Two nights ago I had a front row seat to one of the most incredible races I’ve ever seen. After the first two heats of the men’s skeleton it became clear that we were watching a two-horse race between Jon Montgomery of Canada and Martins Dukurs of Latvia, a man who, as Jon says, is the World Cup overall champion “for a reason.”
The race began with Martins smashing the track record and showing that he was not intimidated in the least by Jon’s dominance in training. After Jon’s first run which was 28 hundredths of a second slower than Martins’, you got the first glimpse as to why he is such an exceptional athlete. When asked what he was thinking when he saw the time of Martins’ first run, his reply was quite simply that he was unaware of it until he had finished his own run and was standing at the finish dock. As a coach I’ll preface this point by saying it’s not nearly as easy as it sounds, but the great ones are totally focused on what they have to do and nothing else.
When asked what he was thinking when he saw the time of Martins’ first run, his reply was quite simply that he was unaware of it until he had finished his own run and was standing at the finish dock.
On the second run of the event, Jon came back at Martins and actually cut into his lead, albeit by only two hundredths of a second. In the first run of day two, Martins again came down the track first and broke the track record. This time Jon responded immediately and decisively by reclaiming the record and cutting in to the lead by another eight hundredths, leaving the gap at 0.18 seconds with one run remaining.
Jon was interviewed after his third heat and mentioned that he had just been talking to Martins and had joked that it was going to take more than four heats for him to catch up at the rate he was going. The light-hearted banter was punctuated with a shot of the two rivals shaking hands on the truck waiting to head back to the top of the track. There’s no animosity between these great competitors. There is respect.
In the words of the former Crazy Canuck, Jungle Jim Hunter, “too many athletes want to win by default,” as opposed to earning their results. There were in fact two examples of this in the skeleton competition. The first happened after day one in the women’s event when a protest was filed against race leader (and eventual winner) Amy Williams of Great Britain. The claim was that Amy had somehow added a wind fairing to her helmet but the protest was quickly rejected as the helmet was commercially available to all competitors as is required by the rules.
The other instance had heartbreaking consequences for Canadian Mike Douglas. Contrary to what was originally reported, Mike’s sled was in fact in the secure area on time as required by the rules. The issue was that the sled still had the protective guards covering the runners. I can’t tell you how many times as both an athlete and now coach that I have witnessed competitors and coaches alike remove the runner guards from an opponent’s sled when the deadline loomed. That just didn’t happen here. Amy and Mike were both vying for medals, and the sad truth is that their ranking played a role in both instances. Trying to eliminate the competition by catching them on some technicality defines winning by default.
Jon Montgomery in the final heat had yet another near perfect run and Martins Dukurs made a few small errors that gave the win to Jon by seven hundredths of a second. After being behind for almost six kilometers of racing, Jon overtook the Latvian somewhere in the middle of the final curve.
These athletes have no need for winning by default, in fact they welcome the challenge. Martins Dukurs having had an incredible race markedly increases the value of Jon’s medal – maybe not to the public at large, but to Jon. If he won gold because Martins had an equipment failure, it wouldn’t have meant what it does. After the race Jon stated that with his final run he knew he had done his best and if it wasn’t good enough to win then he’d wear the silver medal “with a smile on [his] face.” Jon even went so far as to acknowledge his home track advantage over the Latvian: “for Martins to show up with six training runs and have this kind of performance is huge.”
Congratulations to both Jon and Martins for showing that great performances are preceded by great attitudes. That was one of the all-time best races (not just skeleton races, but races) that I’ve ever seen.
Duff – very well written!!
I always like stories like these. And at the end of the day, both athletes can go home knowing they are among the world’s best. It makes me want to get out that cowbell and HAMMER it for Team Canada!
awsome job Jon made canada pround
Thanks for the great article on an often overlooked aspect of what makes sport so special…especially Olympic sport.
Way to go Jon!!!
true athletes, good job Jon.
I believe there was further evidence of the great sportsmanship displayed by these two fine athletes. Jon took the time to apologize to Martins for his overly enthusiastic taking of the victory podium, which was in turn received with all the grace and elegance that true quality people and champions display.
Very refreshing to see athletes behaving in a manner that makes us all proud. Indeed, these are the athletes that young people should make role models of and not the over-paid prima donnas that are often the stuff that major league stars are made of. I refer to all the “big” sports in North America, where the salary earned is often more important to the athlete than the persona he projects.
Both Dukurs and Montgomery showed the finest of athletes, of men and of their countries.
Well done.
Refreshing in this day and age where winning often comes at any cost. This is what the Olympics should be all about. Thanks for writing this story!
Great Article. Monty is my favorite Canadian of the games so far!
i watched you win and so far, you are my hero…your parents did a great great job. you made me proud to be a canadian. thank you for leting me enjoy your win…
Great article and great race! Martins made Latvia very proud and maybe even more than just it would be by winning gold straight away. People talk about this run and Latvia has shown that you need very little to be one of the best in the World. I still think Martins performance was Gold medal worth. For all latvians Martin is gold of Vancouver 2010!
Latvians are also very very proud!
We believe in Martin!
Doesn’t matter silver or gold, he is our star!:)
Martins and his brother Tomass (4th in the competition) did this only because of their hard work, plain enthusiasm and supporters – mostly their dad. No government support is given for this sport discipline, but let’s hope it is going to change. Latvia has great track in Sigulda and all capacity to train more young man to contribute to the competition. Martins and also brothers Andris and Juris Shics with their silver medal proved that such small country as Latvia (with only 2,4 million population) can be as noticeable as big countries with huge support and great population. Bottom line – no matter what, the hard work and right attitude is what counts in sports.
Latvia is very proud of Martins. Even tho he didn’t won gold, we are so proud of him and he showed ro wole world that big nations has to pay attention to us. I think we proved something to this world.
I’m proud and I’m happy
To all the Latvian readers, thanks very much for the comments. You should be very proud of both Dukurs brothers, they are incredible athletes. And keep in mind the Olympics and World Championships are the single most important events as they carry with them the title of World or Olympic Champion but within the sliding community, we agree that the best slider is the World Cup overall champion which is Martins. He’s still very young too. I competed against him until I retired in 2006 and I think I retired at exactly the right time!
Thanks Duff for this great reflective piece. As you’ve alluded to in previous pieces, positive rivalry as Cal speaks of it, ought to be where the real competitive spirit lives strong! It’s such a perspective that in fact allows us to explore, and discover the best that’s within us. Pushing each other, we in fact support one another’s journey of excellence.
Not an easy concept to necessarily talk about with young athletes, who may be so used to keeping score (literally as is the case in Jr tennis!) that they forget to care about the innate, awesome challenge in the competition itself. I look forward to sharing your piece with my athletes and having a rich conversation about this with them. Thanks Duff!
Thanks for that Chantale. Your comment reminded me of when we played road hockey on my block as a kid – played for hours, tried really hard, had great fun, never kept score. So why did we do it then? Just loved it for itself.
Thanks for a great article. Both athletes deserve credit for their attitude to sport. The Canadian olympic commitee should learn from these two. The Olympics are not about how many medals but the ability, at the end, to say to yourself “I did my best”.
Great article Duff. Thank you.
Great photo Darla, thank you!