Fartlek and lack of vision for sports

To be sure, there was widespread disappointment and anguish over the failure of 19-year old Davaeno, Mark Anthony Barriga, to get past Kazakhstan’s Birzhan Zhakypov in the light flyweight division of the London Olympics boxing competitions on Saturday.

The bout turned bizarre when it at times resembled a wushu or mixed martial arts contest because of the taller Zakhypov’s tactic of wrestling Barriga down to the canvas. The Kazakh won 17-16 after Barriga was penalized for a head butt in the third round.

ABAP president, Ricky Vargas immediately filed a formal protest which was subsequently denied. With Barriga’s defeat, the country lost its last hope of capturing a medal in boxing in London.

Already, there has been finger-pointing with the Philippine government. PAGCOR specifically at the receiving end. Sports officials claim that the failure of the government to give what is due to sports is the main reason for what is fast shaping up to be another dismal performance by the small Philippine contingent. As of this writing, three athletes in athletics and cycling still have to show their wares. That finger-pointing can be sorted out later.

In the meantime, why is it that the Philippines’ performance in the Olympics is deteriorating while most of the world, including the country’s Southeast Asian neighbors and more impoverished and politically troubled countries like Ethiopia and Kenya, are marching forward and getting those Olympic and world championship gold medals?

Ethiopia has just won the women’s Olympic gold medal in marathon, through Tiki Galana who won on Sunday with a time of 2 hours, 23 minutes and 7 seconds for a new Olympic record (although marathon courses change as venues change, meaning there are no courses which are identical) that broke the previous mark of Japan’s Naoko Takahashi of 2:23:14 in 2000 in Sydney. It was Gelana’s second major marathon victory in 2012, having won the Rotterdam Marathon in 2:18:58, the fastest ever time by an Ethiopian woman in the 42-km event.

The Kenyans have pocketed 26 gold medals in Olympics and world championships while the Ethiopians have brought home 18 in the same competitions since the mid 1940’s. Most, it not all, of these victories were in athletics, particularly in the middle-and long-distance and marathons runs.

Ethiopia’s success in the marathon, which has been challenged over the last several years by Kenya is a fascinating story all by itself. The article, “The Road to London Olympics – Kenya Outkicks Ethiopia” cites the willingness of Ethiopia to open its borders to technology transfer “no matter how wild, remote and isolated (you) think Ethiopia is.”

The article states that, behind Ethiopian Abebe Bikila’s superhuman victory at the 1960 Olympic marathon in Rome, was a man who prepared the imperial bodyguard carefully for years. Haile Selassie, the last Emperor of an old (Ethiopian) dynasty which traced its origins to King Solomon, made an effort to develop government, defense, culture and sport up to modern standards.

Not wanting to be dependent either on the US or the then Soviet Union, he asked for help from Sweden, a nation which impressed the Lion of Judah in a visit he made in 1924 (and which had no history or intentions of colonizing other nations). About 600 Scandinavian experts were working in the country when Onni Niskanen came to Ethiopia in 1946.

Despite Niskanen’s original mission to fit the imperial guard. Soon he was engaged in the Ministry of sports and eventually became the national coach. Niskanen introduced fartlek in Ethiopia, the (then) revolutionary new interval training method. Fartlek combine d aerobic and anaerobic skills in a natural environment created by Gosta Olander in order to challenge their neighbors, the “Flying Finns”, who had dominated distance running in the Olympics for nearly three decades.

Niskanen combined fartlek with speed training on the track and long runs. Always, the emphasis was in quality. Niskanen realized the importance of speed endurance in a marathon and thus demanded race pace from Bikila who had a capacity for running never seen before.

Since then, the Ethiopians have repeatedly recorded successes in the Olympics and world championships notwithstanding the incursions made by Kenya, a fact attributed to some internal problems in Ethiopia’s running school which is separate topic altogether. The country’s latest success is the Olympic gold in London of Gelana.

Gelana’s victory is said to be simply a matter of reaping investments made much earlier in women’s sports (or call it gender equality if you wish to introduce some ideology into the matter). In 2011, no less than 33 Ethiopian girls made the top 100 in the marathon, almost double Kenya’s 19 in the elite list.

Certainly, many lessons can be drawn here and money is not the major solution but it will come and be spent more wisely if we had a strategic plan and vision for sports. More on this next week.