The Will to Prepare, The Joy of Competition
In the annals of Olympic history there
are champions who stand apart, athletes who not only excelled at the right time
in the right place, but who bestrode their event like a colossus. By virtue of expertise, personality or a
combination of both, they stepped into the competition, made it of their own
design and departed, leaving it richer for their participation. Paavo Nurmi was of that mold; Emil Zatopek;
Viktor Sanyev in the triple jump; possibly Daley Thompson in the
decathlon. All of these athletes stood
apart from their peers, apart even from other Olympic champions. By their manner and their ability they came
to represent their events in their highest forms.
Those same Olympic annals clearly
document that there is one man who exceeds even the above named immortals. A man of German/Czech ancestry who, through
four consecutive Olympiads, dominated his competition to such a degree that
none were able to wrest the Olympic gold medal from him. In 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968, Al Oerter from
Long Island, New York stepped readily into the discus circle and, with the
eagerness of a neophyte, took gold. Four
consecutive victories in the same event.
And, but for family commitments after ‘68, he might have kept right on
going. Cases may be made for Ray Ewry,
Nurmi, Carl Lewis or Jesse Owens as the greatest Olympian ever. They probably are. If you leave out Al Oerter.
These days, at 55 years of age, Oerter
still deports that remarkably powerful frame, still could pass as a Olympic
competitor, in fact a gold medal contender.
He confesses that, of late, other commitments have prevented him from
working out as he would like. But soon,
he says, very soon. “I’m getting antsy.”
That Oerter still includes training
and competition as an important part of his way of life is significant. Most world class athletes from the ‘50's and
‘60's were not imbued with the fitness ethic that was spawned in the 1980's
and, as a consequence, appear not to have continued their involvement with the
sport. There were other U.S. field event
medalists from Oerter’s most recent gold medal Games - Mexico on 1968 - but few
who still actively participate. The
names are easy to recall: Dick Fosbury, Bob Beamon, Ralph Boston, Bob Seagren,
Randy Matson, George Woods and Bill Toomey - but what are their recent PRs?
Oerter was always different, and he
remains so. “I’m the only person in
history to have made a career out of throwing the discus,” he dead pans, before
elaborating on all the reasons why it shouldn’t have been so: poor technique,
inopportune injuries, simple naivety.
Above all of these, however, Oerter conveys through his conversation -
as he did through his competitions - that there was, and still is, one dominating
factor that sets him apart. Call it
attitude, call it commitment, work ethic, diligence, strength of character; by
any name Oerter’s mental orientation towards training and competition was such
that it not only set him apart from the finest competitors in the world, it
also set him above them.
“I never concerned myself with the
competition in Melbourn,” he asserts, as if no further explanation is
required. “In fact,” he continues, “I
never consciously concerned myself with how I do at any of the Games. Why?
Because it was fun. Here was a
cadre of people who were doing the same thing that I was doing. You were going out there - I wouldn’t say
to play games - but to test yourself.
What’s to be fearful about that?”
By its nature, track and field is a sport
begging for this attitude to prevail; it is an individual against him or
herself, plumbing the depths of innate ability.
Marathoner Juma Ikangaa from Tanzania has observed, “The will to win
is nothing without the will to prepare.”
Oerter’s strength lay in combining the will to prepare with a delight
in competition - particularly Olympic competition - that could hardly help
but allow him to win.
“I never felt pressure in the Games,”
he says, conveying once more the impression that this is a truth that ought to
be self-evident. “I always worked to
a point where I would go into a Games absolutely believing that there was
nothing else I could have done to prepare myself any better-mentally,
physically or emotionally. I never
looked back and said, ‘If I’d only done this or hadn’t done that.’ I was always right where I wanted to be at
that moment.”
Ideally, this is the way it should be
for all Olympic athletes: a thorough build-up that relieves rather than
intensifies the competitive pressure.
Unfortunately, in many cases the opposite becomes true; the build-up, no
matter how complete, compounds the desire to excel against the
competition. Yet rather than becoming a
positive force to optimize performance, it undermines confidence and,
ultimately denies the athlete his or her objective. Self-confidence or a degree of mental
fortitude may be the key elements at this stage; Oerter would characterize it
as simple enjoyment.
