Ryan Lochte meets the press at the 2013 Mel Zajac Jr. International swim meet at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada.
Kudos to Ryan Lochte, who became the first man to win the 200 IM four straight times when he took gold in the event Thursday, Aug. 6 – three days after his 31stst birthday – at the 2015 FINA World Championships in Kazan, Russia.
As is usually the case, the event was not without its drama. An Aussie judge had said she would disqualify Ryan for staying on his back and not his belly as he came off the breaststroke phase of the medley into the freestyle.
She, however, didn’t. Good on her.
Ryan’s win, coming off a tough early start to the meet and a difficult year rehabbing his knee (injured when an overly enthusiastic teenage girl ran into him; yeah, I know, only Ryan) prompted one poster to write that swimming fast doesn’t require any brains.
I responded that since all sports are technical, you need both analytical and intuitive ability, brains and talent. Sometimes, however, the two don’t go hand-in-hand, as is demonstrated to hilarious effect in the movie “Bull Durham.” Kevin Costner’s Crash Davis is a brainy minor league catcher who’s never going to make it to the majors, because he hasn’t got the talent. Tim Robbins’ Nuke LaLoosh has a major league arm and a knuckle head. Susan Sarandon is the professorial groupie who tries to navigate the straits between them.
Whirlaway, the only horse ever to win the Triple Crown and the Travers Stakes.
When I think of the Nukes of the world, I think of the 1941 Triple Crown winner, Whirlaway – the only TC winner to take the Travers Stakes, the so-called “Graveyard of Champions,” in Saratoga, N.Y.
Beloved “Whirly,” as he was known, was the pet racehorse of Warren and Louise Wright of Calumet Farm, the New York Yankees of stables. (Warren was a cousin of Wilbur and Orville.) Everyone loved Whirly except for his trainer Ben A. Jones, who called him the dumbest son of a bitch he every worked with. Whirly loved to run – race, not so much. He didn’t like the bell going off. He didn’t like being loaded in the gate. He didn’t like being directed on the track. Basically, he didn’t like anything but what came into his head at the moment.
Yet he was fast, his luxuriant tail – inspiring the nickname Mr. Longtail – flapping like a pennant in the breeze as he roared down the track. Of course, as he roared down the track, he might veer to the outside.
Jones was able to cure Whirly of many of his bad habits. Still, it was hard to keep him from veering off until Jones finally hit on special blinders with a hole cut in one side to make him stay on course.
How dumb was Whirly though? He figured out what it takes many people a lifetime to understand: All that matters is what the big boss wants. To the Wrights, he was their Whirly. He knew who paid for his carrots and oats.
Whirly raised war bonds, was a successful sire, was inducted into the National Museum of Racing and Hall of Fame and is Number 26 on Blood-Horse magazine’s list of Top 100 Thoroughbred champs. Pretty good for a dumb son of a gun.
As for Ryan, he has 87 medals, more than 50 of them gold.
Talent alone won’t get you those.