The Solitary life of An Olympic Athlete
May 16 2004

It is my first week back after almost six weeks off the mat. If I were a Hockey player, I would have described my condition as a ?lower body? injury; I like that non-specificity better. Having adhered to the physical conditioning and physiotherapy demands, I felt confident enough, that with the clearance from my doctor to resume non-contact-on-mat activity, I could get back and start technique sessions again.

Funny how, many weeks away from the mat can toy with a man?s state of mind. As much as I feel excited to get right back into the thick of things on the mat, I am also leery that I may get carried away and do more damage. As I drive to the gym on the first day of practice, my mind is consumed with thoughts of the likely scenarios are likely to present themselves at the gym. Will I encounter a high school kid who wants to wrestle me ?for just a minute'? If I take the bait, as I am more than likely to do, would I be contravening the admonition by the doctor to only ?resume non-contact mat training? Better still, what if my teammates opt to warm up with a game of soccer? As a soccer fanatic, would I have the discipline to recognize that playing soccer (especially one without rules as often happens with warm up soccer in a wrestling gym!), would amount to endangering my stipulated return to full health? In the alternative, would I rather go on the bike for a solitary, boring warm up? Or maybe remain as a goalkeeper in the soccer warm up, working up a sweat, while deriving some welcome fun in the process.

A loud horn from a passing car alerts me to the realization that I am lost in thought. She rolls down the window of her jeep Cherokee and gives me the thumbs-up. I acknowledge the gesture and as I continue to drive after the green lights beckon, she signals for me to roll down my windows too. ?Good luck at the Olympics, we will be cheering for you,? she yells, as I speed away. It?s now just ten minutes to the practice facility, and I realize for the first time, that I had been lost in thought for almost twenty minutes of the 30-minute drive. I realize too, that it is less than a hundred days to the Olympics and that soccer, no matter how fun it might be, or any other exercise routine that might have a remote opportunity of causing me injury, other than wrestling, would need to be eliminated from my routine. Yet, I get to practice, and sure enough, my team mates decide to warm up with soccer?and well, I end up being a goalkeeper. So much for the resolution to eliminate soccer from my warm up routine... that resolution, much like many New Year?s resolutions, lasted all of 15 minutes.

Squatting down still sends sharp pains down my ?lower body? injury, but the more I persevere, the sooner I will get to the point of scrimmaging fully on the mat. Of interest to me is the time that is needed to perfect this art. As I walk down these familiar stairs to the ?dungeon?, I wonder how many times I have stepped up and down these stairs. The unusually long and deliberate shuffle down the stairs reminds me of how many times I would have to do a move, a move that I think I know so well over and over again. I have often wondered why, for instance, I would drill a single leg-take-down a hundred times each practice session; why I would drill the hip toss, the fireman?s carry, the double leg attack, and the numerous other moves I have perfected as a kid onwards, numerous times over everyday. Why would a basketball player keep shooting the three pointer, a baseball player stay at batting practice for hours each day, the sprinter, go up and down the familiar 100 meter route hundreds of times over?

I also often wonder whether the minds of other athletes stray like mine when we are supposed to be in concentrated positions. My mind does not stray during wrestling practices; I am normally very focused when I am drilling moves. During technique sessions on the mat, I try to get the practice partner to the ideal position as I debate the amount of force or pull or tap necessary to achieve the desired action or reaction. But my mind strays when I am on the swimming pool, or the bike, or the thread mill or the rowing machine. Those moments when you feel like the thread mill would spit you off, you are almost drowning on the pool, your arm strings threaten to explode from the strain of the elliptical machine, or when you feel so exhausted to the point that you are barely able to breath. Those moments when you have had three training partners rotate on you for six minutes and you feel light headed, faint, want to puke, but can?t, see stars, feel the room rotating around you in a circle, and ultimately hallucinate about the near death experience. The moments when you almost unconsciously want to make a deal with the coach, or your training partners to take it a tad easy on you, that you?d be a good boy and never be bad again; then realize that you?ve indeed not done nothing wrong and that all this torture is supposed to be for your own good.

More disturbing is when I have to do it to myself. When the coaches and the training partners are absent, but I, of my own volition, pick a time and place, decide to go to the gym and work myself to the point of exhaustion, that I need 30 minutes to recover before driving myself back home. I often question what that means, why we do it, why the coaches need to subject us to that level of exhaustion. If I only require six minutes for a match, and 9 minutes if it goes into overtime, why do I train for three to four hours everyday except Sundays, where I might add, we are expected to do a light biking session. Is it true that the ?body dies more from under work than from overwork??

Do other athletes think the same things I daydream about when my crotch is near breaking point from being on the bike, when my throat is so dry during an exhausting training session that I can barely swallow my own saliva; when my 20/20 vision quits on me and makes me wonder if I have gone blind, when my body aches so badly that I want to throw in the towel myself? Do other athletes have the same lonely, desperate moments for someone to pat them on the back? For someone to throw them a bottle of Gatorade to quench the thirst; for someone to reassure them that, indeed, this is not the end of times or days, that it is only momentary, that those hallucinations will also come to pass and that after re-hydration and rest, you?d be fine, but would have to come back in the evening and the following morning to this punishing ritual?

The past week has been about drilling moves, positioning, strengthening and recovery. A close call on Friday, after yet another game warm up session that required some icing, but in all, the week went by fast without any major concerns. Last week, also, BELL CANADA resuscitated their commitment to amateur athletes by revamping the ?Athletes Connect? program. I was fortunate enough to be one of the athlete ambassadors for the program. May I use this forum to thank BELL CANADA for giving me a sponsorship opportunity to stay connected to the people that matter, while I struggle to perfect my art.

A damp weekend however, as one of my all time favorite athletes FELL this weekend. Not fall in the sense of death, but fall mightily in the sense of un-imaginable defeat. I did not lose any money on a bet, I am not a betting person, but I lost all sleep yesterday. I have since composed an email that I intend to send to him. I had always thought that he would never lose until he retired. Come to think of it, for someone who captured the middle weight, light heavy and heavy weight titles, sometimes concurrently; who dispatched his opponents with embarrassing abandon, who devised his own style, who would on occasion play a full game of basketball before coming to a title fight, I thought he?d never lose. Lets not deceive ourselves about his hitherto 49-1 record; we all know that a disqualification is what reflects on his record as a loss. Last night, my jaw dropped as ?the Man? dropped to the canvas in the second round of the light heavy weight title fight against Antonio Tarver. I watched ?the Man? struggle to get back on his feet. I saw the eight count come to an end without ?the man? being able to recover from the shock left hand to his jaw. For the first time in my life, I saw the referee stop a fight, not for ?the Man?, but against ?the Man?. As I write, I have barely had three hours of sleep. All good things must come to an end one day, but ?the Man?, I hope, does not go out that way. My memory of Roy Jones Jnr. cannot and should not be of ?the Man? struggling to walk back to his corner. Till next week, when I let you into my thought processes during ?near death experiences? in training sessions, keep sweating.

Dynamite Daniel Igali