Five Game-Changers: Track & Field
By James Dunaway
Fred Lebow
Even after Frank Shorter won the 1972 Olympic marathon, road runners were considered harmless eccentrics who should be humored but not encouraged. But in 1976, when garment-industry salesman Fred Lebow turned the New York City Marathon from a four-times-around-Central Park race into a five-borough parade through the city's streets, he changed road racing from the most minor of minor sports into a major mass-participation phenomenon that is still growing 40 years later. Norwegian Grete Waitz's three consecutive world records in the NYC Marathon brought masses of women into the sport, and Lebow's marketing genius brought in major sponsors. From 534 participants in 1975, the New York field grew to 2,090 in 1976, 4,823 in 1977, and 14,012 in 1980. In 2005, more than 35,000 runners finished the 26.22-mile classic, with an estimated 1.5 million spectators lining the course to cheer them on and $600,000 in prize money. Today, there are similar marathons in nearly every major city on the world, hundreds more in smaller cities, and thousands of shorter races year-round all over the world.
Science and Technology
The application of science to track and field started in 1932, when German coach Waldemar Gerschler and cardiology researcher Hans Reindel invented "interval training" as a way of increasing the volume of oxygen-rich blood each heartbeat could deliver to an athlete's muscles. Then came weight training, to increase explosiveness for throwers. Now, every aspect of training - from what athletes should eat to the right length for a sprinter's first step to the aerodynamics of throwing the javelin and discus - has been analyzed down to the tiniest detail and to each frame of film or tape. Outside the body, technology may have had even greater effect. Tracks made of synthetic materials like Mondo are at least a second per lap faster than the old cinder tracks. Shoes are designed not only for each event but often for individual athletes. Everybody knows about fiberglass vaulting poles, but the landing pits are even more important. Before air-filled pits (and later foam-filled), jumpers had to build their landings into their technique or risk broken bones, broken necks or broken backs from landing in sawdust. Now they can - and do - land safely any old whichway. And for the fans, electronic timing gives instant results - accurate to 1/1000 of a second or 1/1000 of a meter.
The Fosbury Flop
Every coach he ever had advised Dick Fosbury to give up his self-invented high jump style and jump "the right way," using the straddle technique. As a schoolboy in Medford, Oregon, Fosbury developed his version of the old-fashioned scissors style and cleared 5-4 by 9th grade. But Medford High coach Dean Benson said, "Switch to the straddle." Dick tried and tried with little success - then finally begged Coach to let him use the scissors at the conference meet. He cleared 5-4, then 5-6, a personal best. Noting that what knocked the crossbar off was "my butt," he started raising his hips and dropping his shoulders going over the bar, and cleared 5-8. At 5-10, he tried it again - and cleared! He kept tinkering with his crazy-looking new technique, and jumped a school record 6-3 1/2 as a junior, 6-5 1/2 as a senior. Famed U. of Oregon coach Bill Bowerman said, "It'll never go," so Fosbury went to Oregon State. There (surprise!) coach Berny Wagner made him practice the straddle - until Fosbury cleared 6-10 his way. Two years later, at the 1968 Olympics, the Mexico City crowd went crazy each time he jumped - and absolutely nuts when he cleared 7-4 1/4 to win the gold. High jumping has never been the same.
The African Explosion
From 1896 through 1964, only a handful of African runners had won Olympic distance medals. Then along came Kipchoge Keino of Kenya. Fifth in the 1964 Olympic 5,000-meters, he set a world record in that event in 1965, went on to win the 1968 Olympic 1,500 and take second in the 5,000 to another African, Mohamed Gammoudi of Tunisia - with Kenyans also taking 1-2 in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and 1-2-3 in the 10,000. Since then, African men have become dominant from 1,500 meters up to the marathon; in fact, they hold the current world record in every one, and have won 54 of a possible 75 Olympic medals and 20 out of 25 possible golds. African women got a late start, but they've collected seven Olympic golds since 1992 and went 1-2-3 in the 2004 Olympic 5,000. And it isn't just high-altitude Kenya and Ethiopia: men and women from 16 other African nations, from Algeria in the north to South Africa, have claimed Olympic medals since Keino won his first one in Mexico City.
Professional Track
Before 1960, when most top U.S. trackmen got out of college, they'd compete for a year or two, then get a job, get married, and retire. While a few big meets might pay as much as $500 or so under the table for stars, track was no way to make a living. That was the amateur system - athletes weren't supposed to make money. Then, in the Sixties, German shoe companies Adidas and Puma started secretly paying jocks to wear their shoes in the Olympics, with the payoffs escalating into the thousands. And in Europe a big-league track meet circuit developed, offering generous appearance money (still under the table) and cash bonuses for setting records. In the early Eighties, the International Amateur Athletic Federation yielded to the inevitable, and track became professional. For the top stars, it was a bonanza: Carl Lewis demanded - and got - $50,000 per meet and won his ninth Olympic gold medal at age 35. But the end of amateurism also allowed thousands of world-class runners, jumpers and throwers a chance for a decent living while trying to fulfill their athletic potential.
Two other major Game Changers I thought about including but didn't are Title IX and Drugs. Here's why I didn't: (1) Title IX, although it has brought about major changes in almost every American sport, has had little or no effect on the rest of the world; (2) drugs and doping, while they have certainly played a major role in track and field all over the globe since the 1970s, are not essentially a track and field phenomenon. As we've recently learned, they've caused changes in many other games, from baseball to boxing, from soccer to swimming, from tennis to triathlon.
