Recently I have had to sought out by a couple multi-eventers either graduating or coming towards the close of their collegiate careers looking for advice about training post-collegiately. With the closing ceremonies of the Beijing Games just a couple days ago we all have had a great couple of weeks of sport to entertain and inspire us. I'll be the first to say that I'm a bit relieved to see them come to an end as the 2am bedtimes were killing me and I don't have DVR, but with the end of one Olympic cycle brings about an interesting time in Olympic sports like our Track and Field. These times and the turmoil rarely make it to the public conscious but are at the forefront for the athletes themselves. Once I get fired up about something it's hard to stop me so for your sake i'll split this up into two parts as noted by the title.
I can't speak for the outside world, but in American Track & Field, after you explain what you do for a living, the reason you're out in the rain running intervals on Friday evenings, why you, as a man, somehow feel more comfortable in skin tight spandex than you do in basketball shorts down to your ankles, the first question is: so you're going to be in the Olympics? I think everyone has their reasons for being out here, and of course, everyone dreams of walking in that stadium for Opening Ceremonies and getting the rings tattooed on your butt in the Olympic Village (oh, that's just me? nevermind), but there's so much more to it. Four years is a very long time. When you're twenty something like most of us are, four years can be a very long time and thus we are forced to face some very serious questions. I turned 26 a couple days after the Trials this summer. I wake up everyday and love what I do. I have a reason to get to bed every night, a reason to get up in the morning, a reason to eat well and take care of myself as do so many like me. That being said those many are also like me in that we've never had a spring break due to competitions, I never studied abroad because of worries about training, I'm four years removed from college and have never had a real full time job. My parents still pay my college loans for me and part of my car. Did I mention I regularly wear spandex and use friday evenings for interval workouts? Not exactly a stellar move for the social life. I know I did mention I love what I do, but is this where I want to be in four years when I hit the big 3-0? These are some of the questions 1,000s of great athletes around the country are facing right now. Am I willing to sell out another four years of my life?
Please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to sound negative as I have a life and experiences I would never trade in, but there's always the internal sociological tug-of-war.
Unfortunatley the decathlon community, for these very reasons are going to lose some great competitors from our ranks this year.
Ryan Olkowski (Goose), despite my efforts to try to get him up to Boston to join me, at 28 has been feeling the pressure of the outside world for some time now. He also has been blessed with an incredibly supportive family and thanks to his father, he has been able train as a decathlete for the past 6 years since graduatin
g from Penn State.
Joe Cebulski, 31,
sold his house, bought a diesel car he converted to run on vegetable oil, and moved his family nearly across the country for his final shot this past year at the Olympic Team and his dream. I was there when he hit his A-mark qualifier for the trials in
Dallas and was unfortunatley the one to call him with the heads up that USATF was trying to disallow our marks for qualifying due to wind. He sold ten years of his life to our sport and we're all better off for it.
And now what happens of
To
m Pappas? I'm sure we'll still see him competing, but for how long? I'm sure there are questions throughout his head right now. As Bryan Clay jokingly told Pappas in the ice bath after the Trials: "Tom, if you're still around for the next Olympics, I'm going to hit you in the nuts. I'll be 30!" Tom is still one of the greatest athletes in the world (it was just a couple of years ago he became the first person to jump 27' in the long jump, 7' in the high jump, and 17' in the pole vault in the same meet - ridiculous), but has had to pull out of the last two olympics with injury. He's got a wife and a young kid...how much longer do you push it? Yes Tom is one of the few fortunatley to be able to make a living by simply running, but every year after the Olympic a re-evaluation period takes place in which many many athletes quickly find themselves without the sponsors they've relied on going into the Games. Pro Track on this level is business and decathletes anytime outside of an Olympic year are not good business. We eat too much.
Yes there is so much more to the sport than the 4 year cycle, and for the majority of us it is that majority outside of the sport outside the Olympics but although your years, even months in the sport may be numbered and you may never make it anywhere near an Opening Ceremonies, when you step out on the track every single day, into the weight room every morning, into the covers early everynight, maybe only symbolically, but nonetheless, you
are training for the Olympic Games.
(
Pictures copywrite Bill Franks SI Vault)
