The surgery made me anxious. Ready to get back to work. The season’s first World Cup is in Cali, Colombia, this May. I’m likely to see Fiedler in the match sprint there. Gil and I aggressively rehab my knee. Typically I focus on heavy free weights late in the winter, but the surgery left my quad atrophied and weak.
Instead I work with lighter weights, doing multiple reps. I perform one-legged lifts on machines to isolate and balance my muscle groups. I do what I can to continue getting stronger and faster without hurting my healing knee. I murder my upper body with biceps curls and incline presses.
When I’m healthy enough to start riding, I go to the Olympic Training Center in Chula Vista, California, for a six-week training camp.
The first racing on my repaired knee comes in February. Andrzej and I accept an invitation to a European six-day in Milan. Six-day races date back to the golden era of track racing in the US. From the late 1800s to the middle of the 20th century, tens of thousands of fans flocked to six-days held in Manhattan at Madison Square Garden.
The events initially required racers to compete around the clock for six days straight. Whoever completed the most laps, won. Promoters purposely marketed the inhumanity of the six-day races to attract press coverage and spectators. In 1896, the 18-year-old Major Taylor churned out 1,732 miles at a six-day in Madison Square Garden, the equivalent of riding from New York to Houston. After New York State passed a law forbidding competitors from racing for more than 12 straight hours, promoters adopted a two-person, relay-style format—which today is known as the Madison.
When track racing died out in the US at the end of the 1930s, the six-day scene moved to Europe—where it’s still insanely popular. The two-man team format remains the basis of the modern, European six-day circuit.
In Milan, the promoters install a portable velodrome at the Forum sports palace, and transform the infield of the velodrome into a fine restaurant. Formally dressed spectators sip champagne and dine at rows of tables dressed with white tablecloths, as the racers fly past on the track encircling the restaurant. The rowdiest fans occupy the bleachers, drinking and smoking and cheering late into the evening. By the time the races finally wrap up, well past midnight, there is a haze of cigarette smoke collected beneath the velodrome ceiling.
I thrive on the festive atmosphere at six-day races. The scene rivals any in professional sports. It’s the closest I ever come to feeling like a rock star performing in a packed arena. Fans gather outside our hotels, and hound us for autographs. Spreads of gourmet Italian food await us after we compete. At one immaculately prepared buffet, mozzarella is presented as balls of white cheese floating in water, instead of baked on top of a greasy pizza. “What are these?” I ask Andrzej. He looks at me as if I’m an ingrate.
Because the European six-days center on endurance events, the sprinters act as a sideshow. We come onto the track for brief performances twice a night—while the main attraction, the two-man teams, take a break. The sprinters race flying-200-meter time trials, followed by a short sprint tournament. The crowd delights in the size, speed, and power of the sprinters. We strut out onto the velodrome like the lions at the circus.
Despite our frequently late bedtimes, Andrzej insists I train through the Milan six-day. He rouses me from bed every day at 7 a.m. for early training sessions on the track while the rest of the sprinters sleep in. Initially, my knee holds up to the racing. But by the third day, it’s aching constantly. Worst of all, I can’t find a bag of ice anywhere in Milan. I start counting down each individual sprint I’ll need to perform before I go home.
My primary competitors throughout the week include some of the top Italian and French riders. I race Roberto Chiappa and Federico Paris, Italians who frequently sit atop World Cup podiums, as well as the French keirin specialist, Magné. I don’t come anywhere near my best flying-200 times, but I still easily win the tournament. I’m officially honored as the top overall sprinter in Milan, but I still need time to let my knee regain its full strength.
Three months later, I fly to Colombia, where I anticipate a rematch with Fiedler. As always on the flight to an event, I sit next to Erv. Typically Erv is calm and relaxed, a perfectly serene being heading into major competitions. But now he’s freaking out.
