Noting the difference, in time and distance, of gold medalists

With the Olympics winding down and the semi-finals and finals in the different events finding the top performers competing for a chance to be on the medal stand, it gives a person time to reflect on some of the competition. This week, the focus was primarily on the track and field events. Other events were covered but the number of hours compared to track and field were smaller in number and time. It is amazing to me the variety of events covered in the Olympic Games. And several sports have different forms of competition. Rowing has singles, doubles, four-person, eight-person, and also at different lengths. Watching the single person canoe rowing, with the person on one knee and stroking that slim boat, takes an enormous amount of energy and strength. Swimming, diving, golf, wrestling, boxing, judo, karate, tennis, ping pong, handball, basketball, cycling, volleyball, beach volleyball, fencing, skateboarding, archery, the different variety of gymnastics — I am sure I have missed a few while switching channels trying to catch as many sports as I could. 

There was one point that became of interest to me when I was watching a few of the running events in track. Watching the sprints and middle distance events in both men’s and women’s semi-finals in the 100 meters, the 200 meters, the 400 meters and 800 meters where the top performers were the only athletes still competing, it amazed me at what the difference was between being in the finals versus elimination. As an example, the three men’s 200-meter semi-finals was about as close as a race can get. Of the 24 athletes still with the chance for a medal, the difference was something to witness how close the times were. If I recall, of the 24 athletes, 20 of them ran in the 20-second time frame. The other four athletes ran in the 19-second range. In one race, seven of the athletes all finished in the 20-second range. Only the first two make it to the finals. That means two athletes will reach the finals and six of them will be eliminated because they were a fraction of a second in time behind the two winners. I started to wonder what the runner in seventh place felt like knowing that he was only hundredths of a second behind the winner but was out of the competition. There were examples of these close finishes in almost all the running events, from the 100 meters to the 800 meters. 

As a comparison, to try and imagine how it felt to lose by such a narrow margin, I started to think about my own ability compared to an Olympic athlete. Most of my recent recollection thought about the 10,000-meter run. On my better days, I managed to run the 10K distance in 38 minutes and some seconds. The winning runner in the 10,000-meter race finished in 27 minutes and some seconds. I was only 11 minutes behind the winner. Thinking a little further into this comparison, I wondered how I would have finished behind the winner. I ran about a 6:30-per-mile pace, usually. That means that at a 6:30-per-mile pace for 11 minutes, I was only a little over a mile and a half behind the winner in a 6.2-mile race. For some reason, the 11 minutes did not seem so bad as being beaten by over a mile and a half in a 10K race. It sure gave me a different perspective on things and just how fast these elite Olympic runners are. It sort of put me in that "way below average" ability of a runner.

Also, watching how some athletes handle winning was interesting to watch. The high jump competition was one of the best. Two athletes tied for first with the same height and number of misses. The officials asked them if they wanted a ‘jump off’ to see who gets the gold. The one runner asked if they could have a tie for the gold medal. When told that both could win the gold medal the one athlete jumps up in the air, hugs the other athlete, and has the widest, happiest smile on his face that I have ever seen. For some athletes, winning a medal in the Olympics, whether it is gold, silver or bronze is the reward for all the hours spent training to reach this level. The other extreme was when the athlete faulted, fell or was injured and had to forfeit a chance to compete. All those hours of work seemed to result in the ultimate disappointment for the athlete. 

One side note is the fact that the Olympics are every four years and my time spent working out or going for a walk will only suffer for two weeks of being a couch potato. It might make next week a little difficult but once every four years is not as bad as losing by over a mile and half.