After mentioning Lasse Viren's fall in the earlier article about Frank Shorter, I found this piece which I hope you enjoy. It beats hell out of the "I've fallen, and I can't get up" ad.
Then Ricky Quinatana suggested this from Runblogrun.com :
So it was on to the 10,000 Final, which would turn out better than the qualifier, but also not without challenges seen and unseen.
Shorter had experienced these challenges on the track before.
“In 1971, I had been in races where a competitor would sometimes go out of their lane and elbow you,” said Shorter. “Basically, you wanted to stay away from them.”
In Munich, some of those competitors were racing Shorter again, but it would not be elbows that became the threat.
“Someone’s feet touched my calves behind me,” said Shorter, noting it was just the closeness of competitors trying to stay inside on Lane 1. “So I moved to the right to get out of the way.”
In the 12th lap, Shorter didn’t fall, but Finn Lasse Viren, in front of Shorter in 5th, Viren – then in fifth place – seemed to catch the heels of Belgium’s Emiel Puttemans and ended up sprawled on the grass on the inside of the track with Gammoudi as well. Somehow though, in the blink of an eye, Viren was back on his feet and chasing the race leaders from 30 meters behind, where he would rejoin the pack. Gammoudi would drop out.
“I was aware of the fall,” said Shorter. “But I was in the zone, and my instincts had taken over.
Shorter’s instincts and focus on the competition in the final were such that he did t pay attention to any split times. “We were just running and being competitive,” said Shorter.
“It was an all-out effort!”
Viren would dramatically go on to win the Gold in a World Record time of 27:38.35, with Shorter finishing in a 5th, clocking 27:51.32, breaking his 2-day old American record!
“I remember with a couple of laps to go that I could break 28 minutes again,” recalled Shorter. “But I wasn’t sure by how much.”
“Coming into the last lap, Viren was in the lead, and I just felt that I’m not going to fall back and try to finish as best as I could.”
“There was no disappointment in 5th place,” said Shorter. “I knew I wasn’t the fastest in the field, but I felt my performance was good.”
1 comment:
I truly love these little articles that look back at memorable events and fill in some texture to what took place on the track. Keep giving them to us, George.
Post a Comment