Short distance running is primarily an individual sport.
Yet the grand finale of any athletic tournament is always
the 4x100m relay.
The race that pits the best “team” of short distance running
amongst participating contingents against one another.
Our coaches used to always say “Win the relay. Win the
Championship”.
In a majority of the tournaments that I participated in, the
relay would be the one that would decide the winning school/district/state for
the year.
It got team-mates who were fierce competitors for individual
medals to work together as a team.
Not just work together, but understand each other.
A baton exchange in a relay race is an intimate exchange.
It requires prior preparation of the baton exchange. It
requires immaculate planning, in terms of deciding which runner is the best to
start, the best to finish and the ones who can re-gain or build momentum in the
middle.
It also requires a deep sense of understanding between the
runners.
The runner who is handing the baton needs to know when his
partner has properly held the baton. If it drops, the race is over.
The person receiving the baton needs to know when and where
to take it, depending on how well his preceding runner has done.
It is a fine art in team work.
In a sport that celebrates individual glory. People remember
Usain Bolt, Carl Lewis, Maurice Greene, Marion Jones. Not many remember their
relay partners.
The emphasis on the relay taught me very early the need to
have a strong team of peers and to respect their contribution. We couldn’t win
the most important race in any championship on our own.
We learnt to look out for our relay partners, even when we
were competing against each other.
I admit that I am not very good at implementing this learning
from my sports days to everyday work. The need to build a team of peers you can
go to corporate war with hasn’t been my strongest suit. But I have never felt
threatened or in competition with a peer because I never doubted that we played for the same team.
And that’s thanks to the relays J
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