Gold Rush
What Makes an Olympic Champion?
Michael Johnson
DEDICATION
To my coach, Clyde Hart
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
Introduction
1. My Quest for Gold
2. Catching Olympic Fever
3. Technique and DNA
4. Doing What It Takes to Win
5. Mental Games
6. No Shortcuts
7. The Heat of Battle
8. Living and Competing in the Limelight
9. Coaches, Heroes and Mentors
Conclusion
Picture Section
Searchable Terms
Acknowledgements
Copyright
About the Publisher
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the following people who have helped to make this book possible. First, my wife Armine for all of her support and understanding, and my son Sebastian, who inspires me with his love for reading and his own dream of becoming a writer; my agent Sarah Wooldridge at IMG, whose tireless search for the right publisher and her belief in my ability to write an insightful and informative book has resulted in Gold Rush; Jonathan Taylor for understanding my vision for this book and helping to shape that vision; and Linden Gross, my writing coach, who kept me on task and whose energy and excitement about the project were crucial in getting me to the finish line. Thanks to Steve Burdett and Nick Canham at HarperCollins for picking up the ball after the project had started. Thanks also to Nadia Comaneci, Chris Hoy, Rebecca Adlington, Usain Bolt, Sally Gunnell, Sir Steve Redgrave, Mark Spitz, Lord Sebastian Coe, Ian Thorpe, Cathy Freeman, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Daley Thompson for sharing wonderful stories of success, failure, lessons learned and, perhaps most importantly, revealing their personal weaknesses and vulnerabilities.
I would be remiss if I didn’t take this time to also thank the people who were instrumental in my own career success. Writing this book brought back many fond memories of challenges, wins, losses and very valuable life lessons learned. My coach Clyde Hart was the only coach I could ever have had. Clyde’s approach to coaching as a teacher was a perfect match for my approach to training and competing. I was always trying to learn more about myself as an athlete and Coach taught me everything he knew until the point that we started to learn together. He remains a friend, a coach and a role model. Thanks to my manager and agent, Brad Hunt, who helped me during my career to capitalise on the opportunities that my success on the track afforded me. Thanks to my parents Paul and Ruby, my brother Paul Jr, my sisters Regina, Cheryl and Deidre and our friend Brenda Harris for all of their support and for being the ultimate travelling fan club, following me around the globe and being there for me during all times, good and bad.
And finally, thanks to all of my fans around the world who followed and supported my athletics career over 11 years, and those fans who follow me now as a television pundit and encourage me to continue to share a frank and straightforward perspective on sport.
INTRODUCTION
From the moment the UK contingent unveiled its deceptively simple preview of the 2012 Games during the closing ceremony of the 2008 Games in Beijing, it was clear that this would be Britain’s greatest sporting occasion in living memory. London’s Games will provide a total contrast to the 2008 Games. Despite the incredible spectacle that Beijing put on during its opening and closing ceremonies, the Games themselves lacked the festive, fun and exciting atmosphere that everyone associates with the Olympics. This time around, we’re going to have a celebration of the Olympic spirit and of the athletes, who will have the chance of a lifetime to achieve the apex of their sporting careers.
As somewhat of an honorary Brit, I will be rooting for those athletes from the UK who will have to contend with the monstrous pressure of expectation from a home crowd feverishly anticipating a national gold rush.
Will the more than 500 men and women competing under the Union Jack be able to deliver? British athletes in some sports, like cycling, are poised to capitalise on prior success and the support of Queen and country. But Olympic gold could prove a tall order for many others because the British system of developing athletes, at one time one of the best in the world, has fallen behind over the last couple of decades. And while there have been efforts to get back to where they once were, some of the efforts, in athletics for example, could have been implemented a little too late to have a real effect on the medal haul in London.
On the other hand, this is the Olympic Games, where anything can happen. Even better, this Olympic competition is being held in the UK. A home Olympics is a great and rare opportunity for any athlete. Competing in the Olympics on home soil, if managed properly, can prove competitively advantageous. But capitalising on those advantages isn’t easy. This is the toughest sports competition in the world, where the best athletes in the world challenge each other and themselves. As if that weren’t enough pressure, this pinnacle of athletic competition only takes place every four years. If successful, your name will be in the history books for ever, and there is no sporting event with a richer history than the Olympic Games. Miss your opportunity, on the other hand, and you may never get another.
Whether you’ll succeed or fail, no one knows. But one thing is certain: everyone will be watching. And even as Olympic stars emerge during the London 2012 Games, other future Olympic champions will catch the dream.
My first experience of seeing an Olympics was the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. It was exciting to watch, but I honestly had no idea that four years later I would be trying out for the US Olympic team, eight years later I would compete in my first Olympics, and 12 years later I would be making Olympic history as the Games returned to the US in Atlanta. My journey through those 12 years included a hell of a lot of fun, a lot of pain, some incredibly rewarding achievements, some major setbacks, and memories that will last the rest of my life. In fact, my entire life is pretty much defined by the events of those 12 years from 1984 to 1996.
This book is not just about my journey but about the journey of many Olympic icons, past and present. You will hear about all of our stories. How we got our start in our respective sports, and our unique journeys to Olympic success. Our failures, our successes and, most importantly, in our own words, our own opinions of how and why we were successful in becoming Olympic champions – in many cases more than once.
Gold Rush attempts to explain what it takes to achieve this very rare level of success, investigating the similarities in the approaches taken by each of the champions, and in the make-up of the champions themselves, as well as the differences between them and their approaches. After looking back at my own road to success and then interviewing more than a dozen Olympic champions to hear their stories and find out more about their road to success, I discovered that the similarities far outweighed the differences. I also confirmed something that I have always felt: that most fans aren’t fully aware of the really significant and fine details about their Olympic heroes that make them special. Many Olympic fans have a good 30,000-foot view understanding of Olympic athletes, what makes them tick, and how they achieve such amazing success. This book gets right down to a face-to-face level with Olympic success through the stories told to me – one Olympic champion having a frank, unguarded,