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Wizard from Oz Sub-3:50 miler, world championship bronze medallist and 12:55 man at 5000m. Now Craig Mottram has his sights on Commonwealth gold, writes JASON HENDERSON PICTURES: Mark Shearman
The smell of autumn is in the air and end-of-season holidays cannot come soon enough. So when one of the hotel staff greets them by shouting, “Hurry! Lunch finishes in 10 minutes,” almost all of the worldclass runners shuffle wearily into the dining hall without hesitation. Apart, that is, from a tall Australian and a young Briton who is hoping to pick up some good habits. Despite the tempting whiff of fresh pasta, Craig Mottram turns to his coach, Nic Bideau, and announces: “I’m just going out for a run now. I’ll be about 30 minutes.” Hungry athletes demolish what remains of the buffet lunch. Mottram and Mo Farah, meanwhile, opt for a different kind of vanishing act. They disappear for an easy five-miler. Such an attitude has helped Mottram become one of the few non- African male distance runners who can win medals at major championships. At the IAAF World Championships in Helsinki in August, for example, he became the first athlete born outside Africa to make the podium in the 5000m since 1987. Eighteen years ago in Rome, Morocco’s Saïd Aouita led home Domingos Castro of Portugal and Jack Buckner of Britain. Since then, with the exception of the Moroccanborn Belgian, Mohammed Mourhit, who won bronze in 1999, every medallist at the world championships has been African – until this year. The final in Helsinki was slow, tactical and unpredictable, but the 25-year-old Mottram showed strength, speed and astute racing ability to finish third behind Sileshi Sihine of Ethiopia and winner Ben Limo of Kenya. With season’s bests of 3:48.98 for one mile and 12:56.13 for 5000m – plus a 12:55.76 5000m from 2004 – Mottram was ready for anything and his performance left 10 African-born athletes struggling in his slipstream.
Multi-talented Mottram entered the Noosa Triathlon this time last year for fun and won the open race by several minutes. “I could’ve won the elite event too,” he says. Pics courtesy of VO2 MAX magazine Jon Brown, the Olympic marathon fourth-placer in 2000 and 2004, is one of Mottram’s many admirers. Like the Australian, Brown is one of the few white men able to challenge African athletes in the world of distance running and he told Athletics Weekly last month: “Craig is probably the best non-African runner I’ve ever come across. His ability range is unlike any other non-African so far. I’m a big fan of his and it was great to see him snatch a medal in Helsinki in what is a very strong event.” Speaking to the Australian press, the legendary distance runner Steve Moneghetti described Mottram’s bronze medal as a “watershed moment.” The 1994 Commonwealth marathon champion added: “I didn’t think I would see an Australian do what he is doing. To have an Australian under 13 minutes for 5km is unbelievable. “He’s done it twice and topped it off with a world championship medal. Craig got a bronze but that was a win ... an outstanding performance. To get among the Africans is incredible. It’s a win in itself.” Mottram’s manager and coach, Bideau, thinks there is more to come, too, and he believes Mottram’s achievements will leave a legacy that will be remembered for years to come. The kind of achievements that will inspire characters like Farah and others to believe they can win, whoever they run against.
