The Week of February 20, 2023

From the Department of Board Rooms, Executive Branches, Ballers and Shot Callers

Written by Intern 350

“Somebody wanted to take a piss? you had to ask Hinault” – Shelly Verses. Team Masseur

The ESPN 30 for 30 documentary Slaying the Badger, chronicles the relationship between La Vie Claire cycling teammates Greg LeMond and Bernard Hinault as they competed for Tour De France crowns in the 1980’s- an uncommon thing for teammates to do in cycling. The sport has a clear structure of domestiques who help a team leader to race as high up the podium as he can since, because as the film states: “he can win and they can’t.” This time-honored strategy was shaken in this particular case because as LeMond began asserting himself as the stronger cyclist, Hinault’s badger-like personality would not let him cede the top position. He knew he was top dog, the team manager knew it, and he had the respect of all the team caucuses in the peloton, who let him dictate the flow of the race because they knew he was willing to go further than anyone else to win. Ride off a cliff or engage in a fist fight with protestors blocking the course, he wouldn’t back down, and others were afraid to match him. He was the capo, the captain, the leader.

Sports showcase rare ability as well as rare personality types. Among them, the kind that would do anything to win. The kind of personality that in the early days of civilization, before modern forms of government and organized sport would be heading up warring caravans, consolidating power, defending territory and conquering neighboring peoples. #Buymoreland… whatever the cost. Michael Jordan calmly described his view of sport through manufactured slights, intimidation and control from a broad-armed velvet chair in The Last Dance. Comedian, Bill Burr described Lance Armstrong perceptibly as “a sociopath on a bicycle… If that guy was working for a corporation, he would be pouring stuff in the water supply, doing god knows what… let him go up the hill, let him go down the hill”.

Yankees shortstop, Derek Jeter said sternly into the camera in his ESPN docuseries The Captain, that ARod, after being traded to the Yankees and moved from shortstop to second base solemnly promised Jeter that if the Yankees ever asked him to move back from second base to his old position, he would honorably leave the team. These are two men, who if not for a structure built around them to make tens of millions of dollars and be wildly beloved for doing it would otherwise be conquering peoples on some desolate battle plain. Instead, they are resolute in their dedication to protecting the patch of dirt where they stand on a field in a game.

There are personality types out there that if left to their own devices could destroy things, big things, but if you throw a game in front of them and tell them it isn’t likely they’ll win, they will preoccupy themselves until mission accomplished or death comes first. “We are going to beat Ohio State, or we will die trying” – Jim Harbaugh at the start of the 2021 college football season (death was avoided).

These are the ‘capos’, and when there are multiple within a game, sit down and don’t touch that dial. Because in the end… there can only be one.

The landscapes of races are formed by the personalities and skill sets of the racers in them. What is every runner in the field capable of doing? How dangerous are they? What are their chances to win and how would they do it? The more dangerous racers take up the most mind space of the competitors in the race. Often there is one that stands above the rest as the most dangerous. The capo. The most dangerous racer will likely dictate the unspoken parameters of the game within a race. Other runners will cue off of them and react to their movements or make decisions for their own moves based on what the capo might do. The style of racing for an era can be dictated by one individual and it is up to others to either beat them at their own game or undermine their game plan. In distance running, undermining can take time, because training takes time and it takes time to take effect.

Shannon Rowbury described this phenomenon in the period in US Women’s 800m running between 2010 and 2015 when Alysia Montaño ruled the realm with her front-running style. When Montaño came on the scene, the pace that she set from the gun was a shock to the other runners and nullified their strategies to win the race because they simply could not hang with her all the way to the finish. “It took years for people to catch up”. They had to alter their training to match Montaño and prepare their bodies to be able to execute their own game plans at her speed.

Mo Farah was the undisputed capo of five and ten thousand meter running from 2011 to 2017. The man is famous for never attempting world records but having a nearly perfect championship record through 7 years. Out of 12 World Championship and Olympic races, he won 10 and claimed 2 silvers. He did this by mastering his closing speed and tactics. He broke the European record in the 1500m, running 3:28 in Monaco as part of his preparation to cover any moves over the final laps of the longer distances. Watching him work through a field in a 10,000m race was a masterclass. He would start at the back of the pack and work his way up slowly to the front throughout the race with a long, fluid bouncing stride. By the time the bell lap was reached, he had the pole position. Knowing that he had the fastest leg speed in the field, he put himself in position to run the shortest line and could cover any attacks over the final circuit. It worked 83 percent of the time.

Matthew Centrowitz didn’t usher in the sit and kick era, he was more or less a product of it that used it to his advantage, while tuning himself to attack the current landscape. At that time, we all lived in a reality of our making that a championship 1500m race could not be won by going to the front and driving a hard pace. Before Centro, we didn’t believe it could be won by going to the front at all. The energy preservation provided by drafting behind the leaders was believed to be too important. In the Olympic Final in 2016, Centro took the pole position far earlier than his mentor, Mo Farah ever did, and embarrassed the field to the point that many who forfeited their hands and sat behind him at 4:45 mile pace all but swore they’d never let that happen again. Often explained half-jokingly, every miler thinks they can kick better than anyone else in the race. In the offseason, running on those long, lonely stretches of road and visualizing how to win against the best in the world in the coming season, they had to seriously consider if they were right about themselves, or if there was a better way. By making a race fit to your own abilities, you shrink the group of contenders who have a chance to win by eliminating the athletes who are talented in winning in other ways. If strength-based athletes could stretch the field enough, they could put the kickers on their back foot. In the years between 2016 and 2022, World Championship 1500m races were won by strength-based runners, until last year, when a kicker, after incorporating more strength-based training won in a strength-favored race, once again shuffling the deck and sending the competitors back to the drawing board.

So, to The TEN… on the men’s side. Currently, in the United States or otherwise, there is no dominant tactical style dictating the rules of the game. We have been wandering in the woods on a world level since Farah abdicated the throne that he took from Bekele, that he took from Gebrselassie. On the domestic level, a clear 10,000m captain hasn’t emerged since Galen Rupp moved to the marathon. The TEN could push us closer to defining a capo on the domestic level, although Grant Fisher is notably absent. There are two contrasting styles at the head of the race: the grey-eyed relentless drive of Joe Klecker and the red-eyed crazed kicking ability of Woody Kincaid. Whoever is beaten will be charged with the task of either preparing to beat the other at their own game or coming up with a new way. And who knows! We could be surprised by a newcomer taking the reins. For as much of a grind as this sport tends to be, it really only takes one race to catapult someone into the spotlight, and they have the right personality type, they’ll bask in it’s warm glow and do whatever they can to stay there.

*No one was harmed in the writing of this article and as far as we know, the runners mentioned are very nice people outside of the track.