Champions attitude

[runninboy]

I have been watching the Worlds Athletics and it brought back memories of competing, and then i come onto this forum and it brings back similar memories.
Basically at a very high level i remember other runners, cyclists, pretty much any sport. the guys at the top were always very approachable and helpful.
When i was coming up i was kind of shocked by this attitude"why would someone try and helpme get better so i might beat them? As i got better i understood about the winners mentality. When you get to a certain level you really are unconcerned about what others are doing, your quest is perfection. I learned it is much more satisfying to run a personal best and lose than fall far short of your best effort and destroy a weak field.
Unfortunately this approach does not always win you friends as your fellow competitiors do not like to be viewed as insignificant. And the worse they are the more irrelevant they are and usually this leads them to talk smack because they are not going to be a factor in the actual race,
This brings me to the forum, i see people spouting off with personal attacks, always trying to build themselves up by tearing down others with namecalling instead of facts, Just like in sports. I could fly across the country and have no idea who i was competing against but i knew immediately the guys talking smack i didnt have to worry about, it was the quiet guy who might kick my ****, So i would let the mouthy ones go knowing i could bring them back easy i had to sit off the shoulder of the quiet guy
95% of the time they were the danger men, they let their actions speak for them.

Now i dont want this to move to the clinic, but it is kind of funny. It seems
doping has reintroduced bragadoccio(spelling) Now we have a few winners who seem to want to intimidate guys far below them on the food chain?
Why? The winners were always unconcerned about the losers before but now the winners are very concerned. True winners are unconcerned about losing as i said it is a personal journey to find your best not defeat others.
And i want to reiterate this winning attitude i find in almost all sports
As another example, father was a competitive shooter, he was in a shootoff with a professional at the top of his game who was paid to practice everyday. My father had a job and never had the chance to practice but still had very good skills. It was really windy and the wind kept changing my dad & this other guy kept helping each other by telling the wind change. My dad lost by one shot and i asked why he helped the other guy beat him and he said "that's the way winners compete"
Even though this other guy was supposed to win, my father had won quite a bit in his day and he fully believed he would prevail so he wanted no unfair advantage.
That is what i find curious about todays crop of "winners" they seem to have a losers mindset. Could it be that they are compensating because they honestly know that they are not winners and are in fact cheating?

 

[beroepsrenner]

This little story reminds me of a forgotten Aussie hero named Clyde Sefton. He was the silver medallist at the 1972 Munich Olympic RR and had recently returned home to race after spending a few years racing in Italy. I was a junior trackie and we were both riding a Sunday club crit in Melbourne and I tried to attack up the inside on the last corner where he cut me off at the apex and went on to win. He came up to me after the race and told me what I had done wrong and then said that if I had made my move a little earlier I would have beaten him. This man became a huge influence on my decision to cross over to road racing and taught me a lot about how to race and train. I also know another guy who was one of the all time great six day riders, a guy who is on a first name basis with the likes of Merckx and Sercu, who lives close by and we occasionally get together and reminisce about our experiences. Even though I was a nobody he still listens to what I have to say as if I was his equal. Yet there are those who have achieved much less in the sport that wouldnt give you the time of day and think their s..t dont stink.

 

[Marva32]

I rememeber when Jonas Carney was riding for Coors Light as an Amateur. He won the US Crit championship in Downers Grove. The next day he was on my flight out to colorado, my folks and I were going for a vacation and I had taken my bike with me as I had never ridden in the mountains. He actually helped my put my bike together at the airport and gave me the locations of a couple of great rides on the front range before I was going out to Keystone and Breckenridge. It was one of the best times I had about the bike without being on it.

 

[runninboy]

I am glad to learn other people have similar experiences.
I bet if we had nothing else to do we could come with dozens of stories like these. I prefer to focus more on positive experiences and these stories fit the bill.
thanks!

 

[Anonymous]

I find this thread very cool so I wanted to "keep it alive", so to speak.

