start on time, and I had to catch you all and I still won,’ I screamed to all the other kids. Of course, I had been playing sports with these kids for a while and always got to the ball first. So it was no surprise to anyone that day that I was fast – except me.

Even then, however, there was a difference between outrunning someone on the football field while trying to score a goal, or trying to prevent someone else from scoring a goal, and the lack of any subjectivity or complication in a foot race between me and others. The simple nature of a foot race was appealing to me. There was no skill or technique required at that point. It was simply a question of who was fastest. I wanted to be that person. And most times I was.

I was always very proud of winning. Every year in elementary school we had field day, a competition among all the kids in the school with events like the long jump and 50-yard dash. That was the only event I was really interested in and I won some blue ribbons. I remember one particular field day my mother had come up to the school to watch me participate. I won the race and looked over for her reaction. She was clapping and smiling as she nodded her head to me in approval. Having my mother there to watch me felt really good. I couldn’t wait to get home to hear her tell me how proud she was.

After school was over I ran home with my ribbon. I showed it to her as soon as I burst through the door. She looked at it, told me I had done a good job, then told me to get started on my homework and do my chores. That was the balance my parents showed. They were happy for me to participate in sports if it made me happy, but they never got carried away with it.

In addition to the school field days I also participated in a parks and recreation summer track programme called the Arco Jesse Owens Games. Every neighbourhood had a park, and in the summer kids from all the parks would come together and be grouped by age so they could compete against one another in different track and field events. I competed in the 50-yard dash and 100-yard dash. The first summer my sister Deidre and I participated in the Arco Jesse Owens Games, I had been the fastest in my age group at my park but finished in the middle of the pack at the Games. I didn’t like that feeling. I didn’t even know the other kids. I didn’t know if they were better than me. I just knew that I wanted to win and I had a strong belief that I could win. I told myself I would try harder the next time I had an opportunity to race. I honestly didn’t know what else I could do in the face of defeat.