Kevin McDowell has a silver medal in triathlon from the Youth Olympics and a bronze from last year’s junior world championships.
If Lukas Verzbicas has his way, McDowell will soon share in a world title, too.
Verzbicas is one of the favorites in the junior men’s event Sunday at the world championships in Beijing, the final race in a journey as much about friendship as it is about sport. Verzbicas put his promising running career on hold this summer to return to triathlon in hopes of winning the world title in honor of McDowell, his friend and teammate who was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma in March.
“I made such a huge choice and I don’t want to waste the opportunity,” Verzbicas said before leaving for Beijing. “Kevin’s going to be there, too, so it’s going to be exciting.”
Verzbicas easily won the two triathlons he did earlier this summer, including claiming the U.S. title by a whopping minute and 15 seconds. His biggest challenge in Beijing will likely come from Aaron Barclay of New Zealand or Alois Knabl of Austria, the gold and bronze medalists at the Youth Olympics.
“He’s looking awesome right now,” said McDowell, who is acting as an assistant coach in Beijing. “If all goes right, I think he’ll win.”
Verzbicas has been touted as the next great American distance runner, only the fifth U.S. high schooler—and first in a decade—to break the 4-minute mile barrier. He’d originally planned to spend this summer getting ready for his freshman season at Oregon, the distance powerhouse that produced Steve Prefontaine, Alberto Salazar and Galen Rupp.
Then McDowell got sick.
The teenagers—Verzbicas is 18, McDowell just turned 19—have trained together the past five years with the Multisport Madness Triathlon Team, a club team in suburban Chicago. As gifted as they were on their own, they became even better because the other was always there.
Verzbicas was the junior U.S. triathlon champ in 2008, McDowell in 2009. They finished 3-4 at last year’s junior worlds, McDowell completing the sprint-distance course (a 750-meter swim, 19.03-kilometer bike ride and 5-kilometer run) in 52 minutes, 22 seconds, with Verzbicas a mere 14 seconds behind after being assessed a 15-second penalty.
“You can’t have a bad day, really, unless you’re both having a bad day,” Verzbicas said earlier this summer.
So when McDowell had to give up his dream of winning the world title this year, Verzbicas took it and made it his own.
Though Verzbicas had only been away from triathlon training for about seven months, coming back was not as easy as hopping on a bike or doing a few laps in the pool. In addition to running, he now had to do full bike and swim workouts—often with no breaks in between to mimic the transitions of a triathlon.
And while he didn’t hesitate in making his decision to race for McDowell, there were times afterward when his noble choice didn’t seem like the right one.
“After a couple weeks of him being back into triathlon training, I could just tell, he felt like he made a mistake. He had been ready to go run,” said Keith Dickson, Verzbicas and McDowell’s coach. “We had a couple of talks. I told him, ‘This is what separates the men from the boys. You made a decision, made a commitment. What do you want to do?’
“You have to kind of talk yourself into this, because each one of these sessions is hard.”
Once again, it was McDowell’s presence that drove Verzbicas.
For five months, McDowell underwent two-hour chemotherapy treatments every other Monday. The treatments would sap his energy for the next few days and he’d have to stick close to home. By Friday or Saturday, however, McDowell would be back at the triathlon team’s training sessions.
He may not have had his normal speed or endurance, but he could still push Verzbicas and Kelly Whitley, the U.S. junior women’s champ who is also a medal favorite in Beijing.
It was an eye-opening experience for Verzbicas, who’d grown comfortable with the single-minded focus required of elite athletes.
“(As an athlete) I block everything else out. Now he’s going through this illness and it’s shocking,” Verzbicas said. “Other people are doing just as big, if not bigger, things than me.”
But the workouts were equally important for McDowell. For a few hours each day, he could be Kevin the athlete again, not Kevin the cancer patient.
“Lukas is always checking up on me, in my rough times,” McDowell said. “Then when I come back … he treats me like I’m still normal person. He just treats me like I’m still the same.”
McDowell’s prognosis is good, and he hopes to be racing again next season. He’s already resumed training, moving out to the new Elite Triathlon Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., after his final chemotherapy treatment Aug. 22.
“I know I’ll be back out there racing,” McDowell said. “In a way, it gives me more motivation and a drive to come back.”
For Verzbicas, worlds will be his last triathlon—at least for the next few years. He’ll head to Oregon when he returns, and is eager to focus all of his attention on running again.
But the bond with McDowell will remain, a friendship made stronger on their way to Beijing.
“Doing this for someone else means a lot more,” Verzbicas said. “It’s a lot more responsibility, but it becomes much more motivating.”
———(equals)
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