I think attitude has a lot to do with winning. I tend to see people that have to mouth off are inescure about their own abilities. So to make themselves feel better they have to talk smack about others.

I don't know if it was my dad's quiet confidence or what but I learned at a young age to let my deeds and actions do the talking for me. I'm small so lots of people underestimate me and I feel that gives me an advantage. Let them think what they want but when I pass them by the expression on their face is priceless.

A supposedly good tournament player I've played against was constantly talking smack whether they were up by 10 runs or down by 20. Then continued to chatter after the game was over. But I guess if talking down to others and hyping yourself up is all you have to look forward to in your life than you are a sorry person. I have a kids to come home to. They are more important to me than whether I won or if I did my best regardless of the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I am very competitive but at this point in my life it's not what I live for.

 

[Anonymous]

The earlier stories also remind me of when I was getting into auto racing. I was having trouble with this off-camber turn over this blind hill. I saw several cars take it too hot and slide off the track. I, myself, almost bit it. So on a whim I saw a guy in a Porsche and just asked him how he took it. Even though he was much more experienced than I was he was really happy to help me out.

I also found that with many other experienced racers. Everyone was willing to help and give advice. And as I got more experienced I made sure I did the same thing for others. I learned that even if your car isn't that fast, a good driver can still take you down. So if they got into much faster cars they'd totally destroy you. But like the previous posts above, those same guys were also willing to share what they did right or what you did wrong, proper car set up, etc., so you got better as well.

Okay, I'll stop now... haha!

 

[runninboy]

I find this thread very cool so I wanted to "keep it alive", so to speak.

I think attitude has a lot to do with winning. I tend to see people that have to mouth off are inescure about their own abilities. So to make themselves feel better they have to talk smack about others.

I don't know if it was my dad's quiet confidence or what but I learned at a young age to let my deeds and actions do the talking for me. I'm small so lots of people underestimate me and I feel that gives me an advantage. Let them think what they want but when I pass them by the expression on their face is priceless.

A supposedly good tournament player I've played against was constantly talking smack whether they were up by 10 runs or down by 20. Then continued to chatter after the game was over. But I guess if talking down to others and hyping yourself up is all you have to look forward to in your life than you are a sorry person. I have a kids to come home to. They are more important to me than whether I won or if I did my best regardless of the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I am very competitive but at this point in my life it's not what I live for.

I agree. I love cycling, I am very competitive but i prefer to not indulge in risky behaviour to win 50 bucks & braggin rights.

In Southern Cal masters racing i think this attitude prevails, you would prefer to come home in one piece and you treat others the same. You give a guy a line through a corner, you dont muscle smaller guys off wheels, you might pinch someone a little if they dive underneath you but you always back off so they have a safe out.

However i have found in some areas in the US guys will endanger the whole race. There was this one race i did in the midwest with a strong right to left crosswind. And these local guys kept going to the front & riding the yellow line. well of course the whole pack ended up on the wrong side of the road even though the course was open to traffic. So about every minute or so the pack would have to swing back to avoid oncoming traffic.

I couldnt believe a whole group could be so stupid and these were 40 & 50 year olds.
So i went up the right side to form a new echelon, but no one would come by on my right. the minute i swung off everyone dove to the left side of the road and started playing chicken with the cars.
I went back to the front and got as close to the right as possible and just buried myself for the next hour. I figured i might as well get in some good tt work before i dropped out, there was no way i wanted to be a part of such stupidity. I took a 17 mile pull before they dropped me like a bad habit when the wind changed.

