Alberto Salazar, World Records, and Athletics’ Greatest ‘Hug’

This is the second conversation between WIRED editor Nicholas Thompson and Knox Robinson, an elite runner and former editor of The Fader, about the IAAF World Championships of track and field. Here is the first installment of their conversation about the medals, controversies, and magic moments in Doha.

Nicholas Thompson: OMG, what is happening? It’s the week of the World Championships, and there are two other cataclysmic stories in our sport. Kenenisa Bekele sneaks out of his retirement home and somehow almost sets a world record in the marathon. And Alberto Salazar, the most successful coach in the country, gets a four-year ban for doping violations right after one of his athletes wins a spectacular gold. Let’s talk about those later on, and let’s start with the actual races inside the bonkers air-conditioned stadium in Doha, with the Star Trek opening montages for every race. My favorite event was probably the men’s 5,000 meters. I love that event in general because of the way it mixes endurance, speed, and tactics. And this year’s edition was nuts. There was a controversial drop-out by Filip Ingebrigtsen, a flame-out by his younger brother, the phenom Jakob Ingebrigtsen, and a last-second comeback by Muktar Edris, who no one thought would be in the hunt.

Knox Robinson: Oh Em Gee indeed. After snapping Mo Farah’s winning streak and denying him a final gold medal at the World Championships two years ago, Muktar Edris hadn’t made much noise at the races. For that he could be forgiven—he had been dubbed “the Mo Farah Slayer,” and that’s gotta be worth a couple of beers at the bar back home in Ethiopia. Even going into the final lap in Doha, he was waaaay back in sixth—with fan favorites pouring on the gas at the front. So to come from behind with such a thrilling kick, that’s what makes track so intoxicating!

Lots of excitement on the track in Doha, and yet so much of the news was thousands of miles away … But yes, let’s stay focused! Picking up where we left off: You really, errr, threw me last week, asking my thoughts on the historic women’s hammer throw. I’m glad I followed up, since the contest—ultimately won by the USA’s DeAnna Price with the first WC medal for an American woman in the throws—began and ended in dramatic fashion, with Price leading from the start and ending with an emotional victory celebration capped with a moment that will forever be remembered as “the scream.” (The scream was later followed by “the hug.”)

NT: Amazing. I had not seen that. And if she’s carrying Bernard Lagat, she’s already one of my favorites. Lagat, of course, is the smoothest runner I’ve ever seen: Watching him run is like watching Sean Connery’s James Bond. And I think Lagat has a genuine chance of making the US Olympic team at age 45 this year—perhaps because he’s always taken so much time off each year. Other runners crush out 120 miles a week until their tendons give. Lagat runs 60, and then takes time off. He’s the classic example of someone who lasts longer by not burning himself into the ground.

KR: He’s so smooth in many ways. I loved a post-race interview a few years back after he’d won another indoor 1500m title. He told a journalist, “I wanted to show the kids that Papa still got it.” And it wasn’t abundantly clear if he meant his own kids there clinging to his leg or the ones he’d just beaten on the track.

NT: Hah. Yes, that’s perfect Lagat. Years back, my children caught toads all summer and named the fastest ones “Simpson” and “Lagat” after the best runners they’d seen. But, so far, the top American performance has got to be Donavan Brazier in the 800m, right? It’s such an unpredictable event: people always seem to come out of nowhere to move from, say, fifth to first over the last 200 meters. But Brazier just crushed everyone on the back straight. And he set an American record while at it.

KR: The 800m has always been my favorite event on the track. I once heard it described as “The Twilight Zone,” because from high school dual meets to the highest levels of the sport, the event remains an incalculable meeting point of speed and endurance that’s sure to guarantee carnage at the end. It’s pure perfection that suddenly erupts into a garbage fire.

It’s sad to see some records go. For me as a kid, Johnny Gray’s 1:42.6 was already a historical fact that subsequent waves of American 800m greats hadn’t been able to touch—until now, with Brazier. So even as I shed a tear of nostalgia, props to him for such a deliberate, focused, technically flawless takedown.

NT: One question about that race, which I take it you’ve run more than I have: Why do people always run the first lap faster than the second? Brazier did the first in 49 seconds and the next in 53. Why not do 51 and then 51? In the women’s race, they took it out in 58 and closed in 60, with a very impressive win by the underdog Halimah Nakaayi.

KR: Well, in running—from the 100m to the marathon—it’s not about who’s fastest; it’s about who slows down the least. Life is like that! We’re enthralled when we hear stories about negative splits, and we love to complain about boring championship races where athletes basically jog to leave it down to a finishing kick. But if you listen to elites across a range of events, few will speak of that as a strategy—going so far as to say that negative or even even splits are just not possible, whether that’s due to the nature of competition or stemming from the demands of racing the distances themselves.

