Not bad, I think. From now on, I’m known as The Blade.
Every Friday night I race against some of the top adult sprinters in the world. Kids my own age don’t stand a chance. That summer I win the match sprint at the Pennsylvania state championships, which entitles me to attend the junior worlds team tryouts in Indianapolis. On the somewhat lumpy Indy track, I establish myself as the top junior sprinter in the country and make the junior worlds team.
Just over a year ago I boarded an airplane for the first time in my life. Now I’m jet-setting across the Atlantic to junior worlds in Odense, Denmark. Odense is a 1,000-year-old port town with narrow cobblestone streets and rows upon rows of old brick buildings. The Odense velodrome mimics the T-Town track—an outdoor oval, 333 meters long with a smooth concrete surface and a grassy infield. The breeze off the North Sea brings a fierce chill to the track.
The coach who accompanies us in Odense, Jim Grills, tells me and the rest of the team to focus on gaining experience for the junior world championship in Moscow next year, my last year in the junior ranks. Grills admits the Russian and German juniors dominate track cycling. I shouldn’t expect to medal against them. Aim for a top 15 placing, he tells me.
Once the competition starts, I exceed the coach’s expectations by simply qualifying for the sprint tournament. (Riders who don’t set a fast enough flying-200-meter qualifying time aren’t even seeded in match-sprint tournaments.)
But because my time isn’t spectacular, I’m placed against the top rider in the first round, an 18-year-old German named Jens Fiedler. I’m overwhelmed. Typically, I’m the aggressor, but at worlds I race timidly. Fiedler rides away from me, and the rest of his opponents. He wins the junior world championship. I finish 17th overall.
At the end of the ’88 season, the junior national championships return to T-Town. Though I’m the top-ranked junior sprinter in the country, I still haven’t won an official national title. I should win easily, but I face plenty of youthful distractions. The local paper touts my exploits at junior worlds. Kids all over town know my name.
When a local cycling magazine profiles me for junior nationals, I tell them my interests outside racing include my car—a Dodge Daytona Turbo—and girls. I regularly draw attention to myself with typical teenage hijinks. “I’m crazier in my car than I am on my bike,” I tell the reporter. Girls line up to ride in my Daytona.
Gil and I pull up to the track for practice the day before the match-sprint finals, and a cute girl I’ve been flirting with spots me. She comes running across the gravel parking lot, barefoot, gingerly hopping across the rocks.
“Marty, what’re you doing tonight?” she asks.
“Sleeping,” Gil says, glaring at me. But I have different plans.
That night Gil leaves his house after dinner. “Where are you going?” his wife asks.
“To make sure that punk kid didn’t sneak out,” he replies. He drives by my parents’ house. My car’s not there, so he parks down the street.
He watches me pull back in past midnight.
The next day Gil asks me what time I went to bed.
“Early,” I tell him.
“Bullshit,” he says. I’m busted. Gil lays into me. He won’t let me make the mistakes he made. He was a junior world champion, on track to race in the Olympics, and he threw it away. I vow not to let social temptations jeopardize my performance again.
Despite the late nights, I go on to win the 1988 junior national championship for match sprints. I look forward to 1989. I plan on bringing home my own junior world championship medal.
On the weekends that I’m not racing, Jay and I stay with my dad, out at his cabin. My dad realizes he nearly lost his two youngest sons when my mom kicked him out. He doesn’t booze as much anymore. He makes time for his kids. He wakes us up early and has us do chores around the property. We clear brush and chop wood for the upcoming fall and winter. My dad teaches Jay and me the value of hard work.
When we finally finish the chores, we get to play. We fish for bass and crappie in the lake behind my dad’s cabin. Jay and I catch turtles and snakes just for the challenge, then throw them back. My dad tows us up and down the lake behind his rickety motorboat. We tell him to crank up the speed. “Faster, faster,” we yell, laughing wildly as we wipe out in a tangle of arms and legs.
