Women and Sports in the United States: A Documentary Reader

“I CAN SEE THE FINISH LINE”

184 WOMEN AND SPORTS IN THE UNITED STATES y “I CAN SEE THE FINISH LINE” Mark Starr If Marla Runyan had her wish, this story would be a straightforward account of her track-and-field odyssey. How she struggled with the heptathlon , the women’s seven-event version of the decathlon, before switching to distance running. How she almost disappeared from competition for two years. And how, after injuries and coaching changes, Runyan, now 31, has emerged with a shot to make America’s Olympic team in the 1,500 or 5,000 meters (she’ll decide which race to run this week). But with success comes the media. Runyan is resigned to her journalistic fate. “It’s always the human-interest story,” she says with a sigh. “‘There’s this blind girl running ! Isn’t that great?’” Sorry, Marla, but it is great. At the Olympic Track and Field Trials, which start this Friday in Sacramento, Calif., Runyan, who is legally blind, hopes to make one of the most remarkable leaps in sports: from 1996 gold-medal ParaOlympian (in the Games for the disabled) to Olympianwithout -prefix in Sydney’s 2000 Games. “I’ll have done everything I can to make it—no holding back,” says Runyan, who finished 10th at 1,500 meters in last year’s world championships. “But I love this sport enough that if I don’t, it’s not the end of the world.” As if she hasn’t already surmounted enough obstacles, Runyan now faces one more: a recent, nagging leg injury that has curtailed her training and could even force her withdrawal from the Trials. But Runyan can be oblivious to obstacles. She has never understood the fuss about her eyesight . At the age of 9, she began suffering from Stargardt’s disease, a deteriorating retinal condition that left her with a vast blur at the center of her vision—20/300 in one eye, 20/400 in the other, even with the contact lenses that she wears to compete. But with sufficient peripheral vision to get a sense of the field around her, she doesn’t believe she faces a competitive disadvantage. Her mantra: “I can see the finish line. It’s at the end of the straightaway.” The literal truth is, she can’t see the finish line—at least not the tape that marks it. And distance running at the Olympic level can be as treacherous as Roller Derby, with plenty of both accidental and intentional contact. Runyan can see the feet around her. Still, she appears From Newsweek, July 17, 2000. © 2000 Newsweek Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. more comfortable running the early laps in the lead, which is mentally and physically draining, or on the outside of the pack, which adds yardage . And sometimes other racers can pull away from Marla without her noticing. In March she finished fourth in the prestigious 5K road race in Carlsbad, Calif. “The only way I could tell for sure I wasn’t in first was by the cheers of the crowd,” she says. Runyan jokes that her visual “fog” can, at times, be a competitive advantage . Since the opposition runners are often indistinguishable, she’s immune to the intimidation factor of racing alongside big stars. Her coach, Mike Manley, says her visual limitations may also eliminate distractions on the track and strengthen her mental focus. As a student at San Diego State (she earned a master’s degree in education ), Runyan recognized her need for special treatment. She welcomed visual aids, including glasses fitted with a magnifying lens, audio books and assistants assigned to read to her. Still, she says she didn’t comprehend that her experience on the track was different from anybody else’s until the day a teammate suggested that she focus on the third hurdle down the track—and Runyan couldn’t see it. “That was the first time it occurred to me,” she says, “that I was the only one who couldn’t see past the first hurdle.” Runyan is active in the disabled community and is a part-time teacher, working with vision- and hearing-impaired children. But she is reluctant to make her achievement part of any crusade, and uncomfortable with overstating the implications of her success. “What ParaOlympians do is incredible, and I don’t want my message to be that every ParaOlympian can make it to the Olympic Games,” she says. “I can’t really even be...