Erv harbors a fear of flying so deep it affects him physically. Just over a year before our trip, a large commercial airplane crashed into the steep mountains surrounding Cali, and as our own flight approaches the airport we see flashes of lightning out the plane’s windows. The plane bounces violently in the turbulence. The captain orders the flight attendants to sit down and buckle up. Overhead bins jar open and luggage spills out.
Another sprinter, Bill Clay, peeks out the window. “Wow, check out how cool the lightning looks,” he says, having no idea Erv is turning into a stinking pile of sweat next to me. Erv leans over me, toward the window. “What do you see out there?” he asks. A lightning strike brightens the night sky, and we catch a glimpse of the jagged mountaintops. Thunder cracks. The plane rocks. Erv gulps. Now he’s made me nervous.
We land safely; the real peril is on the ground. Throughout the ’90s, Colombia is often cited as one of the world’s most dangerous places. The cocaine trade and bloody battles between competing cartels ravage the country. The drug violence accounts for more than 30,000 murders. Cali serves as ground zero for this vicious drug war. Law enforcement officials refer to the local drug lords, the Cali Cartel, as the world’s most powerful criminal organization. The cartel controls a militia known as Los Rastrojos, a ruthless gang of more than 1,000 hit men.
Fearing for our safety, the US Olympic Committee sends security forces with us to the World Cup—undercover guys in black suits, carrying handguns. Team officials instruct us not to wear any clothing bearing the USA logo outside of competition. When we arrive at the Cali airport, the local government provides us with a half dozen Colombian security forces, as well—teenagers in camouflage holding submachine guns.
On the way to the hotel, a couple of the fatigue-clad kids ride on our bus, while the other four drive ahead of us on two little dirt bikes. One kid drives while another sits backward on the bike, an automatic rifle across his thighs. Though they look threatening, I doubt these pubescent Colombian security guards would offer much defense should the Cali Cartel decide to take the team hostage. I imagine grabbing the machine gun myself and providing our own protection if we come under attack.
Besides the threat of sudden death, Cali generally isn’t a pleasant place to visit. It’s hot and humid. Our hotel stinks. But in part due to the lackluster accommodations and undeniable sense of danger, I love racing in Cali. The third-world conditions cause other athletes to bitch and moan, but I brush it off. Control what you can control, I say. The air of danger charges me up. I always kick major ass here.
The wooden track suits me perfectly. It’s long and oval, shaped like a cigar with tight turns and long straights. The corners require deft handling skills while the straights favor a big top-end speed like mine. I fake out opponents in the turns and blow by them in the straightaways.
South Americans take their sports passionately, and these Colombians love cycling. The scene is like no other bike race on earth. The locals come out in droves to watch, spilling into the aisles. They whistle, bang drums, and chant in Spanish. The noise swirls around the velodrome, flowing out the sides of the open-air track and reverberating off the canopy ceiling above. The Colombians tailgate in the hills surrounding the track, and I can see the flickering of their campfires off in the distance. The smell of barbecued chicken wafts through the velodrome. Beautiful Colombian women, wearing next to nothing, saunter around the bleachers.
My knee isn’t 100 percent yet, but the pain is bearable at this point. I’m confident heading into the match sprint, and qualify third in the flying-200-meter time trial. I breeze through the opening rounds, and run into Fiedler in the quarterfinals.
Before my match with Fiedler, a thunderstorm rolls in just as the sun dips b
ehind the giant mountains ringing the city. The hot, muggy air cools suddenly, and lightning flashes in the distance. Rain crashes down, rolling off the open ends of the velodrome ceiling like giant window blinds of flowing water.
I take a deep breath. The musty storm air fills my lungs. The crowd’s really going now—whistling, chanting, beating those drums. Louder. C’mon, chant louder, I think. Fiedler and I line up. I will exact my revenge right now. I will prove I’m number one.
Fiedler glares at me. I know he wants the same. We roll off the line. Fiedler leads. The drums beat as I flick my bike back and forth behind him. The bell signaling the last lap rings. I charge Fiedler. I slingshot through the first turn and hit top speed on the long back straight, flying past him. He doesn’t give up, but he’s not even close. There’s no photo finish this time around. The drums beat louder.
