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Down to a science Medals rare for U.S. marathoners, steamy
Athens could be different Posted: Friday May 14, 2004
3:22PM; Updated: Tuesday May 18, 2004
10:11AM
U.S. Olympic Marathon Team
Men Women Alan Culpepper Colleen DeReuck Meb Keflezighi
Deena Kastor Dan Browne Jen Rhines
Try as we might, it's at first hard to fathom an American
marathoner leaving Athens with a medal this summer. Olympic
glory in the sprints and a smattering of field events,
especially the big boys in the shot put, perhaps. But Uncle
Sam's distance runners just aren't up to world standards.
So why even suggest it might be different come August? Well,
the answer may be found in what scientists describe as
climatic heat stress. This is a nasty bagful of stuff cooked
up by an Athens summer, like steaming temperatures,
humidity, glaring sunshine and thickly polluted air.
Think Southern California in August, with the mercury
touching the mid-80s when the race starts in the late
afternoon. Then, imagine a
11.2-mile trek into the heart of Los Angeles over a
course with steeper hills than runners climb at the
Boston Marathon.
We're talking about great equalizers bound to slow the pace.
And no country has sunk more sharp minds, money and science
into calculating the fastest way to get its runners from the
sleepy village of Marathon into bustling Athens. Some of
this insight was shared during a marathon team summit last
weekend in Chula Vista, Calif.
"The Athens marathon is different because it is not just how
fast you can run,'' said Dr. David Martin, one of the
country's leading sports physiologists and author of The
Olympic Marathon. "It is how well you can manage the
environment. And to my knowledge there is not a country in
the world that is doing what we're doing in terms of
preparing its athletes. We're essentially running a national
training camp. Bringing in the best minds in the country, in
terms of humidity, hills, altitude, nutrition, energy, pace
-- all together in one place, having spent hundreds of hours
working together as a team in how to cope with the
environment and conditions.
"We've seen the course. We've done our homework. The
athletes also have done their homework. For both men and
women, the three major players who ought to be on the team
are on the team. It is not a fluke. And it is athletes who
want to run the marathon. It's not athletes who are saying,
'Well, I'll go if I don't make the 10,000 meters at the
Olympic Trials.' These people are focused on the marathon.''
But what they've qualified for sounds like pure hell -- a
tough course and brutal conditions. So taxing that at the
last international race over the Athens course, the 1997
World Championships, not a single runner among the top 30
finishers in either the men's or women's field clocked a personal-
best, and the dropout rate was nearly 33 percent.
But if you're going to be geeked for a marathon, this is the
one. The long-distance footrace debuted at the first modern
Olympic Games in 1896. Fast forward to this summer, and
runners will again pound the historic route in what figures
to be a showpiece event of the Athens Games.
Can you think of a more historic sports setting?
The marathon course is likened to Boston, which, to no one's
surprise, was conceived by athletes returning from the 1896
Athens Olympics. Only the original is an even tougher, net
uphill trek. Athens brings a series of rolling hills, much
like Boston, with the equivalent of a five-story climb every
mile from the 16.2 to 19.8 mile mark, followed by a long,
steady, downhill run to the finish that has the potential to
tear up the quads.
"They said it's a fairly polluted place, but I think the
temperature is going to be more of the issue than the air
quality,'' said Alan Culpepper, who captured the marathon
trials in 28 degree weather last February in Birmingham,
Ala. "If it were a race where we were going to set the world
record, then obviously that would be a factor. But under
conditions that are going to exist [a record] will be the
last of everyone's concerns.''
For Americans, the goal is simply to have someone on the
medal stand. Frank Shorter won the last men's medal at the
1976 Montreal Games, while Joan Benoit Samuelson ran to gold
in the inaugural women's race 20 years ago in Los Angeles.
The Greeks want only for the races to come off without a
hitch -- the women run Sunday, August 22, with the men a
week later in what will be the closing event of the Games.
Until then, there'll be no off-days as workers go about
widening from two to four lanes the route Pheidippides
covered 2,500 years ago to bring Athens news of great
victory against the Persian Army.
Dr. Martin drove the course for six hours in late October
and left Athens confident that the highway project would
be completed by the Games. The IOC inspectors declared
plans for the Athens Games on schedule this week, and
the roadwork is likely to be finished by mid-June. What
ought be remembered is construction in the main Atlanta
stadium delayed official marking of the 1996 marathon
course until a month before the Games.
"It is the marathon -- it must be ready,'' Martin said
matter-of-factly.
And the same might be said of the American charges, if they
can master the elements.
Mike Fish is a senior writer for SI.com.