Getting It All Together

The first 10,000 meters was passed in 30:48 by Rodgers and the leaders, a 4:58 mile pace. To observers watching portions of the race being telecast on the huge scoreboard screens in the stadium, it looked faster than the early pace in the 1,500 that Walker had just won. At the 16-km. refreshment table, Shorter took a squeeze bottle of Coke with the carbonation shaken out. Viren, too, took a drink.

"I think his orders were to stay on my shoulder and do what I did," said Shorter later. "I played a few games with him, moving back and forth across the front of the pack, so he would get tangled up with the people behind me."

At 20 km., just short of halfway, Shorter and Rodgers flanked Viren in the front. Five others were with them, and the most dangerous looked to be Jerome Drayton of Canada, a 2:10 performer who won the important Fukuoka ( Japan) Marathon last year, and a smoothly moving, relatively stocky East German in a white shirt. This was Waldemar Cierpinski, a 25-year-old ex-steeplechaser from Halle. At 13 miles Cierpinski led and Rodgers faded with pain in a foot he had injured in the U.S. Trials. Viren began to show signs of difficulty, making little darts and lurches sideways. At 14 miles, during Walker's victory ceremony, Drayton took the lead.

The course turned from the Rivi�redes-Prairies and headed south along wide thoroughfares past stone walls, grassy medians bursting with marigolds, roses and petunias. As, back in the stadium, Steve Riddick was blasting through the anchor leg of the 4 x 100 relay, Shorter accelerated sharply, drawing quickly away from the dismayed Viren. It seemed a move as decisive as the one that won for him in Munich, but soon Cierpinski came churning back up to his shoulder, running easily. Past 30 km. they ran beside old columned residences, under thick trees that muffled the irritating sound of the helicopter which constantly hovered near them. Up near the green hill of Mount Royal, Shorter showed the strain, pumping harder with his arms. Through narrow streets, by old wrought-iron railings they raced, turning downhill. Suddenly Cierpinski bolted ahead, and Shorter, expressionless, let him go.

Cierpinski drew away to a lead of 80 yards, then Shorter, recovering from a wave of fatigue, began cutting it down to 50, to 20. Past 22 miles Cierpinski looked back, did a double take, and accelerated once more. As the crowd in the stadium roared for Newhouse and Parks on the final legs of the 4 x 400 relay, Shorter, disgusted, knew he would never catch Cierpinski. In the last miles Cierpinski ran with wide, inward eyes, as if the cold chills were moving in him, the shivers of an impending, enormous victory. Flashbulbs from spectators' cameras marked his progress along Sherbrooke and into the stadium, where he arrived not 30 seconds after the playing of the East German anthem for the women's 4 x 400 relay champions.

Cierpinski gave a jaunty wave and nearly tripped on the curb of the track. Then, finishing in 2:09:55—an Olympic record by more than two minutes—he kept on for an extra lap. Shorter, 50 seconds behind, stopped at the finish and so greeted the victor while standing on the line, much in the manner he has greeted the runner-up in almost all his other marathons. Unexpectedly, the next two men entered, 50 yards apart, first Karel Lismont of Belgium, the Munich silver medalist, next Don Kardong, exhausted, leg muscles cramping, but gaining. Throughout the final lap Kardong crept closer, but to no avail. He missed the bronze by 3.2 seconds, running a lifetime best of 2:11:15.8. Then Viren, who had said he wanted to finish honorably, did so, in 2:13:10.8 to take fifth.

"Shorter did a lot for me in the race," said Cierpinski. "Thanks to him the field was torn apart after about 23 kilometers and we had a fast race. I think the rain gave me extra incentive, and it seemed an easy route to me. It actually seemed it was downhill most of the way."

To this, Shorter, faint and contemplating retirement, remarked, "You always feel better when you win."

In the morning he felt better, seeing the possibilities of starting afresh. One yearns that a good night's sleep might so rejuvenate these ancient and weary Games.