I lead the second sprint, and Fiedler gives more fight, but can’t get any closer than the rear axle of my bike as we cross the line. I beat Fiedler. I get a semblance of revenge. In the final I beat a French prodigy named Arnaud Tournant.
I line up for the keirin finals as the undisputed favorite, the guy everyone is gunning for. The race is fast and aggressive. I take a risk and wait to make my move on the final lap. As the track banking transitions to the finishing straight, I come over the top of two other riders and I power across the line first.
I’m invincible. I’ve got my swagger back. I head back to T-Town with two gold medals from international competition.
But neither of them are Olympic gold.
10
SACRIFICE
AS THE ’97 season progresses, my knee feels better and better. I should get faster and faster. But after the double-gold-medal performance in Cali, my results fluctuate. A World Cup comes to T-Town for the first time ever. The local media heralds me as the hometown favorite. But I finish second in both the match sprint and the keirin, losing to Hill twice in close races. At a World Cup in Italy, I win the keirin but lose to two lesser-known Latvian riders in the match sprint. In Australia, I win another keirin. I started the year dominantly, but I’ve also shown that, at times, I’m beatable.
The losses don’t bother me, though, not like Atlanta. I couldn’t care less about any race, except the next Olympics—whether it’s a local race at T-Town, a national-level event, or the world championships. It’s not that I race with any less intensity. When my wheel hits the start line, I aim to cross the finish first, every time.
I don’t dominate every race I enter because, physically, I’m tired. As my knee heals, I’m able to train harder and harder with less and less rest. Training is the only way I know of to fight the demons of my loss in Atlanta. I train nonstop. If I’m quicker and more powerful, I will not lose in Sydney.
Like most top-level athletes, I train in blocks. Block training refers to intense workout periods, typically ranging from days to months, during which the body is overloaded without adequate rest. The technique is akin to stretching a rubber band. The longer the band stretches, the bigger the rebound when it’s let go.
During a training block, an athlete pushes to the point of utter exhaustion. Eventually, his performance drops off. But after a period of rest (in training lingo, tapering), during which the body overcompensates, the athlete experiences huge performance gains and, when timed right, is fresh for competition.
The danger lies in stretching the band too far, to the point where it snaps. For an athlete, not allowing enough rest will result in injury, sickness, or constant fatigue.
Instead of a typical training block of a few weeks or months, I view the next 3 years preceding Sydney as one giant training block. I do something to make myself better every day, even during my infrequent recovery periods. When I’m not lifting or doing intervals on my bike, I swim and do core work.
I vow not to rest until Sydney. I will punish myself day after day, year after year. When I finally release the rubber band and allow my body to realize the benefits of my hard work, I will ensure there are no photo finishes in Sydney.
I know this training plan will likely cost me dozens of World Cup wins, and probably a few world titles, but I don’t care. I train right through World Cup races without resting. Let my competitors rest and beat me now, I think. They’ll pay in Sydney.
At national-level competitions, I add work on top of the races. I train before and after my events. I even compete in endurance events, such as the points race, which a match sprinter would normally never enter. I grew up winning local road races, and I’m not afraid to take on the top US endurance riders. Frequently, I beat them.
I’m cognizant to the risks of this training plan. If I don’t win gold in Sydney, I will surely regret the potential world championship wins I gave up by not tapering. Though I rely on Gil, and Andrzej, and even Erv for advice, I design my own training schedules. If my plan fails and I don’t win gold, I alone will bear the responsibility.
In ’97, the world championships take place in Perth, Australia. Ever since my first individual senior worlds, in 1993, I’ve taken home a medal. Even in ’95, when I raced with a broken kneecap, I won bronze in the team sprint. I arrive in Perth intent on continuing the streak. I won the final World Cup race of the season before coming to the world championships, but my training load has tired me during the course of the year.
