Ego is his ally, armour, weapon and fuel

Ego is his ally, armour, weapon and fuel
Section: Sport
By: ROHIT BRIJNATH
Publication:
The Straits Times 16/02/2010
Page: B9
No. of words: 943 SPORTING LIFE

THE room feels crowded. The world's fittest man, his ego and I are sitting in a room. Chris McCormack, winner of almost every triathlon that matters, says he idolises Muhammad Ali. If you look closely, there is a resemblance.

Apart from the minor fact that he's white, owns a bad haircut and probably a lousy left jab, he's a modern version of Ali. There's no scrap he doesn't think he can win, no rival he can't beat and nothing he won't say to advertise all of that.

Ali wasn't the first to think he was The Greatest, but he said it most proudly and loudly. Elite athletes don't always articulate it, but they think it. This belief they are The Greatest is evident in Federer's dismissive forehand, Kobe's walk, the glare of Woods and Armstrong.

Ego is the champion's engine. At 16, an athletic nobody, McCormack grabs an A4 piece of paper and draws up a list of 28 races he's going to win. The short distance world championship. The Chicago triathlon. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon. The Hawaii Ironman.

His brothers tell him, "You're a dreamer, mate". Older folk call him an "arrogant little turd". McCormack no longer has the paper. It's in his dad's house in Sydney. It's framed. Every win ticked off. No one is laughing now.

I want to meet McCormack because I've never met the world's fittest man and he said he was. You might think he's a fine horn blower. Actually, he's very likeable, his cockiness doesn't offend, it's amusing, instructive, it's refreshing in an athletic universe of the tedious cliche.

What McCormack presumably means is that whoever wins the Ironman world championship (3.8km swim, 180.2km bike ride, 42.2km run), and he once did, owns the title of "world's fittest man".

But I have to ask, what about the others. Like the Tour de France guys. Naah. "I know some, they can't run two miles." Decathletes? Nope. They have more power but "they run a mile and fall over".

He knows I'm having fun and plays along. He's also, like most athletes, a believer that his sport is the toughest. "We exercise at higher intensity at long periods. If the Romans ever wanted to get a message across the land, someone to hurdle rivers and run, they'd call the triathlete."

Then I show him something from the Net about a fellow called Joe Decker, who is referred to as The World's Fittest Man.Apparently, in one 24-hour session, Decker biked 100 miles, ran 10, hiked 10, power-walked five, kayaked six, skied 10 on a NordicTrack, rowed 10, swam two, not to mention an assortment of a few thousand crunches, jumping jacks, push-ups and some weightlifting.

McCormack looks at the paper and goes: "Solid". Then he says: "I never had a crack at it." As if to say, who knows, mate. How can you not like this guy?

Ego is many things to him. It is his ally. He races because he thinks he is the best. Else why race? "If you don't believe in it (your dream), who believes in it?"

Some athletes, he says, are asked, "How do you think you'll go, and they reply, I hope I go well." Hope, he shudders, if you're hoping after 20 weeks of training, go home.

McCormack's intentions are never disguised because coy and him can't sit in the same post code. For him, publicly stating what he wants to achieve is like putting a goal in motion. If it means pressure, then fine, he likes its taste. Uttering his ambitions can also help unnerve an opponent. In a sense, his ego is both his armour but also his weapon.

In Germany once, he's asked how he feels before a race and he says fantastic. Then he reminds the cameras, and thus his rivals, that he's never lost in Germany. They know, but he's reinforcing the point. He's thrusting doubt into the equation. And for him this is the battle, ego on one shoulder against doubt on the other, both jousting to rule the athlete's mind.

There is no coach in your corner in the triathlon. No three-minute break. No time-out. You're alone, he says, out there "on the fine line of suffering".

It is when doubt hisses in the ear, about the training session you missed, about the rival who looks stronger. But ego can resist this, ego can propel you forward one foot at a time. You have to own this self-belief because in suffering there is no one you can turn to, he says, but yourself.

Ego is one last thing to McCormack. It is his fuel. He doesn't care for sports scientists. White coats, he calls them. "These guys with their PhDs, they tell you what you can't do." They tell him he can't win the Ironman Hawaii. He sweats too much and it's humid. He is too big at 78 kilograms, when the perfect weight for it, he knows, is about 69 kilograms.

Can't, they tell him. Can't is not in his vocabulary. He wins Hawaii in 2007. But his ego isn't satiated. At 36, he wants to win it again, just to prove a point to the white coats. They can measure Vo2 max, he explains. "But they can't measure heart." Ali, you think, would approve.