The Art of Winning

It can be easy to forget how to compete if one has just been running against times in training all year. Even if running with a training group all year, it is easy to settle into a rhythm with them, which is no replacement for competition. Running for a pure time is a science, however if you introduce competition then winning becomes an art; there will be few athletes with any level of experience who have not been overcome by emotions at some point during a race, most often it is somebody overtaking you unexpectedly or just putting pressure on you. This pressure can do odd things to an athlete: hurdlers may clip or smash a hurdle if not fully focused, throwers may tense up and release too early and flat runners may just lose their form. It would be impossible to tell how you’d react emotionally until you’ve experienced that pressure and more importantly learnt to deal with it, learnt how to win as such.

The most high profile example of this was the World Championships 100m final this year, which saw Track and Field’s ‘Good vs Evil’; Justin Gatlin, unbeaten all year, suddenly made a mistake at 80m which cost him the world title, and I believe the reason for this is because his 100m race had become too scientific and he had forgotten the art of winning, purely because he had not been tested all year. What can be done? Not much really beyond surrounding yourself with healthy, varied competition and doing so regularly, only then will you be able to train your emotions and fight to win races/competitions in the future. There really is no substitute for a competitive race where the pressure is on. Athletes: to become winners you have to become artists…