The Shepherds of Athens

Last week’s Olympic 10,000m final, while perhaps not as thrilling as Sydney’s last-lap nail-biter, underlined a fundamental change in the landscape of the longest track race. While the television sound-bite was the young lion (Bekele) supplanting the Emperor (Gebrselassie,) Bekele’s role could have been filled by any number of young Ethiopians.

In the days before Athens was a democracy, and the king was the protector of his people, tradition held that in times of great suffering, the greatest sacrifice that could be made was that of the king himself. One unwilling to make that sacrifice could not be king; indeed, the choice of glory over length of days was what defined a king. Watching Gebrselassie, in the thick of the race he made, protecting the Ethiopians’ control of the pace with his own fragile body, it was easy to imagine Athena Nike (the goddess, not the brand) whispering in his ear, “The king must die.”

In the mid- to late-1990s, Geb was such a powerful force in the long track races that the Kenyans began applying to the track the team tactics they had used in cross country to such success. They attempted to control Gebrselassie by controlling the race. Beginning with Assefa Mezegebu and Habte Jifar in 1997, Gebrselassie and Ethiopian coach Dr. Woldemeskel Kostre countered the Kenyan tactics by building a powerful team capable of running such a tactical race at a very fast pace, a machine trained to deliver a champion to the finish line with lesser medals for the domestiques. In Athens, Gebrselassie sacrificed himself to the machine he built, and by doing so very nearly gave Ethiopia the medal sweep they never managed while he himself was the focus.

Now, flip forward nine days to the men’s marathon, an event where enough bad things can happen that, for the most part, the winner can be defined as, “the athlete whose plan worked.” And yet here, as the Ethiopians and Kenyans wilted, we had Meb Keflezighi, running only his fourth-ever marathon, matching strides with Stefano Baldini, a man whose fourteen-year international career started around the time Gelindo Bordin was thrashing Juma Ikangaa up and down the Newton hills.

Is there a common thread here? I hope so. As we were watching the marathon, a knowledgeable friend of mine said, “They should give a medal to Dave Martin.” Dr. Martin was often mentioned during the telecast due to his “marathon summit” (which Julia Emmons described in this space in May) where the Olympic marathoners and their coaches were extensively briefed on what to expect in Athens. Next to Martin stands Running USA, the organization “based on the idea that its goals can best be achieved through everyone in the sport working together,” which spent the four years between Sydney and Athens developing the marathon depth we saw in Birmingham and St. Louis through its Team USA program.

Clearly the USA wouldn’t have seen such marathon success without two exceptionally talented athletes moving up to the distance, but Paul Tergat will remind you that talent alone is no guarantee of a medal. The other part is solid teamwork from both the athletes and their supporting cast.

And speaking of Paul Tergat, did I see Athena whispering in his regal ear as well?