Nic Bideau, right, and Craig Mottram are a winning team, with Bideau using his huge experience and flair to keep the youngster on course for gold at the Commonwealth Games Mottram arguably underplays his obvious physical talent when he states that “90 per cent of it is mental” when it comes to challenging African supremacy in long distance running. Yet his psychological strengths are impossible to ignore and constantly crop up during the interview. Confidence, ambition, determination, you name it, Mottram has these in abundance – and then some. When quizzed, for example, about how good he was at soccer in his early teens, he replies as if it is a daft question. “Of course I was good,” he smiles proudly. Bideau laughs: “Craig thinks he can win at anything!” In cricket, which naturally pops up in conversation following this summer’s Ashes series, Mottram was a leg-spinner in the Geelong Grammar School first XI. When it comes to swimming and cycling, this time last year he took part in a triathlon for fun during an end-ofseason period of active rest and recuperation. The result? He won the open race and reckons he could have won the elite event if he had been able to get an entry. “I won by several minutes and, dare I say it, could have won the elite one,” he says. “Maybe that was why they didn’t let me in it!” Yet despite his comments, Mottram does not overstep the boundary that separates confidence from cockiness. He also shows huge respect – and not an ounce of fear – for the African rivals he hopes to usurp. On this occasion on Tyneside, for instance, he was beaten into third by Eliud Kipchoge of Kenya and Boniface Kiprop of Uganda, but he points out that they are friends of his and he describes the struggle to take on the Africans with genuine relish. “It just makes it,” he explains, with an ultra-competitive glint in his eyes, “a bit more of a challenge, that’s all.” I FIRST interviewed Mottram in June 2000 at a British Milers’ Club Nike Grand Prix meeting in Wythenshawe in Manchester. The stadium is renowned for local yobs taking pot shots at athletes with air rifles. But Mottram and his entourage of Aussies visited the Mancunian track to sharpen their form in the lead up to the Sydney Olympics. Mottram ran a BMC record of 7:51.32 at Wythenshawe. Back then, though, he was not the star attraction. Instead, all eyes were on teenage phenomenon Georgie Clarke, who was poised to compete for Australia in the Games in the 1500m aged just 16. What do I remember from that early, close encounter? Firstly, I remember Mottram, who was competing four days before his 20th birthday, towering above me. Secondly, I recall being amused by the fact he’d been given the nickname ‘Buster’, after the Eighties tennis player Buster Mottram. Thirdly, there was no escaping his confidence. It was apparent even then. He was cool, assured and utterly certain he was going to make it. Later that year he placed eighth in his 5000m heat at the Sydney Games and his improvement has been almost relentless ever since.
Question time: Mottram (centre) and Bideau (left) with AW’s editor shortly after the Great North Run middledistance races in Newcastle last month Not surprisingly, sport runs in his family. His father, Brian, played centre half for Wimbledon Football Club during their Southern League days. His younger brother, Neil, played basketball for the Australian Institute of Sport team. While Mottram himself was an Australian junior triathlon champion before he turned his attentions to athletics. The family also have a muchpublicised British background. Mottram’s dad is a Londoner and his mother, Dorothy, comes from Scotland. Mottram himself, meanwhile, has a British passport. All of which has led to heated speculation that he might run for Britain in future. His parents emigrated to Australia in 1980 and visit Europe rarely. Although they did travel to Helsinki to watch the IAAF World Championships in August and followed this with a trip down memory lane, visiting lots of places they used to go to when they were younger. “They loved it,” says Mottram, “my mum didn’t want to leave.” Mottram has a house in Hampton Wick, which he uses as his base during the European summer, and even used his British passport as a prop to taunt the UK media at one of the Great North Run press conferences. So is a switch to Britain on the cards? “Nah,” he confirms, “it’s Australia for now.” Back in June 2000 his answer was the same, albeit a little firmer. “No chance,” he said, “I’m Australian!” If his answer has softened over the years, perhaps it’s because he’s now been asked the question dozens – if not hundreds – of times. In Manchester five years ago he was also slightly heavier. Not much, but just a tad chubbier around the cheeks than the sleek, chiselled features he possesses today. Or, I asked him, is my memory playing tricks? “No, that’s probably right,” he confirmed. “That’s what years of running lots of miles does to you.”