“I just could not wait to get out on
the field and throw,” he says of his four Olympic competitions. “I knew I was good. I didn’t know if I would win any medals; I
don’t mean it in that sense. But I just
couldn’t wait to get out there and everybody start throwing and let’s see how
we do. Not throw against them and try
and beat your teammates from the United States or try and beat some big
Russian; I never thought of it that way.
I thought,’He’s a big guy. OK, is
he a good thrower? Lets get out there
and find out how good we really are.’ So
what pressure is there? What I saw in
the field of Olympic Games was different for a lot of athletes. Athletes who would be very conversational
before they went out on the field-perhaps because of nervousness-would become a
brooding type of person. There were
stories of athletes trying to psyche each other out. I never saw that; I never played that
game. What I did see were athletes who
were magnificently trained over a four-year period of time themselves in the
last ten minutes. They would fall apart
mentally. All of a sudden they would become
very concerned with their result. ‘Maybe
I didn’t do enough,’ or ‘That guy looks pretty quick.’ They would start reading in their minds the
results of some of the other athletes and, all of a sudden they didn’t want to
be there. Instead of a joyful experience,
it became something to be feared. At
three Games - I don’t know what happened in the first - I can remember feeling
like a child at Christmas time during the ten minutes before competition. I could not wait to start competing. And that’s where you want to be.”
Essentially, Oerter took to the
extreme the dictum that when athletes of similar ability compete-when
centimeters or split seconds are to decide the winner-it is frequently frame of
mind which is the deciding factor.
Customarily this is manifested as aggression or tenacity; in truth that
is only a partial picture. Aggression and tenacity can be swamped by
pressure. When pressure is relished,
and thereby dissipated, aggression can most effectively do its work.
This was Oerter in Tokyo in 1964, his
third Olympics, already a legend and already attempting to do the
unprecedented: three consecutive gold medals in the same event. But at last, it seemed, the gods of track and
field were conspiring against him. While
training on a wet circle, he slipped and fell.
Then he did it again, tearing cartilage in his rib cage and,
effectively, ruling himself out of the Games.
Oerter himself dismisses the fact that he was also suffering with a slipped
disc at the time.
“That was a barrier,” he understates,
alluding to a metaphor he uses these days in his work speaking to major
corporations such as IBM, Visa, Mars and Blue Cross/Blue Shield. His rationalization of and his attitude toward
such a setback serves as the keenest insight into the mind of one of the
greatest track and field athletes of all time.
It might also be considered a working philosophy for track and field
competition, for business - possibly for life.
“The barrier was real,” he continues. “I was hurt.
So, how do you approach competition given that circumstance? Those people who succeed in life when given
that kind of barrier walk up to it and see it for what it is. It’s real.
I’m hurt. No one is going to
fault me for walking away. My kids will
still love me. My dog won’t run away
from home. But you don’t really learn
a whole lot about yourself if you walk away.
If you confront it and you kick it and keep kicking it and you move it
back a notch or two - you compete in the Games and throw regardless of how much
it hurts - then you learn something for the rest of your life.”
Oerter’s life lesson was simply
something to behold. Hoping only to make
it as far as the final rounds, he opened his competitive day by improving his
own Olympic record in the morning’s qualifying round. “I was amazed,” he comments. But the amazing part was still to come. In the afternoon’s final, despite injections
of novocaine, the pain was excruciating.
After each throw he would break open and inhale an ammonia capsule in an
attempt to quell the pain sufficiently to be able to take his next throw. “I would leave the circle not wanting to
throw again for the rest of my life,” he recalls. “It was like getting hit in the ribs by a
sledgehammer each time.”
