TRIATHLON AND COMPETITIVENESS

We discussed with Nicolas Romanov (years back) about the characteristics of the triathletes; he said that “fighters” were born and he did not want to deal with athletes who weren´t “fighters.”  He spoke about being hungry in order to fight (he feels that is the reason why he fought).  Looking into being hungry and fighting for something is not easy; I remembered triathletes who used to eat “a torta” (a sandwich) a day for a year because lack of money or stubbornness to say “I am sorry;” but until now they have not fought for at least two tortas.  On the contrary, triathletes who get used to a torta a day just try enough for such a torta using means that are not triathlon oriented (lying to people to obtain benefits).  Richard Bach used another metaphor to say the same in his book Jonathan Seagull. 

Dionicio Cerón (three times in a row London Marathon winner) has spoken about it:

How to overcome such impasse has been our problem for the last five years.  To make people believe beyond a torta, which it means: “to create dreams in people’s head,” has been our task for the last five years.  We have failed.  We have not passed the stage of PLAYING TRIATHLON.  That is what our triathletes have achieved.  It is difficult to achieve the level of being a professional.  We have achieved the level of vacancier playing triathlon.  Unfortunately, this is what I see in our triathletes: “The vacanciers looking for the next vacance.” We have written about in previous posts:

28 sept. 2012

TRIATHLON EDUCATION IV, ‘VACATIONING’

I have seen high performance institutes that have all what is needed to support athletes, except education.  The infrastructure is there including the human resources to support athletes at the highest level and sometimes they achieved “Gold.” This happens when the personnel is well trained and devoted to athletes.  Unfortunately, it is like taking a vacation trip for many athletes; a vacation trip that could last for years.  I discuss this with my patients also.  Some of my patients look “beautiful” when living with family, boyfriend, wife, husband, etc., but when they leave the relationship what we see is something “horrible.”   

Retirement brings a lot of what we are after leaving the environment that helps us to develop “our talent.”  Tiger Woods is an example, even though he is not retired from golf but from his former family.  I know what my wife gives and what belongs to her and I would not be the same in her absence.  LIFE IS SO SIMPLE.  The champion depends on his/her environment.  I owe most of what I achieved to my family.  Education should help us to recognize what belongs to us or to somebody else.  When retired (in the sense of Tiger Woods), we come back to what we are and we can look horrible.  One of my patients used to tell me, the zip code comes back to me.  I have seen athletes in Cuba who gain tons of weight after retirement because they were just supported by the system but nothing belongs to them.  Educationally, nothing was gained by the athlete.

We have an athlete who wants to go to the Paralympics at the age of 56.  He won silver in Sydney running the 800 meters (one leg amputee).  He wants to compete in Triathlon and has been working to be able to make the team.  He says: “If I go, I will be looking for the medals.”  He sure is beyond being comfortable with “a torta a day.”