Mottram was third in Helsinki behind Ben Limo (565) and Sileshi Sihine (274) Back in the year 2000 Mottram was also a novice compared to the 2005 model. After giving up triathlon because he struggled to find time to train for three events, he began running under the guidance of coach Bruce Scriven and with just a few months of specific athletics training under his belt he began to break national records. In February 1999, toward the end of the Australian summer, he set an Australian under- 20 3000m record of 8:02.77. The following month he placed 17th in the junior race at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Belfast – a race that was won by Hailu Mekonnen of Ethiopia with Kenenisa Bekele in ninth. Following his European tour and the Sydney Olympics in 2000, he took another quantum leap early in 2001, achieving a series of improvements. In February he ran 7:41.35 to smash the Australian senior 3000m record. In his first ever mile race he clocked 3:54.65 at the Melbourne track classic and the following week he won his 3000m heat at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Lisbon before finishing eighth in the final. Finally, as if that wasn’t an impressive enough way for the youngster to kick off 2001, he then finished an outstanding eighth in the short-course race at the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Ostend, Belgium. Former junior winner Mekonnen finished two places behind him and the only athletes to beat him were Kenyans and an Ethiopian. Later that year he improved further to run 3:53.06 for the mile and 13:23.94 for 5000m and at the IAAF World Championships in Edmonton he reached the semi-finals in the 1500m. Then, never one to race sparingly, he ran 3:35.40 for 1500m to finish sixth in the IAAF Grand Prix Final in his home city of Melbourne. The 2002 season started even better. Firstly, he broke Lee Troop’s Australian 5000m record with 13:12.04 in March, taking 11 seconds off his own best. Going to the IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Dublin, he went on to improve on his superb eighth place from 12 months earlier. Again running the short-course race, this time he placed fifth behind two Kenyans and two Ethiopians. At the Commonwealth Games in Manchester he placed sixth in the 5000m, but began to show his winning touch shortly afterwards when he won the 3000m at the IAAF World Cup in Madrid by a full six seconds in a Cup record of 7:41.37. By now, it was clear he was able to sustain superb form right through the year – from the Australian summer until late-season European meetings. Something had to crack, though, and his 2003 Australian season was a write-off due to an iliotibial band injury. But he soon bounced back into his fierce racing routine, running 27:50.55 in only his second 10,000m and at the 2004 World Cross Country Championships in Brussels, Belgium, he finished ninth in the short-course race and 24 hours he came 13th in the long-course event. As the European track season began to kick off, while lots of athletes boycotted the Bannister Mile 50th anniversary meeting in Oxford in order to focus on early-season training, Mottram turned up to support the event and blasted to a track record of 3:56.64. Among the spectators, Bannister himself must have been wondering where all the British challengers were. Farah and John Mayock were closest, finishing just outside four minutes. As the Athens Olympics approached, Mottram’s form just got better. In fact, he may have peaked too early, because his finest race of the season came at the London Grand Prix at Crystal Palace. Mottram went head to head with the legendary Haile Gebrselassie in a thrilling race that was capped off by a tremendous last lap. Ultimately, the Ethiopian edged ahead to win, but Mottram’s reward was another national record of 12:55.76 – becoming the second-fastest non- African 5000m runner behind Dieter Baumann of Germany. How much better could Mottram get? In Athens he ran solidly, but finished eighth in the 5000m final. But the recent European track season has seen him post a further flurry of great times. He ran 12:56.13 for 5000m when finishing runner-up to Bekele at Crystal Palace; he has improved his 1500m best to 3:34.80; and his mile tumbled down to 3:48.98 in Oslo. Then, in Helsinki, he pretty much confirmed he is the world’s No.1 distance runner outside of Africa. “Helsinki was a big breakthrough for me,” he says, “I came third and cannot be too disappointed with that. But every time I line up I’m not trying to beat the British team or American team, I line up to win the race.” So how has he developed a more aggressive, positive attitude than most of his fellow white distance runners? It’s not an easy question to answer and it appears to mystify him as much as anyone. “A lot of people go out and see an African name and they shit themselves and they’ve automatically lost and it’s frustrating,” he explains. “People are scared to race them. I’m not – I find it quite exciting. “I’m definitely not satisfied with coming second and,” he adds, in clear reference to the World Championships in Helsinki, “I’m definitely not satisfied with coming third.” FALLS CREEK is situated in the high plains of south-east Australia. During winter it is a busy ski resort, but in summer it is an ideal and quiet setting for athletes who simply want to train, sleep and eat. For those who haven’t been there, it sounds unreal and too good to be true, like a name plucked out of a comic book. But it is very real indeed and whereas on one hand it is a runner’s paradise, it also often feels like hell to Mottram who batters the footpaths with mile upon mile of training. It is here, at 1500-1800m altitude, that he and his training partners such as female distance runners Sonia O’Sullivan and Benita Johnson lay the foundation for their racing season. Facilities are sparse. There is no track, for example. Yet there are many plusses about the venue. For one, despite the hilly terrain, there are numerous flat paths linked to aqueducts that wind around the area, so steady runs can be completed without the athlete’s heart rate fluctuating too much. In addition to this, the climate is good and there are lots of ice-cold streams to dip tired limbs into after sessions. The lack of track doesn’t bother Mottram. He does not rely on too many sessions around the artificial 400m ovals that he plies most of his trade on. Even during the summer he says it is rare for him to train on the track more than once a week. The majority of his hard work is done on paths and parkland and track sessions are, he