Consider those athletes who make bold predictions about how they are going to win the big upcoming contest. “I am the greatest!” proclaimed Muhammad Ali in 1964, promising to “explode” (his word) into world champion Sonny Liston in their upcoming heavyweight bout. People laughed, looking forward to seeing Cassius Clay, as Ali was then known, flattened by the champ. The laughter changed after round six, when Liston was so battered that he could not rise from his corner seat.
In 1969, hard-partying “Broadway Joe” Namath matter-of-factly guaranteed football fans across America that his New York Jets, an 18-point underdog, would beat the talent-laden Baltimore Colts in Super Bowl III. Namath picked the Colts’ defense apart, and the game wasn’t as close as the 16-7 final score might suggest.
So here’s Josh Kerr, a 28-year-old Scottish runner who personifies confidence. Last month in London, Kerr ran a mile in 3:42.66, breaking the world record of 3:43.13 that Hicham El-Guerrouj of Morocco had run in 1999. El Guerrouj’s record had stood for 27 years, more than three times as long as any previous interval between mile records. Kerr broke it by half a second, which for mile records is a lot.
In the weeks before the race, Kerr did nothing to conceal his thought that the record was in reach. He was going for it and said so. But what he didn’t do was talk the way he had talked two years earlier, when he was a co-favorite to win the men’s Olympic 1500 meters.
The buildup in those Olympics was intense. Kerr declared that he was the best in the world and would demonstrate as much in the final. Jakob Ingebrigtsen, the most celebrated Norwegian runner since Grete Waitz, made an identical claim. He was the best in the world, and he was going to demolish Kerr.
In the final, Ingebrigtsen led from the start, intending to wear down everyone else. Kerr held on, timed his kick, passed Ingebrigtsen in the stretch, eyed the finish line — and was beaten when American Cole Hacker passed him and Ingebrigtsen in the final yards to win the gold medal in a new Olympic record. Anyone who needed a reminder about the questionable value of trash talking got a nice one.
I’ve seen nothing in the news that resembles trash talking from Kerr prior to his record race in London. Instead, in his pre-race comments he spoke of how intensely he was training, mentioning specific times for some of his workout intervals. Besides, while the Olympic 1500 tends to be a tactical race, with runners focused on beating each other, the main purpose of the mile race in London was explicitly to break a record, and to get help to do so.
In such a race, one or two runners take the role of pacers, assigned to run precisely calculated lap times at the head of the pack before the record-challenger takes over. That’s how, in 1954, Roger Bannister became the first person to break four minutes for the mile; his teammate Chris Brasher led for a lap, his other teammate, Chris Chataway, led for the next two, and Bannister kicked with less than a lap to go.
Kerr’s effort in London was more spectacular. He took the lead early in the third lap, which meant he was alone in front for almost two minutes. Everyone in the stadium knew what Kerr was trying to do, and the noise was deafening — literally so for Kerr, who remarked afterward that in the final yards he lost his sense of hearing. “I shut off everything I didn’t need,” he said. If you haven’t already seen it, find the race on line and watch.
Addenda: The mile remains magical. Not an Olympic event, it is the one non-metric track race recognized by World Athletics for record purposes. And the word is evocative. When do you ever hear someone say, “You missed by a kilometer” or “She hit the ball a kilometer?” Last week, after watching footage of Kerr’s race, I went to watch Matt Damon play another great competitor, Odysseus. Damon, Kerr and I have the same birthday.
The always wonderful Bridge of Flowers Road Race in Shelburne Falls is less than a week from today – Saturday, Aug. 8, with an 8 a.m. start for the 3km. event and 9 a.m. for the 8-kilometer (five miles) main event. There’s no race-day registration; register in advance at https://www.runreg.com/bridgeofflowersrace. Entry is free for runners 70 and older. They can still use more volunteers. See https://bofrace.com/p/25/Volunteers.
John Stifler has taught writing in economics at UMass and has written extensively for running magazines and newspapers. He can be reached at jstifler@umass.edu.