Moscow Open

12th IAAF World Championships in Athletics
athletes live and train in the
United States, but it does not
create any problems as we are
not going to monitor our athletes
in the U.S.; we only try
to influence them. They have
complete freedom of action.
They must only bear responsibility
if they violate our rules.
Fortunately, Jamaican athletes
are not star struck. For example,
Usain Bolt arrived at
the training camp before the
start of the World Championship
and trained there with everyone,
without requiring any
special conditions.”
Today, every teenager in Jamaica
and other Caribbean
islands, dreams of becoming
a celebrity through athletics.
They start running as
early as 8-10 years old when
they are in junior school, and
in their teens, the recruiters
come from the United States
looking for prospective candidates.
“You ask whether we
have a lot of athletes like Bolt;
tall and fast. If you come to
the school championships of
Jamaica, you will see a great
many talented youngsters,”
proudly explained journalists
from Jamaica.
For their part, at the American
team’s press conference,
their management said that
this was the strongest national
team in the history of American
sport, and they were going
to win between 26 and 30
medals. In retrospect, they
failed to achieve this target
taking ‘only’ 23.
Every one was impressed
by the enthusiasm and confidence
of Americans who arrived
in Berlin with the slogan
“Repeat the Achievements of
Jesse Owens.” It is well known
that in the 1936 Olympics in
Berlin he won four gold medals.
Subsequently, American
sprinters have repeatedly set
world records in Berlin.
“I performed in Berlin 40
years after Jesse won his
medals here, and we are
again mindful of his achievements,”
said the head of the
40 | www.athletics-magazine.com
Valeriy Borchin
men’s team, former, famous
sprinter Harvey Glance. “It is
wonderful to come here now
as a coach. Because we have
so many great athletes, we
are entitled to fight for gold
in the 4x100 meter relay, despite
Usain Bolt. We are not
under any great pressure from
athletes from the Caribbean
Islands, but we do admit that
these other countries have
made progress in sprinting.
In the relay race we will have
to be more concentrated, so
that we can control our speed
better. Even when I was the
captain of the relay team, we
never aimed for anything less
than a gold medal, though, of
course, sport has changed a
lot since those times. Unlike
today when the boys are competing
for cash, we fought for
glory and were proud of our
victories.
A Walker’s Weekend
Berlin was filled with anticipation
at the approaching
duels in the Memorial Olympic
stadium as the Brandenburg
Gate arena was called. And by
noon on August 15, spectators
began to move to the Brandenburg
Gate, where the first final;
the men’s 20 km walk was to
be held. Here, alongside the
walking course, the cultural
program was taking place.
There were more than enough
fans and passers-by to view
the programme because the
area around the Brandenburg
Gate was the most crowded
place in the city; the heart of
the city, just a stone’s throw
from the renovated Reichstag
and modern Potsdamer Platz,
with its rich samples of German
architecture representing
the free, new world.
During this weekend the
area around the Brandenburg
Gate was extremely crowded.
It seemed that the whole of
Germany had come in large
numbers to listen and look at,
over a glass of beer, the masters
of race walking competing.
The race had been held
in the morning last time to
avoid the heat of the day but
the organizers of competition
specifically held the race at
one o’clock in order to attract
more visitors who had awoken
late on their day off. By starting
later, when the temperature
was around 26 degrees
Centigrade and the sun was
very hot, there was no chance
of a world record.
But, so high was their
adrenalin charge to win, that
Russians Valeriy Borchin and
Olga Kaniskina, the eventual
winners, did not pay attention
to the fact that they were deprived
of the opportunity of
earning one hundred thousand
dollars for setting a world re-
cord. Perhaps, it was only after
they came home that they
regretted not having taken all
they could from Berlin.
The main boulevard of
the city, Unter den Linden,
which was part of the course
turned into one big beer garden,
where people could get
recharged with either beer or
hard drinks.
The Russian team was very
discreet with no one having a
pre-event press conference.
The athletes and trainers did
not need it. Russia’s walkers
intensively trained in a park
near the hotel, satisfying the
requirements of the doping
control authorities. But, during
the first race, it was soon
clear that the top walkers of
the Russian team were as
strong as ever.
At around the 15 km mark, in
the men’s 20 km race, Valeriy
Borchin strode away from the
group where he had been hiding
and confidently took the
lead, and few had any doubts,
we were looking at a new world
champion. It is clear that, on
the day, Borchin’s abilities were
greater than those of his competitors.
He would go on to beat
the second placed walker, Chinaman
Wang Hao, by one minute
and twenty five seconds.
“I am delighted that the
complicated 2009 year ended
well for me” was the first thing
the world champion said, adding
that he has still a long
way to go before reaching the
heights of his walking idols
Robert Korzeniowski and Jefferson
Pérez.
Even more convincing was
the victory of Olga Kaniskina,
who precisely followed the instructions
of her coach, forcing
herself not jump into the
lead during the first five kilometers
and only after that
opening up and ‘strolling’
down ‘Unter den Linden’, a
considerable distance ahead
of her followers. She would
say afterwards that the pace
of all the segments of the race
was less than she was used to