Every fall my dad loads us up in his truck. We drive north of the Lehigh Valley, up into the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania’s Bradford County—my family’s traditional hunting grounds. The first day of deer season falls on the Monday after Thanksgiving. Rural Pennsylvania schools give kids the day off—because none of them would be in attendance, anyway—but my dad lets Jay and me skip a few extra days of class to try to bag a buck.
For me, life revolves around two seasons: bike racing season and hunting season. While my dad may not offer much support of my early cycling endeavors, he turns me into an adept outdoorsman. I fibbed to get my first hunting license at 11 years old. Our family’s hunting lineage spans three generations. We camp out with my dad’s brother, Earl, and a crew of friends with whom they’ve hunted for more than 30 years.
My dad gets up 3 hours before the sun rises over the low-slung mountains and makes a breakfast of eggs and scrapple, a fried Pennsylvania Dutch breakfast side made of pork scraps, cornmeal, and spices. Then we hike into the woods. We head for our ground blinds, made out of loose branches and brush, and sit motionless in the cold morning air. I hold my rifle at the ready, waiting for a buck to enter my range. We wait, and wait, and wait. Patience, my dad says. The buck will come to you. I hear sticks crackle under deer hooves. I see a group of does. I can’t wait to fire. Patience, my dad says.
The buck follows them. I count the points on the buck’s antlers. One, two,…six, a worthy kill. I nestle the riflescope up to my eye and cradle the butt firmly above my armpit. One deep breath in. One deep breath out. The crosshairs line up just behind the buck’s shoulder blade as it saunters through the trees. I take another breath. The buck stops and swivels its head side to side. It stiffens, sensing danger. I squeeze the trigger. The buck drops to the forest floor.
At night around the campfire, my dad and all the old PA Dutch men slap me on the back. Between their big German hands they pass a bottle of scotch. The flames crackle and hiss as I sit and listen to them talk. Most of what I know about being an outdoorsman—about being a man—I absorb from these woods, sitting around this fire. I learn more on these hunting trips than in any classroom.
In the spring of 1989, I’m finishing my senior year of high school. I’ve grown into my lanky limbs. In the gym, I can squat 400 pounds. At 18, I’m becoming one of the fastest guys on Friday nights, but I still let more experienced riders outmuscle me in the final laps. Because the spectators love the contact, and the racers know how to handle their bikes, the officials let the riders get away with murder on Friday nights. Hooks, shoulders, elbows, and headbutts fly with reckless abandon at the T-Town track.
Gil and Whitehead teach me how to hold my own in the rough-and-tumble rush to the line. We hook and chop one another during road rides, and sometimes get so physical sprinting for town limits signs someone ends up sliding across the pavement. One evening Gil and Whitehead take me out for some keirin practice under the lights at the track. They aim to teach me how to bump and jostle for position in the final lap.
They pin me between them and bounce me back and forth. They’re having fun, picking on the junior, just as they do in the races. Then I stick a shoulder under Gil, flipping him up and over his handlebars. He hits the track and a big chunk of flesh comes out of his ass. Okay, Gil and Whitehead say, keirin practice is over.
I can hold my own against grown men, and I’m a man among boys when I race other juniors. On the day of my graduation from Emmaus High, I meet my local rival, J. D. Moffitt, in the finals of the senior state track championships. We’ll receive our diplomas in a ceremony at Emmaus High that evening, but first we’ll battle on the track.
Both of us q
ualified for the ’89 junior worlds team earlier in the spring, and are slated to race for world championship medals in Moscow a month from now. This race is for local bragging rights—which we take more seriously than any world title.
In the first sprint, I give J. D. a hook in the final turn, just as on Friday nights, and cruise across the line uncontested. The officials relegate me and give J. D. the win. I’m livid. Under the lights on Friday, with the fans watching, the same official would never relegate me, but against another junior, they accuse me of dangerous riding.
I have to win two sprints in a row now. But it shouldn’t be a problem. I already beat J. D. in the junior state championship earlier that afternoon. In fact, J. D.’s never beaten me in a match-sprint competition. He’s a kilo rider, incredibly fast over three laps, but if I’m anywhere near him when I see the finish line, I win, every time.
