8 2008 NOVEMBER

It isn’t everyday that you get an up-close view of an Olympic gold medal. Today Ben Rutledge,a proud UBC alum and key member of the 2008 Canadian Olympic men’s 6’s rowing team who won gold in Beijing this past summer, allows us a glimpse of his success. As the athlete is showcased by our Point photographer, prominently wearing his crimson Canadian jersey and a! en" on-garnering Olympic gold, I begin to wonder about the chapter in an athlete’s career that doesn’t receive any limelight- the long and brutal journey that an athlete endures to actually get to this level. Today, I had the chance to shine light on the events that amounted to one champion’s success, and what it takes to get to the top- in sports, and in life.

How did Ben get to where he is today? What signi cant challenges has he faced, and how did he overcome them? I interviewed Ben with these key ques! ons in mind. What follows from my interview is a wealth of prac! cal, relevant lessons for anyone striving to achieve in life.

During our conversa! on in the stands of the UBC Aqua! c Centre, the towering 6’5” athlete reveals that he got his rowing start right here at UBC, not un! l the age of eighteen. He recalls,

I started out [in second year] trying out for the hockey team, and it just wasn’t for me I guess- I wasn’t selected. Then, I was just paying tui! on on campus one day, and someone approached me and said ‘you should try out for the rowing team’… [I thought], why not? The mee! ng was on a Friday night, I remember, dis! nc! vely, ditching an arts beer garden… the rest is kind of history.

Within only three years since that night of preferring rowing over beer, Rutledge would become an accomplished World rowing Champion. But what happened between these two extremes?

Three months a" er that rst mee! ng, Ben made the varsity cut. He explains, “rowing is a sport with a lot of will-power and a lot of endurance. I had the right body type- I had the determina! on to want to do well”. However, Ben admits that he never reached his poten! al at the varsity level. “On the UBC varsity team, … I don’t know if I was fully commi# ed, to tell you the truth … I wasn’t pushing forward. So, my coach suggested I try out for the na! onal team”. Rutledge’s decision to up the ante and join the na! onal team proved to be the experience that would demand his full ability, and one that would act as a key transi! on in his athle! c career. Rutledge recounts,

At university, [in rowing] I never really knew how to push myself. I had just go# en by on natural talent. On the na! onal team it became apparent that you needed a lot more to compete at that level. The group we were training with were just that much be# er than me and it made me dig down to be able to compete with the rest of the team. I found I needed to push harder and I [discovered] I had more talent le" to get me there.Re ec! ng back on his limited development as a

varsity athlete, Rutledge says “you’re limited by what you see around you. If someone is not bea! ng you on a regular basis, then you are not able to push yourself on a regular basis. That was the biggest thing for me [in transi! oning as an athlete]”. His lesson is clear: in order to get to that next level in anything worth pursuing, it is crucial to create an environment that demands the very best from our abili! es. In Ben’s case, he would never have a gold medal today if he hadn’t done just that.

How did the na! onal team’s training environment get Ben to “dig down deep” and demand the very best from him?

The way we train in rowing is that we line up in boats, the coach gives a certain stroke rate per minute, and he just says ‘go!’… And we just race at that stroke rate. So, if you’re behind, you’ve got to push harder! And it’s always just that easy. It’s always looking for more. There’s never a point where you can just sit back and go, ‘I’m doing okay’, because if you do, you’ll fall o! the pace.It’s a mindset of being able to fully commit to each prac! ce, fully 100%. If you believe that you are always working too hard or over-training, you’ll never get the results you want: you’ll always feel like, this is too much, this is too much, and you put a limit on yourself. Un! l you’ve actually pushed yourself to an over-training level, you don’t know how much you can really push.

Ben has faced several extreme challenges throughout his athle! c career. Beginning with university rowing, he experienced the compe! ng demands and pressures common to many student-

a t h l e t e s , w h i c h

included being alert in class a" er the team’s demanding 5:30am prac! ces. At the interna! onal level, he experienced extreme physical demands that were unmatched by anything he had experienced before. His training program in

prepara! on for the Olympics entailed up to six hours

of intense training each day, six days a week, year-round in between compe! ! ons. This training demanded that he dedicate his en! re life to rowing, it simply le" him with no ! me or vitality for other commitments. But what would Ben elect as the most signi cant challenge he has faced? For Ben, it has been dealing with injuries. He explains: “being injured, you have no control. You can’t do

what your plan is to do. It sends you into a mental

tailspin”. His greatest issue with injury was the barrier

it created from achieving his goals. Instead of allowing

injury to control his prospects, the relentless athlete found ways to

con! nue to train at a high level despite his circumstance. This even meant envisioning

Lance Armstrong at ! mes: “It’s very tough without a

ben rutledge: steps

I remember dis! nc! vely ditching

an arts beer garden...the rest is kind

of history

NOVEMBER 2008 9

good training group or partner, so you just create games in your head. If you

are on the bike, you think, ‘I’ve got Lance Armstrong beside me’… You

just trick yourself…You create that person behind you or in

front of you all the ! me”. In one par! cularly di$ cult experience involving an injury to his illio! bial band, (a band of muscle-tendon running along of the thigh) Ben recalls,

We had our Olympic trials about a month away, and I had

h e a r d of a surgery

that you could do… where you

could just, take a li# le notch out of it [the illio! bial band] where it rubs, so I went for that, and I ended up barely not making the team, but it was enough to show that with three weeks of training, I was in the ball game. I got another shot and was put back in.