With two of his six throws remaining,
Oerter lay the best part of two meters behind the Czech powerhouse, Ludvik
Danek (who was to take bronze in 1968 and gold in 1972). Stepping into the circle for the fifth time, Oerter
decided his only hope was to turn especially slowly- “I just could not turn
with any force” - try to hit the best throwing position possible and then whip
the discus out as hard as he could. As
the implement shot from the cage, the familiar pain tore through his rib cage
and, before even ascertaining how far he had thrown, Oerter scratched from the
final round. “I knew it was out there,
but I also knew that was all I could get out of myself. The pain was just too great.” When the discus landed, Oerter, the
consummate competitor, had claimed his third gold medal by little more than a
foot with a throw of 200'01".
“That was a barrier that I confronted
in athletics,” he explains. “I kept
banging away at it, through the morning and the afternoon. I got myself a fairly good throw in Olympic
competition and that was what I wanted.
Never again after that day would I allow that kind of circumstance to
convince me that I was anything less than capable. A similar thing happened in 1968. I pulled a muscle on the inside of my
leg. I didn’t rip it badly, but I
couldn’t swing my right leg through. But
it was a simple matter to revert to 1964 and go through the same learning
process.” Suffice it to say, Oerter won
his fourth Olympic gold in Mexico City in 1968 with a throw of
212'06". This is the theme that
runs throughout the motivational speeches Oerter now gives all over the
country. Thoughtful and thorough
preparation, single-minded determination, resilience and most important, a
proper sense of perspective. And the
supporting messages are powerful: If you focus on beating or exceeding someone
else, in sport or in business, you will limit yourself to their capability; If
the only reason you compete is to beat somebody, then losing becomes a barrier
that may be insurmountable; but if you compete as a true test of yourself, then
you’ve got it made. In a nutshell, if
your physical and mental preparation has been thorough, if your attitude has
been positive and if you recognize the competition for what it is - a forum in
which to compare the best in yourself against the best in others - then, win or
lose, you can walk away satisfied.
Only once in conversation does Oerter
convey any misgivings about his track and field career. The subject concerns drugs, most specifically
his surprising admission in recent years that he had taken testosterone in the
late 1970's as part of his program to make the 1980 Olympic team. Having departed the sport following the 1968
Games in order to devote more time to his two young daughters and to a
burgeoning career in computers, the sight of Mac Wilkins claiming a discus gold
in Montreal in 1976 prompted thoughts of a return to competition. At 40 years of age, however, the burden of
years was an obvious disadvantage.
“Throughout the ‘50's and ‘60's, I
never played with any chemicals at all,” he explains. “At the 1968 Games in Mexico other throwers
started to tell me about some of the things they were doing. But it was really considered at that time as
more of a training aid - at least that’s the excuse they used. I stayed away from the sport for eight years,
and when I came back in 1976 I had got kind of weak. I went to a doctor and went through a
complete physical to make sure I was physically capable of undertaking the kind
of intense training I would need. After
six or eight month, I started to think there was a chance I could make it back
for the Games of 19880, so I talked to the same doctor and told him that I was
anxious to gain some weight and some more strength. ‘Everybody’s been telling me about this
stuff’ I said. ‘How dangerous is
it?’ He said, ‘If you stay under a
doctor’s control, it’s not dangerous.’”
For a period of less than six weeks,
Al received testosterone under the supervision of his doctor. Alarmingly, his body’s immediate response was
to send his blood pressure, already an ongoing problem, skyrocketing. As quickly as it began, therefore, Al’s drug
program ended, salving his peace of mind as well as his rebelling metabolism.
“Sure, sure,” he proffers softly when
asked if he has any moral misgivings about indulging in banned drugs. “That was a shortcut I should never have
taken. And, quite frankly, that’s why I
left the sport (again, in 1980 following a fourth place finish at the Olympic
Trials). I found that the drug
environment was something I just couldn’t handle mentally.”
Oerter’s love for track and field is
such that the message he imparts far outweighs any indiscretion he may have
committed in the twilight of his top level career. On the contrary, his accomplishment - likely
to remain unmatched in Olympic history - and his attitude toward track and
field bespeak an enduring affection for competition at its purest. “It’s such a wonderful sport,” he says with
the enthusiasm of an adolescent. And
when track and field conforms to the Oerter ideal - no ulterior motives, just
sport for its own sake - lessons to be learned are lessons for life.
By James O’Brien
