As Mara Abbott, the young American, sailed down the treacherous, slick-with-rain curves of the Olympic bicycle road race last week, the racer ahead of her fell, and she was suddenly first, with 20 kilometers or so to go.
I’d just gotten back from my own bike ride. On my usual route, I see cyclists like her all the time. Their calves rippling with muscles, their arms deceptively thin, their bodies curving over the top tube of their gorgeous machines, they sail past me as I labor up a hill in third gear, as if I were standing still. If they have company, they chat, comparing races; but sometimes they’re quietly digging in, aiming for that king-of-the-mountain time.
Mara looked just like them, her feet whipping around the front sprocket of her bike, looking around for those who followed.
And, of course, she had followers. First, a minute behind, a safe enough margin, but then the space between lessened and lessened, and 100 meters before the finish, the three women who had stalked her — an Italian, a Swede and a Dutch rider who had drafted, saving energy in classic cycling-race style, changing the difficult lead position so each rested — overtook her. They had that slight edge of energy, gained from their cooperation. Mara had none. She crossed the finish line on their heels, in fourth place.
For possibly the first time ever, I understood Broncos fans when the team loses a Super Bowl. My heart had been in my throat: Would she do it? Would a miracle happen? Would the precedents set by every other road race I’d ever seen be broken?
She couldn’t, any more than the Polish man who also lost a medal, under almost identical circumstances, the day before.
I walked around the house in a funk for awhile, and then I realized: Isn’t there a lesson here? Isn’t it important, for those of us who will never be world-class athletes, to understand that, gallant as the young American woman was, her failure lay most of all in lack of cooperation?
Would she not have improved her chance of winning had she dropped back, joined her chase group, traded out leads with the other three riders, and had enough energy left to leave them behind at the end?
I start a new school year tomorrow. Because I’m a special education teacher, and the kids I teach often require separate environments, itap pretty easy for me to isolate myself from the rest of the staff at my school. Itap more important to work on that education plan than chat with the science or math teacher down the hall, I tell myself.
That isolation suits me — even on today’s ride. A younger, fitter, friendly rider tried to spark up a conversation, but I ended it relatively quickly; I just can’t ride and talk at the same time, I said. But maybe, just maybe, I need to get better at that riding and talking. Or teaching and talking.
I doubt, somehow, that Olympic athletes like Mara Abbott have my issues with social anxiety, but maybe itap time for her to learn to schmooze with the Dutch girls.
And, stretching the metaphor, perhaps the whole country could learn from the cyclistap experience. Our emphasis, under stress, seems always to be on the achievement of the individual.
Some of us have good health insurance, and we prefer not to think of the problems of those with high deductibles and co-pays, or no insurance at all. Some of us have lived here legally, for decades or always, and we don’t see those who would also like to live here as equal, or even, sometimes, as human.
If we’re to succeed as a country, perhaps itap time to slow down a little, and let those others catch up. Maybe we can all win the race.