Another major injury came in the form of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In Athens, the Canadian men were the clear favourites heading into the men’s sixes event, a status the team earned with two consecu! ve world championship ! tles. This presump! on/expecta! on/ made reality even more di$ cult to bear when, against everyone’s expecta! ons, the team didn’t go on to win, not even to earn a medal. They emerged # h. This ! me, Ben’s injury wasn’t just personal, he was sharing the experience with all of his teammates, and with the rest of Canada. He describes his team’s shor% all:

We lost our heat in Athens to the Americans, and we both broke the world record in our heat. In our training, we’d always said we would prac! ce everything, prepare for everything possible that would come up, whether it be rain, sleet, snow, injury… The only thing we didn’t prac! ce, was losing a heat, and knowing how to recover from it, because we had always just won every single race…

Ben describes Athens as “the worst " me”of his life. A" er years of heavily demanding training and immense personal sacri ce, (including a piece of his illio! bial band), the team had devoted absolutely everything toward their Olympic goal… and they had just failed. A" er

Athens, Ben and his teammates were on the brink of ending their rowing careers.

A lot of us a" er Athens wanted to re! re, we said, shit, that was it. But ! me went on, and I think people missed the training, missed the camaraderie of the group. There was talk of redemp! on, an athle! c pursuit that we always had and always will con! nue to pursue. For me it was something I wanted to overcome and get right.

As we now know, the team made the major commitment to dedicate their lives once more to the rigorous training program that would demand their en! re livelihood for the next few years. Some

of the major changes that were made a" er Athens included revising the members

of the boat, which “created a training environment that won’t be repeated

for many years”. In addi! on, the team matured from their rst Olympic experience by taking to heart some cri! cal lessons about focus.

Among the lessons Ben learned from Athens was

the importance of ignoring distrac! ons to remain focused.

Speci cally, he admits to being distracted by

the sexy Athlete’s Village as well

as the exci! ng

opportunities to gain media

exposure .He realizes now, “the Olympics is just such a great show that you get d istracted

s o easily.

You start to detract from thinking about your race”. In Beijing for his second chance at Olympic gold,

Rutledge was keen on “shu& ng out all

before the limelight

“A lot of us a" er

Athens wanted to re! re...”

“I had the

determina! on to want to do

well.”

interviews” and restric! ng his environment to only the hotel and the racecourse to limit distrac! ons. This ! me, his mindset was, “ rst of all get that medal, and then, promote yourself in the media”. He actually describes his Beijing Olympic experience (up un! l winning) as boring. That li# le bit of boredom helped him achieve a gold medal performance that he will have for the rest of his life.

Mental prepara! on and the ability to focus can create the di' erence between a good performance and a great one. Ben’s advice to prepare mentally is, “stop thinking about what other people are doing, and think about what you need to do best. If you have anything in the back of your head before the race, that [thinking] starts to take away from what you are capable of doing”. The strategy he uses to remain focused before major compe! ! ons can be useful for any athlete, or for anyone in advance of their next crucial job interview, presenta! on, or nal exam:

“All these things that were bothering me up to the Olympics, just stupid things… I would sit down, write them out, and then fold up that piece of paper and be done with it. A" er I looked at it I would go, ‘that’s ridiculous. Why am I spending ! me thinking about this?’”

It’s clear that Ben Rutledge has a lot to o' er from the great depth of experiences he’s faced in rising to the top. Whether it be about mental preparedness, physical training demands, or challenging experiences he’s endured, the accomplished athlete went beyond the surface issues to draw important lessons about persistence, work ethic, and dedica! on. His words have signi cant value for anyone striving toward a goal in life. I was very fortunate to gain Ben’s personalized advice, both for student athletes as well as for students in general. For student-athletes aspiring to rise to an interna! onal level, his advice is:

Search out interna! onal athletes from your sport, and train and learn from them. Un! l you know what is capable of the human body, see it on a daily basis, rarely can you achieve something that you don’t know how to do. You need to nd someone who is achieving that so you can push yourself.

His prac! cal guidance is valuable not only for athletes, but for anyone aspiring to be the very best in something. He goes on to o' er the following advice for students pursuing an important goal:

It’s important that you have to believe in what you are doing. If you don’t believe in what you are doing, you shouldn’t be doing it, or I don’t think you’ll ever achieve high results in whatever you are doing. The more you do of what you want to do, the be# er you’ll become. You have to believe that what you are doing will get you the results you want.

So, what’s next for this incredible athlete? “Finding a job”, he says with a smile. Something tells me, as I look at the gold medal about his neck, that this next accomplishment just might happen too quickly for Ben.

“Rarely can you achieve something that you don’t know

how to do.””

“First of all, get that

medal!”

By Alicia Woodside