V10 N. 35 Part II- El Caballo's Training Schedule

Bruce Kritzler was able to track down this speech given by Alberto Juantorena in 1985 outlining his training from 1971 up to the Olympics in 1976.  It appeared on the website 

 .....https://beaconhillstriders.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Alberto-Juantorena-Training-for-400m-800m.pdf   

translated by one Victor Lopez.  In the documentation you will see on Saturday July 17, 1976,  Juantorena lists that workout from which the picture in the previous posting appears.  He notes that the workout consisted of 3 x 600 in 1:31, 1:21, and 1:19.  Our source who provided the picture added that the rest interval was 15 minutes.  I find it amazing that we could cobble this information together based on a photo out of a forty-four years old scrapbook and the internet.  Amazingly despite terrible political relations, then as well as now,  between the US and Cuba, Juantorena was able to travel to the US to give the Keynote speech in 1985 when The Athletics Congress (TAC) met in Houston, Texas.

The piece is rather lengthy and a bit laborious to read yet it is a very revealing portrait of the system used in Cuba in those days with the added expertise of a Polish coach.

After the meltdown of the Communist Bloc in Europe in 1989, a lot of this coaching and other forms of aid dried up and returned to Europe.  But as some have noted, Cuba has an incredibly rich culture and picked up certain technical knowledge from the Eastern Bloc in those days and made itself a vibrant nation despite the US boycott on their economy.  They have one of the best health care systems in the world and export and train more doctors into the developing world than just about any other nation.  When I was teaching in Zimbabwe from 1982-85, children graduating from rural schools were being sent to Cuba for medical school.

It is also true that Cuba provided technical and military expertise during the liberation movements in southern Africa as was the West.  It was part of the game being played by the Soviets, the Chinese, and the Americans in those days.  If you think this sounds far fetched, check out this story of a naval engagement fought on Lake Tanganyika located between Tanzania and the Congo between Cuban CIA mercenaries and Che Guevara representing the East.  They even used 'Swift Boats'.  Remember those?

https://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/06/21/cold-war-navy-seal-clandestine-congo/

The armaments were overlapping with both sides using each other's weapons.    There were victories and defeats in both camps in those times.

Now the struggle for hearts and minds between those former and current 'enemies'  has taken on a different character, but it is still there.   In the past the Soviets and their satellites battled on the athletic stage as well as inside the countries they were trying to influence.    They brought African students to Eastern Europe and China to study while the Americans offered Rockefeller and Ford Foundation scholarships to do the same.  Both sides were hoping that those students would return to their countries and when in positions of influence, they would turn to their 'educators' to make business deals and economic agreements.  Today it seems much less an "us versus them"  notion on the sports fields. I'm not going to get into drug testing past and present, you are all very aware of that story.  Apart from football (soccer) and rugby there seems to be much less nationalism being displayed.  It is more the individuals and their agents that are important as well as their contracts with shoe manufacturers.  And one 'economic system' versus another 'system' is less the issue.  Globalization has changed the context of the sports world.  Africans are representing a multitude of nations other than those where they were born. Soccer teams are multinational.   The competition on the field is just as fierce, but the driving factors are very different.
As Deputy Minister of Sport in Cuba, it would be interesting to know what Juantorena thinks of all this.  George Brose

George —

Rudisha came by 600 m in his London Oly WR in 1:14.30 — 4.7 faster that el Caballo’s third 600 interval following another 15 minute rest.  Bork and I ran 3 wks before his stunning 1961 runaway NCCA win 10 x 440 with a 55 yrd jog and a 55 yrd walk between each — chop chop chop — and John averaged high 58s or very low 59s.  Dales was there on the watch.    This on a slightly soft cinder track in our stadium.  Rest was minimal and it was punishing @ — physically for me  —  about 17 at the time.   This was after we swept the MAC Champs 880 along with Richard Greene, RIP. 

Watching that London final, he came by in 49.28 leading and absolutely hammered that 3rd 200 m running a 25.02 and finishing w a 26.61. Between 600 and 700 m, the Botswanan, Nigel Amos, but 18 @ the time, actually closed some of the distance between he and Rudisha.   The per 200 m average for the Kenyan was 25.22.   Smokin’.  

The Maasai Warrior re-incarnated —drawing on eons of selective ancestral DNA running down game in hot conditions @ 6500 - 8000 ft.   The fluid biomechanics.   The OLY stage.  His stride length.  The efficiency while running that fast.  The supreme package of traits melded together — all in a single human being.  

Will we ever see such a man like he or Hikam el Guerrouj again —given what is happening with the planet’s increasing carbon dioxide?   This is in the middle of the 22nd year El G has held the WR in the mile and 21st for the 1500 m.   At no time in modern history has either record survived for anything like those periods.  He also holds the 2000 m record in 4:44 and change — meaning at even pace throughout he had to come by the mile in 3:49.  The North African.    The Moroccan.   Simply stunning.  World records reveal to us of what man is capable.   The pinnacle of athletic achievement and daring do.   

What better.   

Rich