We get ready for the second sprint. I see J. D. whisper something to his dad, who’s holding him on the start line. The official blows the whistle. J. D.’s dad gives him a huge push. J. D. takes off from the gun. It’s a suicide move, but J. D. puts his kilo talent to use. I can’t catch him. He beats me for the first time, ever. If I rode J. D. clean the first ride, I would have won without any trouble. I’m a faster sprinter than J. D. I didn’t need to hook him. But for some reason, I did. I couldn’t control my aggression. That evening I get my diploma, but I still have a lot to learn.
The trip to Moscow is a logistical nightmare. We lay over in Helsinki and learn the Feds failed to secure us visas for travel within the Soviet Union. We’re delayed an entire day before McDonough convinces the airline to let us on the plane. He tells the flight officials our visas await us in the USSR. After we finally land in Moscow and get visas, we’re told the last bus already left for the night. Somehow, someone finds an old rust bucket of a bus for us. We throw our gear inside and head for the Ukraine Sports Complex Hotel.
Rain beats down on the bus as we drive through a dingy industrial landscape. Water splashes up through the wide cracks in the bus floorboards. We finally pull into the worn-down hotel at 3:30 in the morning. The coaches planned on giving us nearly a week to acclimate to the time change and recover from jet lag. Now we need to prepare for competition in just a few days.
The food the race organizers provide us is nearly inedible. At dinner we sit down to bowls of a gelatinous substance filled with fish heads and soup made from animal tongue. We survive almost entirely on food we brought ourselves. I luck out and room with Tim Quigley, whose mom loaded him up on comforting junk food like peanut butter cups, cookies, and sugary instant oatmeal.
Everywhere we go Soviet citizens pester us to trade our American goods. They want blue jeans and Walkmans. They knock on our doors in the morning, before the coaches come to wake us. They’re desperate to trade Soviet currency for American dollars.
The low-pressure mentality we took to Denmark last year is gone. The coaches expect us to bring home medals, but more than anyone, we put pressure on ourselves. This is my last chance to compete internationally as a junior—my final shot at scoring a junior worlds medal before moving to the big leagues in the senior ranks.
Over the last few months, I’ve gotten close with of one the girls on the junior worlds team, Christi Fugman. Christi is 16, blond, and cute. She’s 5 feet 3 inches and barely 100 pounds. But she’s already one of the best bike racers in the country, among both the junior and senior ranks. She lives near T-Town, in Schnecksville, and her dad started her in the Air Products developmental program when she was only 8 years old. (The minimum age to enter the program is 10, so, just as I did to get my hunting license, she fibbed.)
Christi used to consider me a cocky brat and generally ignored me, but we’ve become good friends over the last year. Technically, we’re dating (whatever that means for high school kids), and she seems to understand me better than most people. I open up and relax around her. The aggression I feel when I compete melts away. Christi’s possibly more competitive than me. She’s tough as nails and has a fierce temper. I don’t mess with my mom when she’s pissed. And I don’t mess with Christi, either.
One morning the team heads out for a warm-up spin on the crummy roads near our hotel. I shout out Christi’s name. I need her attention. I have something really important to tell her, I’m sure. As she turns her head to look back at me, the road disappears in front of her.
Christi rides off a 2-foot drop where the road inexplicably ends and crashes. I brace myself for her temper. But she pops up, more embarrassed than upset. “I’m okay,” she chirps. She’s supposed to compete in the points race that evening, and in the road race a few days later. But her elbow swells up to the size of a softball. We all know it’s broken, but no one says it out loud.
“I think it’s just bruised,” Christi says. I feel awful, but Christi lets me off the hook. She jokingly blames me for breaking her elbow. Amazingly, she still races, though she can barely grip the handlebars. She finishes mid-pack in the women’s road race.
I remain focused on the match sprints. I’m setting blazing-fast training times and anticipate a personal best at the track here in Moscow. The indoor Krylatskoye Velodrome was built for the 1980 Olympics, which the United States boycotted. The smooth wood surface is made from Siberian larch. Its nearly 30-foot-wide banking rises steeply from the apron like a giant wooden wall, towering above racers riding down in the sprinter’s lane.
