Goldengirl

‘I’ll give you an illustration,’ said Serafin. ‘I am sure you remember the impact made by the Kenyan athletes, Keino, Temu and the others, in the sixties. They really fired the public imagination, didn’t they? I wish I had a dollar for every dissertation I have read on the emergence of the African distance runner. Yet actually it started about ten years earlier, with two athletes whose names nobody remembers now, but whose achievement was in some ways more remarkable than all the gold medals won by Keino and his generation. I think it was in 1954 that Kenya decided to send two Kisii tribesmen to Vancouver to run the distance events in the British Commonwealth Games. Up to that time they had always confined their participation to the so-called explosive events: the sprints and jumps. It was widely believed that black athletes were physiologically unable to compete with whites over long distances. Well, these two changed all that. On the way to Vancouver they broke their flight in London and competed in the British Championships. The British at that time were among the strongest distance-running nations in the world, but that didn’t daunt the Kenyans. The first of them, Chepkwony, running barefoot, set the pace from the start in the six miles, and refused to be overtaken until midway through, when he had to stop for the excusable reason that he had dislocated his knee. That was no discouragement to his countryman Maiyoro in the three miles. He set off in precisely the same style, but faster, so fast that he soon held a fifty-yard lead over some of the world’s finest distance runners. Everyone assumed he would collapse after a few laps, but he didn’t. It took a new world record to beat him.’

‘What happened in Vancouver?’ Armitage asked.

‘They both ran creditably, but allowed others to dictate the tactics. Maiyoro finished fourth in his event, Chepkwony seventh. The point of real significance is that they had arrived on the international scene without any preconceptions about top-class distance running. They simply ran to win, at whatever pace was necessary to keep their chances alive. And they matched the world’s elite, athletes brought to a peak of fitness by years of expert coaching, intensive training and regular competition. When, inevitably, they were pressed for the secret of their training, they confounded everyone by stating that they ran only three days a week, and then just three-to-five miles. Compare that with the 100 miles a week almost obligatory among European and American distance runners!’

‘Didn’t altitude have something to do with it?’ asked Dryden, remembering a piece he had read in a Sunday supplement. ‘They probably lived in the area of Mount Kenya.’

Serafin didn’t seem impressed. ‘It’s true that training is improved in quality if it is done in thinner air. Putting it simply, the heart and lungs have to work harder to provide oxygen for the muscles. Understandably, the coaches fastened on to this as the explanation for the Kenyans’ brilliant running on such a modest training mileage. Since that time, extensive research has confirmed the value of high-altitude training, but emphatically not to the degree that fifteen miles a week at 6000 feet is equivalent to 100 miles at sea level. No, Mr. Dryden, altitude is far from being the complete answer.’

‘Now we’re round to psychology.’

A thin smile confirmed it. ‘You see it, then? The Kenyans were able to run so well because they knew nothing about the technicalities of track or the big reputations of the men they were taking on. They treated their running as a straight competitive challenge, as simple as two boys racing each other to the candy store. You see, there is a danger of too much specialization in track. Athletes believe that by competing with top-class opposition, they will raise their standard, and that is probably true, but they only raise it to the level of the opposition, or slightly higher. By constantly competing with others of a similar standard, they undergo a conditioning process. Running a mile means lapping the track at a certain speed. They believe their training is bringing them to the limit of their physical potential, but really it isn’t. Otherwise, how can two Africans, untrained by our definition, stay in contention with them?’

‘You’re saying regular competition limits an athlete’s aspirations?’

‘Precisely,’ said Serafin. ‘If Goldengirl had joined a track club she would be no worse and not much better than scores of other girls with a talent for running who have rivaled each other on the track since kindergarten. To achieve what we have in mind she has to set her sights much higher. By deliberately keeping her out of track meets we have avoided the pitfall of mediocrity.’

‘Haven’t you denied her something else?’ said Dryden. ‘I thought track was all about tactics and competitive experience.’