Sprint legend Lewis’ advice: Focus on timing, not medal

Fillipo Tortu finished seventh in a high quality 100m final at the IAAF World Championships final in Doha on Saturday. But the Italian has firmly set his sights of winning a medal at the Tokyo Olympics next year.The 21-year-old is the national record holder in the 100m with a time of 9.99 — the first ever Italian to dip below 10 seconds for the distance. While a medal in Tokyo would be a farfetched thought considering the high-quality field he will come up against, Tortu might just spring a surprise if he follows the advice of a certain Carl Lewis.Yesterday, Tortu was rapt in attention as he sat next to American legend Lewis, who was the centre of attraction at an event organised by the International Sports Press Association (AIPS) in collaboration with the Qatar Sports Press Committee at the Torch tower.Lewis, voted in 1999 as the International Olympic Committee’s ‘Sportsman of the Century’, boasts ten Olympic medals — nine of them gold — over four Summer Games during a legendary 17-year career. The 58-year-old, who serves as an assistant track coach at his alma mater, the University of Houston, reminisced about his incredible successes and shared some valuable tips with Tortu.“You can clock the fastest time which you may have targeted before the race but still you may end up losing. Don’t target the medal, focus on your timing, your performance and forget about the rest,” Lewis told Tortu, with the silver medallist at the 2016 World U-20 Championships paying attention to detail.“Focus your goal having it clear and without being afraid to tell it loud. This is your objective and you work with it always in your mind. Think of yourself as a business for your long term career and your training for your short term career; so figure out how you are going to maximise this time. In anything you are going to have to make sacrifices. So now you are in professional track and field you have to think like a professional. Think of what you can do and what you and your manager can do to maximise this moment because you are going to build a brand,” added Lewis.Over the course of interaction, which lasted for one hour, Lewis touched base on many topics, including the need for world athletics governing body, IAAF, to improve in the way it runs the sport.Lewis felt athletics has not evolved like other sports such as football, basketball and cricket. “If you look at the way every single popular sport is run, it’s different. The stadium looks spectacular the presentation is spectacular, they take care of every little detail,” said Lewis, who equalled Jesse Owens’ legendary performance by winning four golds in a single Olympics at the Los Angeles Games in 1984.“Even things like... why are we still putting numbers on our chests? They put numbers with pins? If we were thinking of television, we would take that off so that you will see the uniform on TV. We are just not progressing, we are just doing the same thing over and over. If you go to other sports, every little detail is taken care of and there is entertainment. These sports they become television shows they strived to get better and better,” he added.Lewis also shed his thoughts on today’s sprint events, comparing it to his times. “It’s obviously very, very competitive but I don’t think it’s any more competitive at the championship level than it was back when we were competing. I think it’s just competitive throughout the season. So with all the technology and all the high performance tracks and everything else, we could have had second and third 30 years later,” the American noted.He also complained about the less prize money for the athletes. “My issue is that they pay $60,000 for the winner. We were paid $60,000 for the winner in 1997. So if you look at it in US Dollars - a cost of living increase - it should be 93,000 this year. So they are paying the same prize money and every year the athletes get less. So 30,000 is the value of gold medal now,” he said.Also on the panel, which was moderated by AIPS President Gianni Merlo, was Lewis’ compatriot Leroy Burrell, who twice set the world record for the 100m sprint. Burrell dwelled on the future legacy of athletics.“Well, having been competing thirty years ago with timings that are still among the top three of the world means that athletics is still a human sport. What it’s important to think about, more than focusing on past years mistake is that we leave the sport better than it was and everybody can do this part for this,” Burrell said.