adds, merely the finishing touch. Much more important, to him and his group, is bashing out the miles. “Generally in the winter we’ll run upward of 100 to 110 miles per week,” Mottram explains. “We might go up to 100 miles a week as well during the middle of the track season. But not every week obviously, as you’ve got to pick the weeks around the races.” He continues: “We keep a lot of volume all year. The only time we go on the track is during the track season and we won’t go on the track more than once a week. Maybe two times this year I was on the track more than once a week. You just don’t need to. “You need to do the runs and the hard sessions in the park – the aerobic stuff. The track sessions are...” His voice trails off, struggling for a way to describe them. “Icing on the cake?” I suggest. “Yes,” he agrees. Bideau interrupts to make a point. “Everything he does, there’s a reason for it,” explains the coach who has guided not only Mottram but athletes like Johnson to the world cross country title. “There are three or four ingredients that keep recurring the whole time and depending on the time of year they have a different ratio.” To some British coaches and athletes, some of the training habits may seem strange. In addition to few track sessions, he also does most of his work by himself or with slower runners. Many sessions, for example, are done with O’Sullivan or Johnson. And whereas Bideau manages the schedules with skill and experience, Mottram usually avoids knowing what session is on the agenda until he begins warming up for it. “I often find out the track session on a Tuesday a few minutes beforehand. I don’t want to be thinking about it the whole night,” he says. Yet physical work aside, time and again Mottram reinforces the psychological factors behind his success story. “The people behind me are very important – supporting me the whole time. But the big thing is believing you can do it. You have got to believe you can beat the African runners. You live by the sword and die by the sword. You’ve got to go out and try. And if you don’t win then so be it. You know where you stand and can try and improve for next time.” Then, he adds: “Ninety per cent of it is mental. I mean, I’m no freak. I’ve done sports science tests on the treadmill and all that sort of stuff and I’m no better than anybody else. There are people who are better than me at those tests, but I have a belief that if I do the right things and work hard and if the people behind me believe I can do it and if we’re sensible about it and don’t try to go too hard too soon, then why not? There’s no scientific proof that shows they’re better than us.” So returning to the question of why so few white distance runners are able to raise their game, I ask him if the general decline in distancerunning standards outside Africa is simply down to lack of mental strength? “Quite possibly, yes,” he agrees. “I think there are more people out there who can do it than can’t. More people think it can’t be done than don’t have the ability to do it – if that makes sense.” By way of clarifying his point, both he and Bideau rattle off a handful of Australian distance runners who they feel had potential to be world class but who have fallen by the wayside in recent years. As for underperforming British runners, are they training hard enough? Do they have the right attitude. Mottram is diplomatic but genuine. “I don’t know what training they’re doing, so I can’t say that’s the reason because I don’t know what they’re doing,” he answers. Yet tellingly, he adds: “We’ve given the opportunity to numerous people to come and train with us. Everybody who talks about coming to Australia and training with us, they’re more than welcome. “They ask us for advice on training and we say ‘well, we can tell you what we do but that doesn’t mean to say you’re going to get the same results’. If you want to come and train with us and go to altitude, then you might start to see results. “But they never commit themselves. They say it’s a long way away, on the other side of the world. Yet I do it in reverse! I’m lucky now in that I can afford my own house in Britain, but there were times three or four years ago when things weren’t so easy.” FOLLOWING his 3000m race at the Great North Run weekend, Mottram travelled to New York to run the Fifth Avenue Mile. Timing his final drive to perfection, he overtook American Alan Webb in the final stages to win in 3:49.9. After this, he planned to take a break before starting his build up to the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne – which takes place in his native state of Victoria. On November 1 he will go to Falls Creek. Few athletes have the opportunity to compete in a major championship on home soil, especially if they have a genuine chance of winning gold. So not surprisingly Mottram is looking forward to the Games next March with huge excitement. It will, he says, be a massive event for Australians, in the same way Manchester captured the attention of the British public during the summer of 2002. And whereas his achievements so far on the world stage have been given a luke-warm reception by the difficultto- impress Aussie media, if he wins in Melbourne he will become a big name, if only temporarily. “There’s no doubt of that,” he says, “it’ll be huge.” He is unable to disguise his ambition to succeed either. “The timing is perfect. I’d give my right nut to win the Commonwealth title!” he says, with typical Aussie honesty. Victory will give him fame, but does he want it? Not necessarily. “It (athletics) is not in their face every day like AFL is, or cricket has been,” he explains. “I’ll do maybe a week of interviews and TV when I get back (to Australia) and then we’ll go away and train. Too many people get caught