Gregson: A Column By Len Johnson

By Len Johnson.

Thursday was a blue sky kind of day at Falls Creek _ a gorgeous sunny morning, with not a cloud to be seen.

To Ryan Gregson, it would hardly have mattered had it been clouded in and raining. Pretty well every day is a blue sky day for the talented youngster at the moment.

On 6 February, Gregson ran a personal best 1:47.06 for 800 metres in Newcastle. Six days later he smashed Beijing Olympic representative Mitch Kealey over the last lap of a 1500 in Hobart, winning by over two seconds in a near personal best 3:37.24.

Now he is training in Falls Creek with others including Collis Birmingham, Kealey, Andy Baddeley, Jeff Riseley and Benita Willis. He may not turn 20 until April, but Gregson already looks at home in such company.

Gregson is obviously very good. The inevitable next question is how good he can be. Precocious Africans aside, few young men in the world are running, or have run, better.

The funny thing is, Australians tend to take this in a rather matter of fact manner. American track and field fans rave over German Fernandez, the sporadically brilliant Allan Webb still has many fans, so too the permanently flaky Gabe Jennings. Americans also seem to be a lot keener on creating a Gregson v Fernandez thing. LetsRun almost invariably refers to the putative rivalry in reporting Gregson’s performances.

Maybe we should be jumping up and down then, but I suspect we won’t. Perhaps this will help Gregson keep his feet on the ground, perhaps not. Maybe when you are running that fast short of your 20^th birthday, it doesn’t matter whether your feet stay on the ground or not.

 

One thing to say, as my first coach used to tell me, is that if Ryan Gregson doesn’t do any better than his current performances, he already has done quite a bit. He has broken the Australian U20 record formerly held by Mike Hillardt, a world championships finalist, Olympic Games rep and gold medallist at the first World Indoor Games, the forerunner to the world indoor championships. He has represented at a world championships.

But he wants more. In his post-race remarks in Hobart, Gregson said he wanted to be the best in the world and managed to work the names of both John Landy and Herb Elliott into the conversation. Both these men were, at some stage, the best in the world. Both did it at a young age, too. Elliott was world record holder at the mile and 1500 metres before his 21^st birthday and Olympic 1500 metres champion at the age of 22. He had effectively retired before he turned 23.

Landy was 22 when he made the Helsinki Olympic team and ran 4:02.1 for the mile and still only 24 when he became world record holder for the mile (and 1500 en route) and the second man to break four minutes. Landy was a relatively late starter, so had his career as a ‘young’ athlete in terms of experience.

In addition, Ralph Doubell was all of 23 when he won the 1968 Mexico City 800 metres. If Ryan Gregson is a young man in a hurry, he is in good company in that regard, too.

In assessing what Gregson might achieve it is important to acknowledge one fact. As fans, we think of progress in straight lines, extrapolating from where Gregson is now to where he should be in four years time as if it were pre-ordained.

Real progress, alas, follows a much more erratic path and for any number of reasons. For juniors, there is the transition from dominating against their peers to getting beaten by older and stronger opponents. As Gregson has already been running open events for a couple of years, he appears to have dodged this one.

Motivation levels have to stay as high. How many years can you take, as Brendan Foster once put it, of ‘getting up tired, going to bed even tireder,’ before the enthusiasm wanes? You have to continually set new goals as old ones are attained and pursue those new ones with the same vigour.

History provides examples either way for prodigious young talents. Some _ Haile Gebrselassie, Kenenisa Bekele come to mind _ achieve young and keep right on achieving; others hit the heights as juniors and go right over the top and down the other side just as quickly.

Turning to Australian examples, Herb Elliott did it all by the time he was 22; Ron Clarke was a top junior and re-defined distance running as a senior athlete, but he had a time virtually out of the sport in between; Carolyn Schuwalow was an outstanding junior and continued to achieve as a senior (national records, Olympic finalist), but more sporadically; Georgie Clarke has followed a similar trajectory.

Which way will Ryan Gregson go? Hopefully towards a long career as an outstanding athlete _ but it’s just as important to enjoy and acknowledge what he is doing right now.