Pro Runners Ask: Is My Agent Worth the Fee Alysia Montaño has been this week.
On Monday, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) released a report alleging systematic doping within the Russian track and field federation. The report detailed organized efforts by coaches and officials to promote doping, and recommended that five Russian athletes, including 2012 Olympic medalists, get lifetime bans.
Two of those athletes, Mariya Savinova and Ekaterina Poistogova, may lose all the Olympic and IAAF World Championships medals they’ve been awarded in this decade. If that happens, Montaño’s record would be most affected, as she is the person who has lost the most because of the duo’s illicit presence in championships finals—and on podiums.
Take the results of Savinova and Poistogova away, and Montaño—a six-time U.S. outdoor 800-meter champion—is transformed from a woman with one bronze at the 2010 world indoor championships to one with a silver from that meet and three bronzes, from the 2012 Olympics and the 2011 and 2013 outdoor world championships. She has spent the peak of her competitive career surrounded by runners who are found to have cheated. And although Montaño may one day get the medals she deserves, she has lost out on glorious moments along the way.
That has made the Californian, who races with a flower in her hair, a subject of feature articles this week in Sports Illustrated, the On Monday, the, the Running in the Cold, and the Washington Post, and of segments on several television networks. Articulate and unabashed, Montano revealed a different aspect of herself and her saga in each one. Given how drastically her inner feelings fluctuated between sadness, joy and anger over several days, it’s not surprising that each portrait of her was new.
Runner's World talked with Montaño on Thursday night.
Runner's World: This week has required you to dig deep to expose and express your thoughts and feelings in a way that virtually no other runner is ever challenged to do, hasn’t it?
Alysia Montaño: Absolutely. I feel like this had been a 72-hour-plus therapy session. In some ways, it’s extremely cathartic, and in other ways, it’s depressing. It’s interesting that you note that somehow, some way, the same story with nearly the same questions has me coming up with something different to say in different manners. It’s allowing me to express those emotions that I’ve buried.
The only choice I’ve had to continue my career and to stay in the sport was to put my head down and keep moving. At the end of the day, there was nothing I could do by myself. And that was my attitude, my integrity, and my work ethic, and continuing to just prove that good guys don’t always finish last. The biggest thing that kept me going was that I didn’t lose hope…OK, to be completely honest, there were times that I had lost hope. But that’s human nature. But then you somehow pull the hope back to the top over the despair and the sorrow and the “is this ever going to be resolved?”
RW: There has to be a bit of a decompression phase at some point. Perhaps that can’t happen until we find out what the IAAF decides to do with the report released on Monday.
AM: There’s a little bit of that. I’ve been through more emotions in the last 96 hours than I have been in my lifetime. I don’t think saying that is dramatic at all. I’m being 100 percent honest. I’m thankful for my support from the [American] teammates and for my husband, who’s been a living witness to these emotions. I’ve even had comic relief about it. It’s actually psychotic how many emotions I’ve gone through.
RW: Where did you manage to find humor?
AM: I think of a song that has lyrics that are slightly funny that go to the moment that I’m in. Generally, they’re vendetta sort of lyrics.
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AM: People are asking about the money lost, you’re thinking, “Oh, my goodness, I can’t even begin to think about how much money I’ve lost, that’s another depressing factor.” Then there’s this song by Rihanna. It’s called “Bitch Better Have My Money.” That’s a survival tactic, thinking of that. There’s an old quote about how you can either laugh about something or cry about it. Sometimes you need to cry, but I’d rather not spend the rest of my life crying about it.
My husband will say something funny and I’m like, “Thank you, thank you,” because I don’t want to hang out in this funk. At least we’ll have touches of solace and peace with our moments of despair. I suffered multiple losses in just a short period of time. It’s the reality of that that’s unsettling.
RW: Are you going back to world indoor championships in Portland this winter?
AM: I mean losses in a metaphorical way. I’ve suffered, I’ve suffered. When you put your time and energy into what it takes to be an elite runner, a lot of decisions are made that have you lose out on other experiences. It’s okay, because you’re going after something. But [you] recognize that you had no control over what you were going after honestly because of someone else’s actions. I do feel betrayed by the sport because people are supposed to be protecting us, the clean athletes, and the supporters of our clean athletes, the fan base, the runners who are living through us.
I feel betrayed, I feel disgusted. I feel gutted. And it’s a loss. It’s almost like suffering a death.
RW: The moments are lost. Medals can be at least some consolation to you, but you'll never be on the podium and get what you deserved at the moment. And that can't be changed.
AM: You can’t change that. You can’t pay me that back. I’m not going to cry about this again because my eyes are hurting, but in 2012, my grandmother was here. It was her 100th birthday the day I became an Olympian. I was so motivated to give everything I’ve got. And my everything was enough [to be a medalist], but I didn’t show up because there were cheaters and people who were covering up while [my grandmother] was here. I know she was proud of me, and she wasn’t thinking about the medals, but still, being able to have celebrated that time with her is something I can’t get back.
She’s passed. I’ll never, ever, ever, ever...This person’s not here. She will never see my vindication. That’s unforgivable.
RW: In championship 800-meter finals, you really did have to change your plans because you knew there was this woman, Savinova, who was cheating who was known for running the last 200 meters incredibly fast from behind.
AM: Yep.
RW: So when people were thinking, “Why is Alysia going out so fast?”