Dropping off the top of the banking down to the straightaway during my qualifying ride is like racing down a ramp from atop a three-story building. I nearly spin out of my gear before even hitting the homestretch. Across the finish line, the clock reads 10.5, a personal best and the junior national record at the time. The time holds up for sixth overall and seeds me well in the tournament. Everyone on the team is impressed.
An Italian named Gianluca Capitano wins the qualifier, riding two-tenths of a second faster than me. The Soviet team qualifies their riders second, third, and fourth.
My good form continues into the first round. To narrow the field more quickly, the opening sprint rounds pit three competitors against one another on the track at the same time, instead of just two. The winner moves on to the next round, the losers go to a second-chance bracket, called the repechage. Because of my quick qualifying ride, I face a couple of weaker competitors, one from Poland and another from Italy. Heading into the last lap, I’m out of position, well behind the two riders, and not riding strong tactically. But with my speed I quickly make up ground on them. I sprint across the line in first.
In the second round I run into one of the Soviets and the top-seeded Italian, Capitano. Coming into the final lap I’m in the lead, guarding the front. I refuse to ride tentatively, as in Denmark last year. I race against some of the best in the world every week at T-Town. I’m not afraid of anyone, even the Soviets.
I ride high up on the giant wooden track with the Soviet just above me. If I ride too low, he’ll drop off the top of the track with twice my speed and sprint away. But because I’m riding high on the boards, the bottom of the track remains exposed. Capitano charges from behind us, trying to sneak underneath me. I see him coming and fly down the track, bumping him to the apron and stalling his sprint. Whitehead and Gil would be proud. I cross the line first—and am immediately disqualified.
One of the officials is from Italy. He says I rode erratically.
In the repechage, I lose to a Czech rider who goes on to win the silver medal.
I’m inconsolable. I worked so hard. I wanted a medal so badly, and it’s over, just like that. Tears stream down my face and won’t stop. If I’d ridden clean, I could have won. But I didn’t control my aggression. I shut myself in my hotel room.
Christi comes to check on me and convinces me I should come down to eat dinner with the team. At the dining table, my eyes are still puffy and red. After dinner, Christi suggests we go for a walk.
She tries to take my mind off the race. Her junior worlds didn’t turn out the way she’d
planned either. We talk about anything but racing. Around the side of a building we come across a stray German shepherd puppy. We play with the puppy. The pain of my loss eases, I feel better.
Back in T-Town that summer, Jim Young, a physical education teacher at the Penn State-Lehigh Valley campus, asks to meet with Tim Quigley and me. Jim’s the coach of the university’s cycling team, and is garnering accolades from the administration for the national collegiate cycling championships he’s winning. Jim knows Tim and I are decent students and, more importantly, some of the best junior racers in the world. He wants us to attend Penn State-Lehigh Valley. We can get a college education and keep racing.
I intend on going to college, but I haven’t given it much thought. I’m not certain bike racing is a realistic career track. Tim and I have an outside chance of making the ’92 Olympic team, but the games are a full 2 years away. Jim fills out the application forms for us. Sign here, he says. I sign. I’m off to college, to the delight of my parents.
4
BIG BERTHA
AS FALL approaches, I get an unexpected chance at another national title and a potential trip to the senior world championships in Lyon, France. Paul Swift, a 23-year-old sprinter who races in T-Town, needs a tandem partner for nationals. Gil suggests me to Swift as a partner, and Swift agrees. I decide to postpone my first semester of college.
Swift is one of the top sprinters in the country. He’s not a natural, but he frequently outduels more talented opponents with tactical guile. I learn from him simply by sitting on the back of the tandem, and pedaling hard.
Both Swift and I bear a grudge against track racing’s governing body, USA Cycling—known to most racers as the Feds. The head honchos promised Swift a tandem as a member of Team USA, a trade team composed of the nation’s top junior and senior track racers. But the Feds never came through with a tandem for Swift to race, or much other help. The Feds left me completely off Team USA, despite the fact I dominate other juniors nationally. Swift and I aim to prove we deserve better support from USA Cycling at senior nats.
The Price of Gold Page 5