That Magic Ingredient

The American runner Steve Prefontaine had a distinguished career before his untimely death in a road accident. He made his name as a teenage prodigy and attended the University of Oregon which had an outstanding athletics program. He was a favourite for the 1976 Games which he did not live to see. In spite of this however there was a slight concern about his running. Up until 1972 he was a brilliant prospect. After his Olympic failure that year he was still performing as well as anyone but there was something missing. He ran well technically. But it was widely remarked that for some reason "the spark had gone".

So what is that spark which runners had in the days before drugs took over? How were those who had The Spark distinguished from the rest? What advantage did it give them over runners who did not have it?

With male runners there is a major clue. In the early 1970s it was considered bad form to run without hair. David Bedford set middle distance records with a Zapata tache and Lasse Viren won two Olympic titles with Nordic moustache and beard. Prefontaine also had a trademark moustache although he did not live long enough to sell it on e-bay as Nigel Mansell and other famous wearers subsequently did. The athletes with a spark were easily identified by the stiffness of their moustaches. Most moustachioed men who run find their moustaches drooping after their exertions and dripping with sweat. The Spark enabled the moustaches to remain lustrous and taut throughout. This God given gift has the practical benefit of reducing drag coefficient. It also instils in the athlete a belief that he too will never fall or decline in any way. Maybe that is what led later clean shaven runners to experiment with drugs to try and gain the spark of their predecessors. Either way the positive effects of The Spark were clear on the face as well as on the track and a wide group of viewers were therefore able to appreciate the special qualities of the elite athlete.

With female athletes the situation was different. They did not grow beards in those days although that cannot be guaranteed now with the drugs some of them take. Female athletes with The Spark were distinguished by their inability to smile. Take pentathlon champion Mary Peters. She has become a well known personality since retirement and her smiling face is often seen promoting sport and her native Northern Ireland. On the track however it was entirely different. She was constantly scowling with concentration during her event because The Spark gave her an inner glow which could not be expressed by a smile. A smile could only be generated by external mental stimulus which was a distraction from the inner glow and not as strong emotively. Athletes without The Spark had to smile while they were competing to obtain enough stimulus to compete at all. Modern athletes without The Spark once took to perpetual scowling to replicate it but have now realised that this just makes them miserable. The most recent alternative strategy is to argue about money in the name of "the best interests of the sport" thinking this makes them a serious athlete.

The other factor common to both genders which distinguishes an athlete with The Spark is an inability to walk. Most of us learn to walk as children and any other means of self-locomotion we learn is a bonus. It is not the norm. For great runners the opposite is true. Running is the norm and walking is unusual. In other fields of human activity the high achievers have great ability in their fields and a corresponding deficiency elsewhere. Scientists cannot always spell or paint for example. Runners with The Spark are only able to function properly when they are running. Observe the performance of former runners who take up television commentary. Hear the incomparably more felicitous phrases they come out with when they run across the track to conduct an interview compared with their efforts when sitting in a box. For most of us it would be the other way round. Steve Ovett now has restricted mobility due to a motorbike accident and Prefontaine was driving his car when he lost his life in his accident. Was the lack of co-ordination which was a factor in these accidents the inevitable consequence of them not running at the time? One cannot say for sure but no non-runner could dare presume otherwise.

The Spark set runners apart and gave them a particular advantage. Lesser runners eventually cracked under the strain of being constantly expected to train and compete at the highest level. They would fall by the wayside when they failed to be the superhuman beings their sport and its sponsors demanded. Runners who had The Spark were likewise liable to have off days. But only human beings have those. If you had The Spark it was established that you were more than human in the first place. Therefore your off days never really happened. What was an off day to a lesser athlete was restraint on your part. If you had The Spark you had physical credentials beyond your control which were manifest to everyone. Who cared if you always produced when you carried on displaying them? Surely that is the position we would all like to be in. Hence the respect accorded to The Spark and those presumed to have it.