Championship Week Track and Field Meet

The race couldn't have gone better! Not only did EVERY athlete CRUSH their previous personal records (PR), but we also crushed the competition! We even made history (no team has ever beaten Kitti, another municipality, in the history of the Championship Week games).You should have seen how tall our athletes were walking!

As you know, it was a battle to set the meet up as fairly as possible. In each attempt to establish consistent rules for competition, we were met with accusations of being "cheaters" and that we were "only concerned with winning." This was frustrating for many reasons. First, our motivation behind every inquiry was quite the opposite- we wanted to give every athlete an equal opportunity to succeed. It was also frustrating because, to be honest, we had no reason to cheat! Our athletes were properly conditioned while every other team had only been practicing for two weeks-MAX. Lastly, it was frustrating because laced within their accusations were clearly attempts to adhere to their own personal agendas and unrelenting need to win (i.e. limiting the field in the 1500m to two athletes per team because they didn't have enough distance runners to compete against us).

On the day of the meet the problem with the limited entrants in the 1500m hadn't been resolved, the lane assignments were non-existent (a free-for all) and we were still battling athletes switching teams *cough* being stolen by other coaches *cough*. However, despite these frustrations, our team was still not deterred from the task at hand--they were hungry for competition. The lack of lane assignments wouldn't have been terribly discouraging, however only the winner of each preliminary heat made it to finals (regardless of times) so without seeding the heats the fastest runners ended up racing and knocking each other out during the prelims while the slower athletes were making it to finals. We tried to re-arrange the heats (or at least coach our athletes how to pick which heat they'd jump into), but with the obvious time constraints on top of a language barrier, there wasn't much we could do. This definitely hurt us in the 100m and 200m, but fortunately in the 400m on up we had such a commanding lead over the field that it didn't matter. Further, even though our fastest athletes were getting bumped out of finals in the sprints, having someone to chase brought down their PRs significantly.

Other than the girls 100m and 200m and the boys 100m hurdles we had athletes in every final--we even swept the girls 800m! Only four athletes per event made it to finals making our strong presence during finals all the more impressive. After each race, Michaela and I soaked up the sight of our athletes celebrating their successes. Following an intensive five-month training program for this one track meet, it was clear that hard work gave our athletes the strength needed to emerge triumphant.

Above our point mongering on the track, however, I was most impressed with our athletes’ never-quit mentality. At least on the track, in this culture athletes tend to give-up if they’re not in first-place. At previous track meets it was common to see athletes stop competing mid-way down the homestretch (even in the 100m!). Apparently, giving-up saved more face than pushing until the end and not winning. Before the meet, Michaela and I talked to our athletes about not giving up. We emphasized that our only expectation of them was that they would not stop competing until after they crossed the finish line; no matter what. We explained how disrespectful quitting would be to their coaches, teammates and most importantly to themselves and how it would be wasting the five months of hard work they put in leading up to the competition. Because of the language barrier, it is always a mystery how much meaning you’re actually relaying to the athletes/students. However, after seeing them complete it was clear that they got it. Every other team had at least one athlete withdraw; but not one of our athletes gave up. Not one. We also had athletes fight until the very end, nudging their way into a higher place. One of our athletes, Relo, brought tears to my eyes while racing the 400m. She was competing against the reigning champion from Kitti and made up an impressive 20m gap at the 100m in the final steps of the race. If the finish line would have come 5m earlier, she wouldn’t have won…but she didn’t give up, she pushed until the very end and won the race. Michaela and I (after jumping up and down in the middle of the field) ran to the finish line to hug the crap out of her!! :)

Even though the 3^rd-degree sunburn I earned in the spaces between the corn-row-braids on my head is now history, how I felt after the Championship Week track and field meet will stick with me forever.