A True Champion

Given the recent revelations from Lance Armstrong (or lack thereof depending on your perspective), we are again having to question our ideas of what makes a champion or what makes an athlete worthy of our adulation.  In the spirit of Lance being the "champion" of a sport most Americans know little about but has a massive following in Europe, I'd put forward another little-known (in the US) champion who embodied many of the things we so enjoyed about Lance but managed to steer clear of the megalomania and urge to destroy others who stood up to him (off the bike) that Lance did.

If you haven't watched Senna the documentary from Working Title Films, I must recommend very strongly that you do.  It isn't overly long, it isn't overly sappy, but it will change the way you view racing and introduce you to at least several sides of an interesting man who was a great champion.

As someone who has driven a car, even one with a turbo and a manual transmission, I always felt I had some appreciation for race car drivers.  This film helped to absolve me of that stupid assumption.  The images from inside the cockpit as Ayrton wrestles a car described by the boys at "Top Gear" as more akin to a wild ferocious animal than the powerful but refined machines that F1 drivers today manage will awaken you to what it must have taken to do what he did.

And then it starts to rain.  And suddenly he is even better, in fact his coming out party came at Monaco when driving a really crappy car (compared to other F1 cars) and the rain began and suddenly he was making up between 6-8 seconds on the leader every lap.  Alain Prost, the reigning world champ, luckily convinced the officials to call the race just before Senna overtook him.

The hosts of Top Gear help to give more credence to the feeling I had watching the documentary that Senna was something very special.  And in some ways coming to that realization long after the fact makes it even more valuable in my mind.  Here is a man who was a hero to millions and millions of people and respected by drivers and F1 fans the world over and I'd never heard of him.  Suddenly I have this opportunity to not only know something about the man but to appreciate this sport and some of its nuance by getting this glimpse into one of its greatest champions.

And his "champion" ness is confirmed by his ruthlessness as a driver, his willingness to place other drivers in position to either crash or give way, his attention to detail and precise approach, his unwillingness to accept anything less than being the best, all of these make him a champion.  And strangely enough, or perhaps it seems strange now, I think Lance shared many of these traits.  One of the reasons he was so fun to watch was that he was a ruthless competitor on the bike and he doped himself into a position to be ruthless but if anything is easy to forgive it is that, given its ubiquity at the time in the pro peleton.

But what Senna had that Lance lacked, what made him a true champion was the humility to forgive, the humility to understand his place even as he was worshipped by millions, the humility to care for those around him even as he was trying his very best to obliterate them in competition.  In the documentary "Ayrton Senna - The Right to Win" one of his rivals describes the last moment he shared with him prior to his death and the way that Ayrton clearly showed that he could be happy for others when things went well for them.  This is one of the things that makes a great champion and separates them from someone like Lance.

If you watched Lance's interview with Oprah, you may recall his discussion of doping to win the seven tours and his suggestion that he already knew he was going to win, he almost laughed about it, telling Oprah that they already knew they would win.  He had doped, built a doped super team, done everything he could to be certain that his rivals could not win.  And if you watched Ayrton crash into Alain Prost in the first half mile of the Grand Prix of Japan, you might say look, they are the same, they will do anything to win.  Ayrton argued that he should have the outside lane, that it was the clean part of the track and since he won the pole he should take the outside.  He didn't get it, and knowing that Prost not finishing would make him world champ, he made sure Prost didn't finish, simple as that.

The difference is that when Ayrton faced cars that were technically superior to his, he either couldn't or didn't use his influence or his power to either crush those teams or steal the technology or jump across into one of those cars.  He fought to compete and lost with grace.

The difference is that Ayrton was not selected by the governing body of F1 to be the winner as Lance was selected by the UCI and Hein Verbruggen and Pat McQuaid to be immune to doping controls and to be informed of testers arrival, etc.  Ayrton was victimized by Jean Marie Balestre who repeatedly took the side of Alain Prost even costing Ayrton a shot at the World Title in 1989 and stole one of the greatest victories in F1 history from him.  (A lap or two here) Prost (arguably) crashed Senna out of the race but Senna pitted, got a new front wing, came back and re-took the lead in just the remaining 5 laps only to be disqualified by Belestre at the behest of Prost.

The day that Senna died at Imola, he remarked that morning that he missed Alain Prost, missed racing against him.  Not because they were always best friends, not because they didn't do spectacularly dangerous things to each other to try and win.

Senna missed Prost because he liked having a great rival, someone who he could rejoice in beating when they both were at their best.  Someone who had beaten him, someone who gave Senna's dominance a definite lack of certainty, someone who gave him doubts about his own greatness.

Lance can't handle doubts about his greatness, even as he admits cheating his way to it.

PS - How a race car driver drives a regular car (watch his feet)


PPS - The book about Ayrton by Christopher Hilton, Ayrton Senna: The Whole Story has been great so far.  I am just about 1/4 of the way through after getting it in the mail today.  So far it would suggest that he is even more of a champ than I thought!