NT: I dunno. Every good marathon I’ve run has been a negative split. It’s psychologically invigorating to be passing people at the end, and it’s crushing to be passed at the end. But maybe I was just brainwashed by the high school coach who told me that going one second too fast in the first mile of a race meant you’d go five seconds too slow in the last one. Anyway, if Donovan Brazier does it, it’s got to be right. From now on, I’m just going to blast it when the gun goes off. Sorry, Mr. Anderson!

Back to the pros, I will add one other thing about the women’s race. Obviously, the debate about Caster Semenya, and whether women with XY chromosomes can compete in the event, is a tangled, thorny, vicious one. But with Semenya out this year, it was the first women’s championship in years where the outcome wasn’t predictable. Semenya hadn’t lost or really been challenged in four years.

KR: Leaving aside the politics around Caster, it’s been tough watching the strain of the evolving debate wear on her over the years. Yes, she was never not winning—but so often she seemed sad, angry, bored and lonely by turns. It’s been poignant because no matter what, she didn’t ask for this.

NT: Yes, absolutely true. And let’s talk about Christian Coleman in the 100m too. He’s short and squat, but he runs like a cannonball fired out of the start. That race was over after about 40 meters. And I have two questions, the first from one of my sons. Why was Coleman wearing a watch? Like, what’s the point of adding even an ounce of extraneous weight to a race like that? Surely he’s not too worried about meeting his step goal. And second, how tired does racing a 100m actually make you? Does it create as much fatigue as a mile?

KR: I wanted Coleman’s watch to be a nod to pro ballers wearing timepieces before and during games, but upon further inspection it was just a rinky-dink Apple watch. Presumably after his successful season he can afford an upgrade!

Tiredness, of course, is subjective. And fatigue is relative! I asked around about your second Q, including from a couple folks with feet in both the sprinting and distance worlds, and heard back that fatigue in the sprints is mainly mechanical breakdown—an almost technical concern, which I guess makes sense for an event that’s decided in under 10 seconds. So you’re right: After hitting top speeds of 28 mph 40 meters in, the race is basically over for everyone involved. All that’s left is awarding the medals 60 meters later.

NT: And props to the dynamite Allyson Felix for winning another gold, though the race she ran, the 4x400m mixed-gender relay, was slightly suspect. I mean any time there’s an event where a team sets a world record in the heats, and then again in the finals, it’s a race that hasn’t been done much before. Still, she’s the best.

KR: Be that as it may, just because a race hasn’t been done much before doesn’t mean it’s not a race! Relays are always a dramafied highlight of a meet. It was terrible being a struggling young runner in last place of the 3,200m at a high school dual meet while sprinters waiting for the relays glared at you like, “Hurry up already, I gotta get home and do homework.”

NT: My main memory of running the 3,200 at a high school dual meet is breaking to a big lead and having the fans in the stands start chanting “That boy has no butt; that boy has no butt.” By the way, did you see Angelica Bengtsson in the pole vault? Her pole split in two on one attempt. And then, on the next, she set a Swedish national record.

KR: Splits happen, LOL. Do vaulters have favorite poles—or lucky ones? What if the pole you’d dutifully saged and palo santo’ed before the meet snapped on the runway? I’d freak out.

NT: And my God, the men’s pole vault. Mondo Duplantis is only 19, but he looked like he was 15 years old out there. I reckon that’s the advantage of having a father who excelled in the sport and taught you how to do it as a small child. The announcer said he set his first record at age 7! Anyhow, he miraculously gets over 5.97 meters, meaning Sam Kendricks has to do the same. So he chalks up, holds it against his neck, and does that crazy run, somehow balancing the pole as he goes forward, which happens to be one of the most elegant maneuvers in the sport … And he gets it. I loved that.

KR: Literally leveled up. Noah Lyles’ parents were both sprinters too, right? I grew up watching my dad during the running boom of the late ’70s/early ’80s, but when I got into it myself in the ’90s, I was scandalized to discover he was a back-of-the-pack guy who saved it all up for a big finishing kick he liked to call “something for the fans in the stands,” even if he was at a friendly 5k that served pancakes afterwards to benefit a local firehouse.

NT: That’s awesome. And, of course, the people that dads care about most in running are their kids. And I didn’t know that about Lyles. He happens to be my 5-year-old’s favorite sprinter, mainly because we watched a race that he won in Zurich and then, when interviewed afterwards, Lyles started singing, “I’ve got to go to the bathroom.”

And how about the men’s long jump? Tajay Gayle of Jamaica was the last man to qualify into the finals; but then he blasted off the 10th best leap in history. Why is this event so unpredictable? Think about Bob Beamon’s great leap, or Michael Powell’s.

