Richard J. Cunningham
Our hopes of winning a medal at the Olympics are high as we get closer to them. It is still a mystery why this country’s female mountain bikers are so dominant in pro-mountain biking racing. If the stars align and the stars are feeling hot, Alison Dunlap and Ruthie Trombley could all score big. Is there any other nation with three Olympic gold medalists? Mountain bikers of the opposite gender are unfortunately in the same boat.
If I could bet my whole fortune on an Olympic hopeful, it would not be a man in this year or any year in the future. Tinker and Travis are my best friends. They have earned the right to defend Sidney’s honor, and I am grateful for their efforts. But, a lot more will need to happen before Tinker or Travis can be seen in a Wheaties box in 2001.
At the Olympics, anything can happen. Half of the field could be eliminated by a new drug test. The course may be enveloped in dense fog, which could cause the entire Euro contingent of Euro athletes to follow Mig on the Biathlon circuit and off the mountain bike track. There is always the possibility that a dark horse from America could win a spectacular victory. It seems that this is how it works in this country, at least for our men.
Our superstars appear to have come out of nothing and at the worst time. Greg Lemond and Lance Armstrong, Ned Overend and John Tomac, Joe Murray and Tinker Juarez all rose from relative infamy to become world leaders. The mythology of America holds that the average man can rise to stardom if given the chance and with hard work and luck.
It’s the Superman Myth. As long as there are at least one naturally gifted athlete, we will be content with a cycling federation producing mediocre athletes. Our myth has a fatal flaw when our Supermen grow old and can’t defeat the whole world by themselves, and we are left without suitable successors. We are outnumbered and limp-wristed, so we attempt to keep the technologically superior European countries at bay while we wait for another superstar to miraculously appear in our ranks.
The savior has yet to appear. Perhaps we should look at a different mythology. We could send our top junior men to Australia. We already have two world champions. This will allow us to invest in the future and give these athletes the opportunity of representing a whole nation before millions of TV viewers. This would be a terrible disappointment for Tinker and Travis. It may even be unthinkable considering the honor this pair has bestowed on the Stars and Bars.
You can forget about your emotions and just think: Walker Ferguson or Matt Kelly would break the top ten in Sydney. Each young racer would have known that they could win the gold within four years. It would be as promising for future athletes if our current candidates could manage a tenth-place finish.