The keirin tournament comes first. I breeze through the opening rounds and into the finals. In the keirin finals, Fiedler and Chiappa ride like maniacs. They hook and chop everyone in the race, and still don’t win. Magné sneaks away with a lap to go for the victory. I finish a disappointing fifth. The race was so screwed up that most of the other riders, though not Magné, ask for a reride. But the officials instead decide to disqualify Fiedler and Chiappa from second and third. I’m awarded the bronze. My world championship medal streak continues, if only by consolation.
In the match sprint I fall to a Latvian whom I already dusted a number of times throughout the season. I don’t even make the medal rounds. Publicly, I blame my gear selection for the loss. I rode a smaller 49-by-14 gear combination when a larger gear would’ve won me the race. But I always ride smaller gears in the early rounds of sprint tournaments. I save the bigger gears, and my legs, for the later rounds and faster competitors. I just didn’t have the quickness to turn the smaller gear fast enough to win.
I never tell anyone why my performances occasionally suffer. I never use the workload under which I’m racing as an excuse. Instead, I view beating the best in the world, even when I’m tired, as a challenge. I only care about Sydney.
I take a break from training just once a year, in the fall, during hunting season. The only time I can stop thinking about Atlanta is when I’m in the outdoors. I still hunt with Jay and my father, and our extended family of outdoorsmen. I also regularly hunt with Gil. We shoot turkeys, deer, pheasants, ducks, and geese. We hunt pretty much everything. We even kill the occasional black bear.
One benefit of my professional success and Olympic notoriety is the opportunity to hunt big game in some of the country’s most idyllic locations and appear on celebrity hunting shows. Jim Kennedy invites me to Colorado to hunt mule deer. I’m asked to appear on an ESPN outdoors show with Larry Csonka. I also appear on television shows for the wetland conservation organization, Ducks Unlimited, and Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.
Whether I’m hunting in Pennsylvania or some other remote location, the outdoors and the focused pursuit of a trophy animal remain an important part of my recovery process.
Before the start of the ’98 season, Erv and I go to a national team camp at the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. One day we’re killing time between training sessions, shooting hoops in the gym when we witness something amazing.
An Olympic weight lifter named Mark Henry is playing on a hoop next to us. We can’t help but notice him. He’s a giant man with a thick beard and shoulder-length dreadlocks. He easily weighs 400 pounds. All of a sudden Henry bursts straight off the ground and slams
a basketball. The gym floor shakes as he lands.
I look at Erv. Our jaws drop. I can dunk a basketball, too, but neither of us can believe a man that big can get airborne. Then, another Olympic weight lifter, this one only 5 feet 5 inches tall does the same thing. He rockets toward the rim and dunks easily. He doesn’t even take a running start.
I know the Olympic lifters are strong, but the explosiveness they display boggles my mind. It’s the same type of strength I use during a sprint, power combined with quickness. I need to know what they’re doing in the gym.
Erv and I track down their coach, a Romanian who won bronze at the ’84 Olympics, Dragomir Cioroslan. At the height of his career, Cioroslan lifted twice his own 165-pound body weight. He talks to us about the various Olympic lifts and how to perform them properly. Technique is key, he says. Without proper form, we’ll end up crushed beneath the bar. Explode into the lift, he says.
When I get back home, I invest in my own Olympic lifting setup. I contact John Brinson, the owner of a local gym called the West End Racquet Club. I tell him the lifts will be violent and loud and probably shock the other gym patrons, but they will help me win a gold medal. He agrees to give me my own workout room. I buy special rubber weights and install floor mats that I can drop the weight bar onto after each lift.
After the room is set up, Gil and I get to work. Gil’s now my assistant, more than my coach. He helps rack the weights and prepare the bars for various lifts. He jokes that he’s just my caddie. But I want him with me when I work out. He implicitly understands the toll a workout takes on my body and mind. No one is better at keeping me focused and psyching me up to put in an all-out effort than Gil.
The Price of Gold Page 13