up in that kind of crap but the main thing for me is to get better and stronger. We’ll go to Falls Creek and if people want to interview us they can get in the car and drive for four hours.” Given his huge desire to win his first major title in the new year on home soil, Mottram will be itching to get back into hard training. But at this, his quietest time of year, he is also sure to relax with a few of the hobbies he is unable to enjoy during the half of the year he spends in London. He is increasingly interested in cars, for instance, and likes tinkering with them – an interest Steve Ovett, coincidentally, used to fill his spare time with during his competitive days. Mottram will also see his parents and one of his most faithful training partners – the family dog, Moss, a flat coated retriever. Eventually, when he arrives at Falls Creek, he hopes to develop his growing interest in fishing. The area, he says, is not just great for running but it is an angler’s paradise too. One thing he does not plan to do this year, though, is a triathlon. After last year’s victory in the open event at the Australian coastal resort of Noosa, he does not intend to defend his title and it is not on his schedule in 2005. “It was a lot of fun and it allowed me to stay fit without the sole focus of concentrating on running,” he says. “I took it seriously and I went there to compete as hard as I could. It gave my body a break but also allowed me to keep the competitive streak alive.” IN Melbourne next March, Mottram will have to be at his competitive best if he is to beat the Kenyans to the Commonwealth 5000m title. There is even the chance he could double up and run the 10,000m too. Or maybe even the 1500m – so completing a golden double. From the outside, he always looks so relaxed and confident, but the nerves are sure to be tingling with anticipation as the Games draw nearer. I mention, for example, that he looked completely at ease on the morning of his 5000m final in Helsinki. “Did I?” he asks, looking surprised. “I was shitting myself! At a championship you have no idea how the race is going to go. It’s not like a paced race where the result is more predictable.” A certain amount of nervous tension is not a bad thing, though. The great Australian supermiler, Herb Elliott, says he used to feel physically sick with nerves before races that he would go on to win easily. He was sick with the fear of defeat. Mottram counters his nerves by surrounding himself with friends and advisors who have experience and a positive mentality. “We’ve got people who have done it before and we have people around whose company we enjoy,” he explains. “I stayed in the village in Athens in 2004 and Manchester in 2002 and I didn’t like it on either occasion. It’s not a normal environment. You’ve got the stress of the race, which is something you’ve been building up toward all year and that’s stressful in itself and you can’t go to bed when you want to because there are other people who haven’t finished their events, or partying. “I went to Helsinki to do two races – the semi-final and final – and the best chance for me to get the result I wanted was to get out and spend time with the same people I’d been spending time with all year. It’s familiar, we sit down and have dinner and relax and joke and talk about things other than athletics.” Fully relaxed, Mottram was mentally refreshed when the time came to focus on his race. “There were probably around 10 people who could have made the podium in Helsinki, depending on how the race was run. But the three who did were the three who believed they could more than the others.” The importance of psychology emerges once again. Perhaps Mottram’s 90 per cent theory is right, after all. Following his exertions at the Great North Run weekend, he headed to New York to race the Fifth Avenue Mile and once again he did not simply rely on pure physical ability to succeed. Firstly, his tactics were executed to perfection. He and Bideau identified Alan Webb as the likely leader following the withdrawal of the pacemaker and Mottram’s plan to hold back and then stride out on the downhill, third quarter worked brilliantly. He hauled in Webb in the closing stages, but the victory was largely down to clever planning. He explained to the IAAF: “I ran the course last night at 6pm on the sidewalk. Then I came out this morning at 7am, just after they closed the roads, and ran back and forth a few times, stopping and walking over the parts I thought would be important.” Such attention to detail is impressive at the best of times, let alone at the end of a long, gruelling season. Yet this attitude is helping him stay hot on the heels of the world’s best distance runners. Which brings us back to the 30- minute warm-down run he did while most of his rivals were enjoying the lunchtime banquet at the Great North Run athletes’ hotel. Do things like this make the difference between success and failure? His wry grin said it all. “For a lot of runners this is their last race, so they want a bit of a break,” he smiled. “Me? I just love going for a run. I didn’t get the opportunity to do a warm down out on the course because we had to get on the bus. So that was my warm down. I enjoyed getting out there and getting some fresh air.”
From issue 59-41, 12th October 2005.
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ENERGY and enthusiasm are in short supply as the bus taking competitors from the middledistance races at the Great North Run weekend rumbles its way from Newcastle’s Quayside back to the athletes’ hotel in Gosforth. Not only have they just raced hard over a mile or 3000m on the roads, but it is mid- September and the end of a summer that hit its peak one month earlier at the World Championships in Helsinki.