The funny thing is not one of the locals said a word to me, I wanted to say
WTF were u guys doing out there??? But then i realized they were old enough to know better and chose to race like a bunch of morons so it is not my place to lecture. The race director was in the follow car behind our group while all these shenanigans were going on and said nothing.

the funny thing is i raced in another state that bordered this one and everyone raced totally different. It was a better quality field and some road hazards came up and the field actually neutralized itself twice in the last 5 laps to avoid a couple of stray cars that got onto the course.

it seems to me the losers mentality is they will risk life & limb because they never know when they will get this close to winning again.
However people who have won before really see no need to risk life & limb to be king of the parking lot crit

 

[Mark Andrews]

I remember my first Masters race being the Crit at Downers Grove, IL, it must have been almost 15 years ago. I lined up, and there right next to me was Thurlow Rogers who was using the event to warm up for the pro race. I looked over and said "sh!t, this is going to hurt", he must have heard me because he told me he was just using it to warm up, so stay on his wheel and I'd be fine. I did that for 1/2 the race and learned a lot about bike handling. What was even better was that after the race I was looking at the finishing order to see how teammates had done and he came up to me and told me I did a good job.

 

[Dude17]

I remember a comment from a serious cyclist near me who said, "Any time I pass a kid on the trail who is out trying to ride his bike, I give him encouragement. 'Hey good job,' that kind of thing. You never know when that will stick and help the kid out."

I also remember doing a hill climb TT and I was hurting (found out my brake was rubbing for the first half of the climb). More than one guy who was passing me (with ease) gave me encouragement to get up the hill.

I'd say that most serious bikers who pretty nice about being inclusive to anyone in or trying out the sport.

 

[beroepsrenner]

I agree. I love cycling, I am very competitive but i prefer to not indulge in risky behaviour to win 50 bucks & braggin rights.

In Southern Cal masters racing i think this attitude prevails, you would prefer to come home in one piece and you treat others the same. You give a guy a line through a corner, you dont muscle smaller guys off wheels, you might pinch someone a little if they dive underneath you but you always back off so they have a safe out.

However i have found in some areas in the US guys will endanger the whole race. There was this one race i did in the midwest with a strong right to left crosswind. And these local guys kept going to the front & riding the yellow line. well of course the whole pack ended up on the wrong side of the road even though the course was open to traffic. So about every minute or so the pack would have to swing back to avoid oncoming traffic.

I couldnt believe a whole group could be so stupid and these were 40 & 50 year olds.
So i went up the right side to form a new echelon, but no one would come by on my right. the minute i swung off everyone dove to the left side of the road and started playing chicken with the cars.
I went back to the front and got as close to the right as possible and just buried myself for the next hour. I figured i might as well get in some good tt work before i dropped out, there was no way i wanted to be a part of such stupidity. I took a 17 mile pull before they dropped me like a bad habit when the wind changed.

The funny thing is not one of the locals said a word to me, I wanted to say
WTF were u guys doing out there??? But then i realized they were old enough to know better and chose to race like a bunch of morons so it is not my place to lecture. The race director was in the follow car behind our group while all these shenanigans were going on and said nothing.

the funny thing is i raced in another state that bordered this one and everyone raced totally different. It was a better quality field and some road hazards came up and the field actually neutralized itself twice in the last 5 laps to avoid a couple of stray cars that got onto the course.

it seems to me the losers mentality is they will risk life & limb because they never know when they will get this close to winning again.
However people who have won before really see no need to risk life & limb to be king of the parking lot crit

I experienced this same problem racing in the US 20 years ago even at the highest level. It would seem that guys would rather struggle along in single file behind the first echelon than move across and form a second and third.
Its like they were afraid that they would lose contact with the first group.
Europeans form multi echelons instinctively and without fuss. Even as a junior in Australia we were taught by older riders how to do it. Maybe its because the USA is historically a track racing nation and the bulk of its road racing over the years has been crits where echelon riding is not really neccessary.

 

[Mark Andrews]

Back in the mid to late '80s I used to vacation in Colorado spending a bunch of time around Boulder then going into the mountains (I still hate Independence Pass). When I was there, I routinely ran into pros from different teams on training rides, and most of the time they would invite me to join them, eventhough I was a Cat4. A couple would even remember me from year to year, and we would have a good time catching up at Downer's Grove, the only pro-race I really got to go see, before Elk Grove Village started up.