Marathon Running – Drama within Drama – Close finishes, Heroes and Villains – Ethiopian Journey - Blog Post – 24

Anderson - Schiess, the never say die swiss marathon Runner 

In the 1984 Olympics, the 39-year-old Anderson-Schiess, the Swiss marathon runner enters the stadium. Unfortunately for her, she missed the fifth and the last water serving station and had become dehydrated.  She is 400 metres from the finish line. She is totally done. She moves, hobbles, her torso horribly twisted, Her left arm limp, her right leg which had lost of its mobility. The volunteers are helpless. If they help, she would be disqualified. 

In front of thousands of spectators who are awed and shocked to their core, the spectacle unfolds. She takes many minutes and the race is forgotten. All the spectators are involved.  As she struggles, her struggle becomes their own. They cheer her on vociferously, the whole way. After many agonizing minutes she still gamely continues and holds her head in her hands. She is in agony but does not give up. She is still at it. It is mind over matter. Her entrance to the Olympic stadium and the struggle to cross the last 400 metres takes her five minutes and 45 seconds. 

Finally, she crosses the line accompanied with deafening roar. The winner too did not get that type of reception! She faints and is taken to a hospital and luckily recovers. There are many runners who have died running or trying to run the marathon. 

Time is such a big issue in sports that it can be a barrier in itself. The 100 (hundred) metres dash is over in ten seconds flat. That is as much time as we take in reading a string of 50 words!  Ask P. T. Usha. She came 4^th in the 400 metres dash in 1984 Olympics. She clocked a heart breaking 55.55 seconds and the bronze medal was won in 55.54 seconds. P. T. Usha was slower by 1/100^th of a second.

Motivating Video, Never give up 

That night it was very difficult for me to sleep. India never won a medal in Track and field. A medal in the track and field was ours for the taking and we missed it by a proverbial whisker! I am sure P.T. Usha does not spend a day without thinking “what if, what if, what if I had just lunged at the finish line” ‘what if, what if’ will linger on for a life time. Too much of a mile-stone to be carried on the slim shoulders of P.T. Usha. Hats off Usha, we are always indebted to you for the lovely memories.

Most inspiring Marathon runner ever 

India beat Pakistan in the inaugural T20 International Cricket World Cup in 2007. In a heart stopping last over, Joginder Singh bowls Misba-Ul-Haque a fairly decent delivery. Misba had a brain freeze and had a real swing at the ball. It is all in the mind. Misba was overcome by the situation. He wanted to be done with it. Sreesanth circles down the ball and takes a well-judged catch and that was that! India wins the world cup.

Spare a thought for all four players in this real life drama.  Misbah-Ul-Haq the batsman, becomes the villain number one in Pakistan. It is easily forgotten that he brought his country so close to winning. He brought them very close – just a stroke away from winning the world cup. Yet so near and yet so far.

On the other side the Indian captain, Ice cold Dhoni who had the guts to bowl Joginder Singh in the last over.  It could have gone horribly wrong and Dhoni would have been left holding both the baby and the bath water! He would have carried the blame for a life time. Just like Chetan Sharma, who even today is blamed for bowling that full toss to Javed Miandad, who swung it to six and win the Australasia cup for Pakistan in 1986.

And what went on in the minds of Sreesanth and Joginder is worth a million dollars! As Sreesanth waited with baited breath, did he get the thought of failing? I don’t know. I think the adrenaline rush takes over and the sports people live in the present! Very easily it could have been the other way round! Pakistan winners and India being the runners up.   So let us be sympathetic to sports persons and understand their problems and try to look at sports with the needed compassion. Let us remember that the players whom we are watching are playing as we can’t or can’t play better than them! 

Sports; makes you die and die for – Ethiopian Journey – Blog post -23

Most of us don’t understand things as they are. We get to see them as depicted by the popular media or by rabble rousers or opinion makers like Arnab (Arnab Goswami is a news Anchor for a Television channel in India). Arnab has made news very watchable but it is more like a rough and tumble, wild west boxing match. Everything is okay as long as many punches are thrown and there is blood and gore.

We are an armchair-sitting generation, that takes most things for granted. Especially more so when it comes to sports. We are critical to the point that we are smug and very self-opinionated. Everything is taken for granted. Allow me to enlighten.

Javier Sotomayor, clearing 2.45 metres, a world record

The world record for high jump for men is 2.45 metres or 8 feet and ¼ inch. You read it right! I can imagine some readers gasping in disbelief! YES 8 feet. You need to take a fast run to the pit, bend backwards and arch your back and sail over the bar. Pressure is building and an inch here and there could be a gold, silver or a bronze medal. Or being called an also run or a failure.  What is heart stopping is that many athletes are between 6 feet to 6.5 feet tall and are expected to jump much more than their height and that too without any support.

That is why I would suggest to my readers to watch the sports live in a stadium. Nothing more exciting than seeing a world class athlete soaring over a high jump bar just like a bird. Or gape like mad as you watch an athlete literally fly as they clear 6 metres to achieve glory in pole vault. 

Sergi Bubka, the legendary pole vaulter from USSR had a mind boggling 28 world records (17 outdoor and 11 indoor) to his credit. 

Bubka set his final world record of 6.15 (20.17 feet) in February 1993 in Donetsk which stood for almost 21 years. He had once said “Every new world record attempt is a nerve shattering experience. It is a height that no one has ever cleared. So unless it is cleared the butterflies in my stomach would never settle down”.

Coming to Ethiopia, we all seem to think that running comes naturally to them. Yes, running is fun and only, if it is for a kilometre or two. But we are talking about pounding kilometres monotonously for days, months or even years. The world record for a marathon is 2 hours 6 minutes to cover 42 Kilometres and 195 metres. Covering 42 kilometres in two hours!  That is covering one kilometre in 3 minutes. At that speed the athletes are literally flying. Their feet are off the ground, bodies are heaving, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, and their entire being drenched in sweat.  They are in a zone of their own. It is fascinating to see people run. For the present generation, even walking to the lift or changing channels of a TV is a chore or a boring exercise!  I urge you all, to atleast try running a kilometre at your own pace to understand our athletes before being critical about them.

The marathon is a killer sport. It entails running 42.195 kilometres at one go and without stopping. A fascinating sport. The only sport that can’t be practised in its totality. One can’t run a marathon every day! Most athletes run the marathon only on the marathon day! Every marathon is a life changing event. It is said that first 10 Kms are fun, second 10 Kms are by practice, penultimate 10 Kms are out of endurance and last 10 Kms are full of pain where every muscle, bone and blood cell is crying out of pain and frustration. There are thousands of reasons to stop and only one reason to continue. The reason is self-belief, to prove a point to yourself and finally the pride of running for the country.  The last 2 Kms are pure torture, the lungs are sobbing, breath is forced, the legs are wobbly and the blood starts accumulating in the eyes.