KR: This is why Beamon’s face from Mexico City ‘68 is one of the iconic images of the 20th century: the expression of shock and awe of a person—a body and mind united—moving through space and time faster or farther than anyone has ever done before. As for Powell’s never-ending long jump battle with King Carl at the Barcelona Olympics ‘92, I’ll demur—you’ve already got me drowning in ’90s nostalgia.

I like reading the Jamaica Observer’s coverage of their athletes. Yesterday’s headline about Gayle’s gold centered on his high school coach’s reaction: “Mi Nearly Mad When Mi See The Jump!”

NT: The interviews with the kids from his school in that article are dynamite. One note as a fan: I wish the NBC Sports app would give you the option to “turn off results in the headlines.” I like being able to watch replays, but I hate that you can only do so by seeing the damn outcome up top.

KR: I hear you on that. Shall we drop that in the suggestion box for how to Make Track Great Again?

NT: OK. Speaking of that, let’s hold our noses and switch to Salazar. I read the findings of the US Anti-Doping Agency, and it’s a weird mix. The punishment he’s been hit with is harsh: a four-year ban! But the violations that have actually been proven against him are pretty weak sauce: He gave extra l-carnitine to one of his assistants as a test, and he rubbed testosterone gel on his son as part of a test. But of course there have been so many whispers about him. So perhaps it’s a case where the punishment doesn’t match the real crime, but it does match the suspected one.

KR: Ah, how to Make Track Great Again. I agree that AlSal’s transgressions were mainly sucker sauce—but let’s keep that between us, since it’s a wildly unpopular view. Dude didn’t do himself any favors in the court of public opinion. He had a few friends—”Lance, call me ASAP!” LOL—but just as notable as the champions he built are the enemies he’s made.

I’m bummed, to be honest. Of course, his ruthless competitor’s nature when combined with a restless drive for innovation directed him to a morally dubious gray area. But for the past few years I’ve looked at the “Marginal Gains Era”—a handy euphemism for cheating, from Tracktown, USA to the Tour de France—as a way of investigating our own lives and thinking about the small changes we could make to find ourselves a little better off down the road.

Also overlooked in this—in the immediate aftermath of the four-year ban—is Salazar’s long shadow as an athlete in the day, from bringing the NYC Marathon to life in the popular imagination to his epic “Duel In The Sun” at Boston 1982. In many ways, Alberto Salazar pushed running culture forward, if forcefully. I suppose I’m asking: What will be his legacy?

NT: It’s screwed! He brought it on himself. But he’s now sullied everyone’s memories of his triumphs. He’s a man who literally almost died for the sport. Speaking of that, will this change the way you think about Galen Rupp and Mo Farah?

KR: It’s worth noting Salazar’s already been dead before—in 2007 his heart stopped beating for 14 minutes. He turned the episode into a book deal (the book is pretty good.) Anyway, it’s tough to think anything about Rupp—there’s not much “there” there for me, but he worked with Salazar from age 16, and it’s almost like he never had a childhood, such was the extent of Salazar’s influence on his life. I consider Mo a friend, so I’m biased—but it’s interesting to see how his time with Salazar turned him into a consistent world beater. When he was brought onto the team, it was like he was there to be a pace partner for Galen the Golden Boy. But Farah had other ideas in mind, and a few folks close to him have suggested to me he went in with the intent to make the most of it for himself.

NT: OK. Kenenisa Bekele. He’d dropped out, or flubbed, basically every marathon he’s run for the past couple years. And then he runs a 2:01! Did you have any idea that he had another rabbit in his hat? I truly thought he was cooked.

KR: Let’s remember he was already cooked—left off of Ethiopia’s Olympic team for Rio!—but then popped up in Berlin 2016 for the third fastest marathon ever. So I never really thought the dude was done, because, more than any other athlete of his era, he’s quantity X. And even those closest to him never seemed to know what was going on or have explanations for his erratic behavior on and off the racecourse. But in that he has something that’s sorely missing from what’s needed to, well, make it all great again: personality.

I was in Berlin over the weekend for the marathon, and elite circles were abuzz with predictions for Bekele’s race. “Apparently he’s been training for six weeks,” someone told me, astonished. “Six weeks no pizza!” Imagine quitting pizza for six weeks and coming within 2 seconds of the world record in the marathon. Marginal gains for real! Could you do it? The pizza part, not the WR lol.

NT: Amazing. Sometimes I think all professional athletes are like Tom Brady, drinking two hundred glasses of water a day and weighing plates of quinoa. Other times, I remember that Usain Bolt lived entirely off Chicken McNuggets at the Beijing Olympics.

Anyhow, let’s wrap this one here, and we’ll be back at it when everything ends in a couple days. Thank you Knox! Now I’m going to go buy a poster of Bob Beamon and order some deep dish.