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| Kirani James & LaShawn Merritt Getty Images |
by Jordan Schultz
The Huffington Post
In the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, LaShawn Merritt won gold in both
the 400 and 4x400 meter events. Then, in October 2010, he was suspended for 21
months after failing a doping test. At 25 years old though, he has regained his
status as one of the elite sprinters in the world, having captured four gold
medals in his past six World Championship appearances.
The Portsmouth,
Virginia native says he is "a late bloomer to the sport," given his
football and baseball background. In the 2008 games, he broke the Olympic
record in the relay for the American team, recording the second fastest time
ever. Merritt recently took some time from his strenuous training schedule to
speak with The Huffington Post.
How is your training coming
along, less than six months away from London?
This is a major
year for the sport of track and field. For the general public, a lot of people
only know Olympics, but we actually have a season every year. This year has
just been a lot of focus; a lot of focus mentally and spiritually and just
training hard.
Is there something technique
wise that you've specifically worked on improving?
We haven’t even
worked on anything different yet, because it's early. It's just a lot of base
training now; the pool workouts, the lifting and breaking the body down to get
it ready so it will be able to last all the way through the Olympic Games in
August.
Are you fully healthy right
now?
I'm healthy; been
keeping up with my nutrition and my massages and been seeing my therapist and
the whole nine, you know. I'm feeling good about the season, to get to the
Olympics and just defend my titles.
Who is your stiffest
competition right now?
In the US you have
Jeremy Wariner, who won the 2004 Olympics. You have Kirani James (Grenada), who just won the World
Championships last year, the Borlee (Kevin and Jonathan) twins out of Belgium
and Jermaine Gonzales out of Jamaica. Every Olympic year, somebody always comes
out of the woodworks, whether it be a younger athlete or somebody old trying to
make a comeback, so there's no room right now for any distractions because this
is the year that makes people.
Do you talk or train with [US
teammate] Jeremy Wariner?
We don’t train
together. He's in Texas and I'm on the east coast. We communicate when we're at
meets, but not too much during the training. It's sort of like we're co-workers
in terms of getting on the track and running the event, but at the end of the
day we want each other's promotion. It's a mutual respect. But I [still] want to win and he wants to win.
What was the hardest thing
about returning after the two-year-ban?
I pretty much
jumped right back into it. The hardest thing was actually getting race sharp
and feeling the connection from my body to my mind and it telling my body to do
one thing, which comes from races and actually being in the moment. I felt like
I was in the best shape of my life physically, but in certain races, I just
didn’t feel as sharp. I took that as motivation to go out in 2011 and still run
the world's fastest time and to know that I'm ready and my ability hasn’t
changed. It's a matter of getting to London and laying it all out.
Did you have a role model in
the sport as a kid?
You know what: I
really didn’t grow up knowing about the sport of track and field. I was
actually a baseball and a football player. The first Olympics I ever watched
was 2004 and that was my senior year in high school. I'm sort of a late bloomer
to the sport, both in viewing and participating in it. Like I knew who Michael
Johnson was just because of his popularity, but I couldn't tell you what he ran
or anything of that matter, because I wasn't interested in track and field. Now
that I chose to do this as a career with this God-given talent that I'm blessed
with, I have done my history and watched previous Olympics. There are some guys
-- men and women -- who've left the legacy in the sport.
Why do you think the 400
doesn’t have the illustrious nature of the 100 to the public?
The 100 is like the
sexy event; everybody is lined up right beside each other. It's so easy to tell
who's in the lead, whose behind and who will win. The general public gets
confused with the 400, being that it's run on a stagger. I've had a lot of
people be like 'why do you start so far back,' and 'there's another guy who
looks like he started further.'
Once you break it
down at 300, it's kind of even and they kind of get it some. To actually know
about that 400 -- to know the pain and the lactic acid in the critical zones --
you have to know a little bit about it. It doesn't look like we're running as
fast because it is 400 meters. Being that the NFL is so huge, especially here
in the US, you think of the 40 [yard dash]; whose the fastest man?
Speaking of the 40, did you
ever run one?
I actually ran a
couple years ago. I went to a [NFL] combine in Virginia Beach, and actually ran
a 4.19. There are some track and field athletes that ran the 40; whether they
put it on Youtube or just in practice to see what they could run. There are
some pretty fast track and field runners over 40 yards.
We often hear of the
differences between track speed and football speed. Some guys post great times,
but when they get on a football field, they aren't nearly as fast or dynamic.
Why do you think that is?
It’s totally
different; somebody running a 40 or the 100 knows that from the gun, it's about
angles; it's about power, arm movement and hip position. There are a lot of
variables that go into starting with the elite of the elite in the world. Then
you have a football player -- it's different because they're used to having a
football in their hands. In football speed, you have agility, the lateral
movement, but to just a regular track and field athlete who's never played
football, the running is different.
Entering this summer, is your
mindset gold-gold or bust?
For me, I train to
win. Every day my mentality is train to win. I work hard and let my hard work
be my confidence once I line up. Going into London, the only thing that will be
on my mind is getting gold medals. The first time I think about a silver or a
bronze or anything less, I've already sold myself short. Gold-gold will
definitely just be on my mind period.
When will you make the trip?
Olympic trials are
in June; you have to place top three in the US to make the Olympic team. That’s
not for every country because every country is not as big and the talent is not
as big, so some people automatically just get to go. We'll actually go over
maybe three weeks before it starts.
Will you have an opportunity to
enjoy the festivities around the Olympics?
In 2008, we got
there early and I had the chance to get the whole Olympic village thing. I had
the chance to go to some boxing matches and basketball games. I'll embrace it
this year, but not lose too much focus; still know what I came there to do. I
came there to do a job. When it's time to lock down, I'll be totally locked in.
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