Chapter 463 Marathons and Business 7
"Yes, Mike, of course, it is true, I would not lie in an interview that I knew was being recorded, I intend to start running in the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters."
"So how are you saying this is that you are confident that you can stand a chance of winning the 10,000 meters and 5,000 meters?"
"I would not say that I am confident, I am certainly training to run in the 5,000 meters and the 10,000 meters, and from what my trainer and I saw in my training I certainly have the possibility of winning running in these modalities."
"What complicates things a little is that because of the NBA game season I decided that I"ll just try to run the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters in the next Olympics, I"ll do the qualifiers and try to get the time for the Sydney Olympics in 2000."
"So I"m just going to be able to find out if that"s possible when I partic.i.p.ate in the qualifiers and I"m going to take advantage of my NBA vacation to train more for the next Olympics."
Hearing this Mike understood that Jake and his coach were really confident that Jake could win in the 5,000 meters and 10,000 meters, otherwise they would not think about competing in the Olympics where the best athletes in the world are trying to win.
If that really happened it would be great for the Adidas company, Jake could win up to 3 gold medals at the next Olympics and that would be very good for the company and of course, it would be even better for Jake.
"David Falk really should have said that when he was negotiating the sponsors.h.i.+p contract with our company, if he did that we would agree to that contract much faster."
"He couldn"t have said that because I hadn"t spoken to him, that contract was negotiated more because I"m a basketball player going to the NBA than because of athletics, so it was just relevant to talk about the marathons that I won and about the Olympic medal I won than talking about things that can happen."
"I think about trying several things in the future and I can"t say everything I think about trying until I have some confidence that I can do that."
Mike realized that Jake was telling the truth, he knew well that the main objective of Adidas was the NBA and not the marathons that Jake could win or he won the 10,000 meters and the 5,000 meters.
So much so that even if Jake won 3 gold medals in the next Olympics and played badly in the NBA they might even think about renewing his contract, but it would be with a much lower value than it was.
But this conversation with Jake made him curious about what Jake thought about trying to do that he couldn"t talk about right now, it didn"t help Mike to think about it because he could hardly imagine that Jake still intended to run in the 1500 meters and 800 meters and also intended to run a marathon in less than 2 hours.
After talking to Jake for a while, Mike left to confirm the information for the company, it was good news for them at a time when the NBA game season hadn"t started yet and it could only start next year what it was too bad for them.
The teams could negotiate with the players to pay a lower salary because they played less, but the sponsors still had to pay the entire contract year even though the players only played half the season.
So over the next few weeks, Jake continued his routine by training hard and getting less and less tired after workouts that were now much more difficult, Jake was happy because that meant he was improving a lot.
So soon the month of November arrived and Jake had to go to Greece to partic.i.p.ate in the Athens marathon, Jake went two days before to Athens because he wanted to rest before the marathon, after all, Jake knew how more difficult this marathon was than the others with so many ups and downs.
Jake knew about the importance of the Athens marathon taking place in the country of the first marathon that took place, Jake knew the story of Pheidippides who died after running from the Battle of the Marathon to Athens to announce the victory of the Greeks over the Persians.
Jake even thought about running at a slower pace in this marathon because of the difficulty, but then he thought it wouldn"t be difficult for him to run the entire marathon at his old pace and he would slow down the run in the final part anyway.
The sports media were excited for this marathon because this time Jake had announced a long time ago that he would partic.i.p.ate, but this time there were not many athletes who planned to run in the same group as Jake in that marathon.
After all, everyone knew that this marathon would be very difficult, but the sports media knew that Jake had many chances of winning in that marathon because although it was the first time that Jake had run in the Athens marathon, he had already run in Athens at the World Champions.h.i.+ps in Athletics in 1997 and had won.
Of course, Jake wouldn"t say that it was the Adidas company that asked him to run this marathon, Jake liked to run marathons and if he could run more than 5 marathons a year, he accepted, and Jake also wanted to run the official marathon of Athens.
After resting for two days at the hotel that Coach Davis booked for him, the day of the Athens marathon came, Jake went very early in the morning to the place where the marathon would begin, when Jake arrived at the marathon site many athletes recognized him.
Many of the athletes who were there admired Jake who was currently the reference in the world of marathons and was already considered one of the best marathoners in history, some did not like Jake out of envy and others did not like him because he was also a basketball player in addition to being a marathon runner.
But even though everyone knew that Jake was the favorite to win this marathon, there were still many people who thought that Jake had no chance of winning that marathon, because most of the athletes who won that marathon until this year were athletes from European countries.
The athletes from Greece had already won 16 times before this marathon started, so many thought that Jake didn"t have much chance of winning this marathon, Jake also remembered that the athlete who would win this marathon was Nikólaos Poliás who before he went back in time he had won that marathon four times.
Until that year Nikólaos Poliás had won the Athens marathon twice, and this would be the third time that he would win if Jake did not partic.i.p.ate in that marathon, of course only the other athletes and part of the sports media thought about it, the marathon fans who were at the marathon site they cheered a lot for Jake.
Mike had also arrived the night before the marathon, he should have arrived earlier to talk to Jake before the marathon, after all, it was the Adidas company that asked Jake to run that marathon, but he had other things to do and ended up being late.
Mike still wanted to talk to Jake when he arrived, but he didn"t know what hotel Jake was in and Jake had hung up on him during the night because he went to sleep early to prepare for the marathon.
Jake had come to Greece alone because Coach Davis preferred to stay with his family than come to Greece knowing that Jake didn"t need him, so Mike was unable to speak to Jake the day before.
After a few minutes, the athletes were already prepared and the Athens marathon officially started, even if this was one of the most difficult marathons, the difference in time when the athletes finished this marathon was not that big.
When Jake started running differently from other times, no athlete wanted to run in the same group as him, and it was not because they thought Jake couldn"t win, it was because they knew Jake was running at a very fast pace up to 30 km.
And in this marathon running at a very fast pace for the first 30 km that was the most tiring part of the marathon was not a smart thing to do, Jake didn"t have to worry about that because he could easily achieve that with the resistance he had.
"Welcome to everyone who came to accompany the Athens marathon, this is one of the most important marathons in the world and certainly the one with the most historical importance, in addition to being one of the most difficult marathons in the world."
"Running in this marathon are several marathon runners from Greece and the European region who are veterans, and also the current best marathon runner in the world Jake Smith who is running for the second time here in Athens."
"Yes, not long ago he declared that he would not be competing in so many marathons after joining the NBA, and that is a shame for the world of marathons, but he declared that he would continue training and that he would try to compete in the Olympics in the marathon and also in the 5,000 meters and in the 10,000 meters."
"This is certainly a very good thing for athletics in general and Jake Smith is still young and can compete in several marathons in the future, but the important thing is this marathon, will Jake win here in this Athens marathon?"
"I think it is certain that he will win, I myself have doubted several times whether he could win in other marathons and he always won, we have to understand that normally if Jake Smith partic.i.p.ates in a marathon he will win."
"Proof of this is that he lost only one marathon that he ran in his career and it was his second marathon that he came in second just because he got injured in that marathon, so seeing that we can see why many say that Jake Smith is the best marathon runner in every time."