When Carl Lewis speaks, everyone listens. The man who retired from active sports in 1997 at the age of 36 with nine Olympic and eight World Championship golds across track and field events is in town as the international brand ambassador for the 20th edition of the Vedanta Delhi Half Marathon and did not hold back on a multitude of issues ranging from doping to improved sports science in an exhaustive interaction here on Friday.<\/p>\n
Lewis, now 64 and a coach at his alma mater University of Houston, was of the opinion that the best athletes are not confined to their generation and was categorical that the lure of social media had led youngsters to focus more on presentation than performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would love to have run against a lot of generations. I would have loved to have run against Jesse Owens, Bob Hayes, Tommy Smith, John Carlos, Steve Williams. And then, of course, the kids now. Come on, I\u2019d handle them.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe greatest would be the greatest; the ones that dominate a generation will dominate any generation. So I would love to run against Jesse Owens, just to say I did, but I wouldn\u2019t want to run against Jesse Owens, because the guy was so much better. You think he wouldn\u2019t be better now?<\/p>\n
\u201cI was all over the place, I wanted to entertain on the track. But it never affected the core performance. Now, kids think that\u2019s first and then the performance. It\u2019s all about how you present yourself and asking for acceptance instead of performing and earning respect,\u201d he declared.<\/p>\n
Lewis, who himself had to battle doping allegations before being exonerated by the authorities, also favoured forever testing. \u201cI think the numbers are going up because the testing is getting better. I think we need to continue to test. The vast majority of people are clean and do the right thing. But I think until there\u2019s the fear of forever, we\u2019re not going to have it. Now they continue to test for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think they should test every time. Every Olympics, they should test the old Olympics forever. And if they get someone 20 years from now, that\u2019s okay. They should go after them financially. And maybe that ends your career. Well, that\u2019s on you,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked about the changes in athletics over years, Lewis felt that while some areas had gotten much better with time \u2013 including diet, nutrition, videos and recording– the actual mechanics of running had gotten much worse. \u201cWhen I look up on the Internet, every day I see 10-15 people promoting their running. And at least 95% of them are completely wrong,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Asked about his advice to youngsters today, Lewis said, \u201cTwo things. One, and I say this a lot, if life was easy, everybody would be good at it. And two, I used to miss the parties, now I give them. Which means you\u2019re going to have to sacrifice a lot to be who you want to be, but knowing that maybe you\u2019ll benefit 10, 20 years from now. Get away from the prize for the ultimate goal.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n