AM: And why does she keep doing that? I talked about that in another interview. It’s eating at you, because you’re asked these questions, and you want to answer them truthfully. You want to say, “You guys want to know what? I’m not doping, I’m not a robot, and I have to do what I can to get a leg up.” Yes, absolutely, 100 percent, I’m thinking, “Okay, I can believe I can beat the dopers,” but I have to have a different race plan. We can’t run the same plan because she’s not going to be gassed, and I’m going to be tired.
For now, I feel victorious, because at the end of the day, I’ve beaten the cheaters. I have to tell myself, “No, you’ve won. You’ve won.” The dirty athletes...hurtful’s not even a fair word. It’s difficult to just deal with over and over and over again.
RW: Elite athletes took to Twitter and Instagram to show themselves running with a flower in their hair, as you do, in support of you this week. Has that tribute shown you that there is such a thing as an elite middle-distance community in this country?
AM: It’s shown me that there are the strong clean athletes who have voices and recognize that they have their voices and are showing their solidarity and support. I’m greatly impacted by this, but this is huge in our sport. Huge. Huge. How can we not support our teammate and our friend? It was just an incredibly moving gesture by those athletes. I think it was started by Amy Hastings [Cragg] and Molly Huddle, and then just seeing Shalane Flanagan, Kara Goucher, Roisin McGettigan, Magdalena Boulet, these huge names that people know, really let me know the community for clean sport is much bigger than the dirty community.
The sport right now is being painted as a little bit dirty, but we needed it. The time is now. No more slaps on the wrist. One [dirty] testing and you’re out. Lifetime ban. You cannot affect someone’s life this drastically for years in and years out. Not only that, I feel like the scapegoat has been the Russian federation. Can we acknowledge the IAAF, the major organization that’s supposed to be protecting clean athletes? Yes, the Russian federation’s absolutely wrong, but I believe there were people, within the IAAF, if I’m not mistaken, who have taken bribes. They knew this was going on, and they allowed it.
RW: With all these draining distractions, have you been able to train this week?
AM: I’m in my base training. I got it done somehow. Monday was the hardest day. First, I had to deal with my feelings, and there was no way I was going to go out there as if nothing was happening. All these [media] inquiries were coming in and it went insane. But I felt I needed to spend that time [answering questions]. I ended up getting out to run, but I did it after I talked to everybody. I thought that was perfect, because I’d released all of those emotions and could focus on running. I felt a jolt of just energy. And then I come back home and I have this daughter [Linnea, born in August of 2014] who’s pure joy, pure bliss.
I did interviews until a half hour past my bedtime, knowing I had to get up and have a hard workout the next morning, and I did that one. I let a camera come in and film the end of my workout but I didn’t stop for them. I feel like next year will be wide open for me and I want to be ready. I want to be great. They can’t take this time away from me, because then we’re letting the dopers win.
And then this morning, I’m flying [to Boulder, Colorado, for a sponsor commitment], I continue to do my job. I did my workout at 6 a.m. to get on the flight at 10:50. I’m honoring the people who have supported me. You get it done, you fit it in, some way. The thing that I’m saying is being a clean athlete, it is tough. I’m tired. I’m lying here right now with my feet up. You go through these times where you just lay there and recover that way, versus doping.
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AM: I haven’t decided. I think I’ve been quoted famously for saying I hate indoors. And I’m not afraid to say that. I really dislike indoors. It hurts. I dislike the tight turns and doing the multiple turns. I don’t know. We’ll see. Last year, I said I wasn’t going to do indoors, I was going to take my time in my postpartum year, and somehow I was like, “Whoa, I’m kind of in really good shape.” If that happens again, with abbreviated training and not worrying about getting anywhere, maybe we should just do indoors. But ultimately, I want to be at trials and I want to make the [Olympic] team and I want another shot at racing against clean women in the 800 meters.
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AM: I don’t know. That’s the future. You saw me at nationals last year just hang out and then sprint at the end. I can do it. It’s just, where is my brain at? I like the feeling of [being chased]. It’s like, “Come get it.” I like it. I want to run fast.
RW: Are you pretty confident that in 2016, the women’s 800 meters final will have clean athletes in it?
AM: I don’t know. You don’t know who’s going to pop out of the woodwork. [Drugs are] in the sport. I’ve been a pro way too long to be naïve about it anymore.
RW: When this Russian controversy is over and results are amended, your name will endure online and in books with Olympic and world championships results. Hopefully, you’ll have tangible medals as well. It can’t restore all that you lost, but it will mean something, won’t it?
AM: Yeah, it will, actually. At the end of the day, I said, “I want my medals. I want my hardware. That’s mine. Return me my property.” And I mean it in the most serious fashion. Give it back. Not only that, I have lost financially so much that I can’t even quantify. I was asked to throw out numbers just randomly. I hadn’t thought about it.
But that’s still my money. You stole it from me, and it’s not yours. But that part is hard when you actually think about it. It’s ridiculous. It’s absolutely insane. [Without the Russians], it would have changed my world rankings, my bonuses, my second contract. It would have changed the outside sponsorships. Honestly, I threw out half a million or 600K. But we’re looking at a couple million dollars, at least. But you cannot pay me for the emotional damage that you caused. And that’s bigger.
You still owe me. Give me my hardware, but you cannot pay me back for those moments and times. And you can’t pay me back for the emotional damage. You cannot. And it makes me angry.
