From all I knew today 2018, I wish I could have gone back to early 1980 to tell myself about all these. Having known all these upfront may have made me a more successful sportsman rather than a not so successful athletic track and field runner. My personal best is 50.8 for 400m at the age of 23. In this article, I assume one has all the basic required resources needed such as coaching, sufficient funding etc. If you find this article useful to your younger child, relatives, friend etc, do forward them this article. I hope it helps.
First is Genetics:
When I first started seriously running in 1986 at 14 years old, I realized that I could never beat the school sprinter (Khairul and RizalSham) 100m. No matter how I train, I can never beat them. They have all the given genetics to do well. Khairul does not need much training, all he needs to do is keep healthy, not overweight and practice 2-3 weeks before the competition and nobody in school can beat him. So, I don’t have the genetics for sprinting, let forget it. Focus on some other thing.
Second is Effort:
Then I realize what if I run 400m like 100m sprinting. I was more than willing to take up the effort in endurance work. Finally, with 1-year training, I made it in 400m, nobody in school can beat me in it. I think this success is also the biggest mistake and attachment I have for the rest of my life and worst have indirectly prevented me from doing other events. I stayed in 400m until the end of my running career. The only innovation I made is genetics + effort. The effort part will automatically filter out 90% of the potential competitors because they prefer to “lepak” / do nothing. Watch TV etc at home.
Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.
Let me assume there are 1,000,000 people around my age group. I will be able to beat 90% of them in 100m. So there are, 100,000 people within the same age group who can still beat me in 100m.
From these 100,000 people, let said only 1% are willing to train for years and endurance work. My training years are 1986 till 1996. I have plenty of spare time to compete. Thus, I will be completing these 1000 people for years to come. Therefore, this is an easy qualification for me to represent the district or state school level representative in Malaysia.
Third is Skill
Back in 1987, I often visited Kg Pandan Sport complex. I saw Rabuan Pit, Ishtiaq Mubarak, Nur Herman Majid, Hanipiah Nasir, etc. However, I hardly talk to them. Going back in time, I should have at least approach them. I was just too shy and dumb ashes (period). One thing I observed in 1988, is that in High jump, hurdle, pole vault, throw event is usually dominated by the same group of people for a duration of 5 – 15 years depending on which athletic you are referring to. Every year you see the same person will the state event and he went on to compete with the same group of people from another state. Thus, skills may be another factor to consider
A 100m runner may be able to beat many sprinters if he trains consistently for years, but then he may not be able to beat Rabuan Pit. His best maybe around 10.8 or 10.9 in 100m. That the best he can do. However, for him to be successful if he could recognize it earlier, he could start training for 110m hurdles before the age of 15-16, then probably he may be able to perform as a 110m national hurdler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florian_Schwarthoff
On average, if one perfected his hurdling skill, it will take about 3 seconds away from his 100m time. If he can run 11.0 in 100m, perhaps he can run 14.0 in 110m hurdle. It is the timing for gold medalist SEA games for 1987-1991.
The mistake I made is
1. I lazy and lack of patience to learn hurdling. The drills involve jumping here and there around the hurdle with no particular reasons for maybe at least six months to 2 years before you start to win any medal at the state level. At the same time, I have to do my heavy intervals for 400m. Like 6x300m etc. I need to spare one hour per day, three days per week for the drills. I begin to doubt the initial ROI as I already got 400m mah.
2. I also scared of falling down, hitting the hurdle.
Moreover, the coaches are right there at Kg Pandan. I just dumb ashes.
Let do a simple calculation to illustrate my idea.
From the remaining 1000 people, let said only 20% of them have coaches to teach them hurdling, effort to learn and patch up their skill for at least two years. Then, there are only 200 people left to compete against you. Thus, if you are a state-level 100m,400m runner, you almost upgrade yourself to be a national 110m hurdle or 400m hurdle runner (if you are willing to spend 2-3 years perfecting the hurdling skill).
Lately, in 2018, I got involved in swimming. I also found that swimming is very technical in nature.
Fourth is Interactive.
Track and Field event generally is non-interactive sports where individuals are competing against themselves. In interactive games, like racquet games. You decide to hit the ball in one direction. Your opponent has to pick it up. I read the book when I was 20+, “The WAY of a champion.”
Eddy chong wrote this. Maybe your badminton opponent can jump 2 feet higher than you to smash. However, he cannot jump 20 feet to smash. Then I realize how wrong I was sticking to track and field. Your opponent may have 2x your stamina, but in the game, if you can make him run all over the court. You can still beat him. Every moment, as one hit the ball, it’s a game of skill, effort and intelligent. Thus, badminton is more interesting.
Well, during my late teen years, I always read the review “How carl Lewis lost his 100m to Ben Johnson in 1988, as he turns to look at Ben when he ran?”.Carl eventually won as Ben Johnson cheated on the race by using drug. I also read the review “How Dr M. Jegathesan focus beat C Kunalan in 100 m 1966 Asian games”? All these are nice plus interesting but super short. Ten seconds and it’s all done. But when I come to think of it. It is no match compared to a simple badminton game between LCW and Lin DAN where every point count or how they approach the game every moment counts.
Fifth is TEAM work
Lastly, sports that involve teamwork. Well, you can be an exceptional player, but in a football team, the whole game depends on everybody. You can have all the four qualities mentioned above; now you need other players to have the same qualities as you and most importantly, willing to cooperate with you to win the game. For example, CHINESE athletes are good in individual and two-person team games; however, in large team events such as hockey and football. They did not perform well as compared to Korea and Japan. In Malaysia, I do foresee team event is a bit problematic.
Conclusion
Maybe I should write more and explain further. In the first three pillars, most of the time, you can practice on your own. Hurdling drills, you can DIY. With youtube, you can learn the skill by yourself. If you can get a coach even better, or you can video your drills, jump, run, swim and send it to someone for review. With technology and some $$$, you can even get an Olympian to review your video. We Asians are small in size; without skill, you can never be an Olympic medalist. (period).Thus, in every sport, you must have at least the first three pillars.
In interactive sports, you may need to find a team to practice with e.g. Badminton club. You cannot practice with a wall. That is a major drawback, especially for rural areas where the sport is not popular. Thus like it or not, champions will come from city areas. In badminton, I do see some hope, however in other sports not much hope. I will explain more in another article.
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