Hail Pre! - The True Tough Of The Track
As the Word Athletics Championships begin in Eugene, Oregon, meet local hero and Nike legend Steve Prefontaine.
There were a few raised eyebrows when Eugene, Oregon, was awarded the 18th World Athletics Championship. For the most part this shock stemmed from the American city having been awarded the event without having bid for it.
Certainly, there could be no doubt that Eugene was a fitting location for a global track and field event. The home of the University Of Oregon, Eugene’s been producing world-class athletes for eons. What’s more, former head coach Bill Bowerman’s knack for spotting and developing talent had been complimented by an enthusiasm for technical innovation from which sprung the athletic behemoth Nike.
The romantics out there, however, would like to think there’s one reason in particular that the planet’s best athletes have gathered in the Pacific North-West; or rather, one person; a German-speaking kid from Coos Bay, Oregon, who briefly set the world of track and field aflame.
Steve Roland Prefontaine packed a helluva lot into his 24 years, so much so that he’s already been the subject of two features films - the so-so Prefontaine (1997) and the excellent but underappreciated Without Limits (1998) - and a highly regarded documentary, 1995’s Fire On The Track. All the same, it’s hard to say enough good things about the man known simply as ‘Pre’, just as it’s difficult to explain quite why it was that he so captured the public’s imagination.
Maybe it was the moustache. Perhaps it was the flowing locks. Could it even have been his straightforward approach to middle-distance running?; "I don't want to win unless I know I've done my best,” he once remarked. “The only way I know how to do that is to run out front, flat out until I have nothing left.”
Since you expend more energy leading than chasing, his was an approach few coaches would countenance. But my, did it produce great results.
Of the 153 races Steve Prefontaine ran over the course of his career, he won 120 of them. Unbeatable on the collegiate circuit at any distance over a mile, he also won gold at the 1971 Pan American Games (the closest thing the New World has to the Commonwealth Games) at altitude in Colombia, fully eight seconds ahead of his nearest rival.
Had he been around in these days of the Diamond League and biennial World Athletics Championships, Prefontaine would have had any number of titles to his name. As it stands, he’s perhaps most famous for a race in which he didn’t medal, the 5,000m final at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
As star-studded a 5,000m as has ever been run, Pre really didn’t have any business mixing it with Finnish greats Lasse Virén and Juha Väätäinen, Tunisian infantryman Mohamed Gammoudi, nor the British trio of Ian Stewart, Dave Bedford and Ian McCafferty. True to his creed of front-running whenever possible, Prefontaine attacked at a time when many a runner his age wouldn’t have had the energy or the inclination to do so.
Had he run more conservatively, he could have come home with the bronze. Instead, Steve Prefontaine finished fourth behind Stewart, Gammoudi and Viren, who added the title to the gold he’d won in the 10,000m earlier that week.
But hey, no worries - Steve Prefontaine had time on his side. Even before the Munich final, the ABC commentators were talking of how Pre would win Olympic gold, but in Montreal rather than Munich. Alas, it was a destination he’d never reach. Steve Prefontaine died in a car accident on May 11th 1975. He would’ve turned 25 the following January.
With a James Dean-esque question mark over just how big a star he might’ve become now a part of the Prefontaine legend, it’s important to remember Pre as something more than just a cult figure. His home state certainly hasn’t shied away from elevating him, what with Eugene’s annual track and field grand prix being called the Prefontaine Classic. As for the the role he played in kick-starting the rise of Nike, it resulted in his becoming the first - and to date, only - athlete the company has ever erected a statue to.
However, for Prefontaine’s true legacy, look to any athlete who shares his love of what he called “pure guts racing”. Take Mo Farah - at the peak of his powers, he ran the final stages of every race at the head of the field daring someone, anyone, to go past him. It was an approach one imagines Steve Prefontaine would have admired. And given everything else we know about him, I’m sure Mo’s challenge was one Pre would’ve willingly accepted.