Road 2 Beijing failed

It’s ironic to talk about Beijing as the past when the competition has not even started yet. I am currently in my home city Craiova-Romania, where I am spending my vacation until I get back to the U.S. There are a bunch of things I want to talk about in this posting since I feel I owe to many lots of explanations. I know for a fact that there used to be a good amount of guys reading this blog, most of them track fans, friends, SFU athletes, some family members, and last but not least Alina. Looking back I feel sorry, and I mean it, for not keeping my promise and updating the blog on the regular basis as I did before World Indoor Championships. There is definitely no excuse for it, therefore I won’t try to make up one. Instead, bellow I am going to talk about the most important details of what has happened since my last posting on the blog up to now 07/29/08.

After a two-week break from running which I took right after Valencia I started my preparations for the challenging goal, dream of every athlete, and unique chance, the 2008 Olympic Games hosted by Beijing-China. The last few days of March I mainly focused on easily getting back into running after the time off I took in mid March. At that time ahead of me laid the month of April, where serious training was planned to take place. To get my focus and energy specifically into running, my coach (Barbu Augustin) and a fellow of mine, a good 10k runner (Irimia Cristinel), both from Romania, arrived at my home in Ebensburg.

April was a very challenging month for me with lots of school projects, coaching/traveling with SFU team, and training for the Olympics. Unlike previous months, April carried a higher amount of stress because school and track season were coming to an end and undivided attention was necessary. Despite a demanding schedule which I was involved in, the desire of working hard and getting things done right was always a priority, a target, and nevertheless a duty. My training during that month was exactly like the weather: sometimes happy and thrilled about it and other times discouraged and disappointed by it. The main reason that kept me focused and patient with my training was that fact that I was leaving to Romania on the 7th of May. I knew that once I get home running will be my only focus, which was indeed until health problems kicked in.

Once May settle in school and most of the track season came to an end as well as my staying in the U.S. I left the country the day after my Birthday, which I mostly spent packing my stuff for going to Europe in preparations for the ’08 outdoor season. I usually don’t throw big B-day parties, but definitely did not want to spend my 26th the way I actually did. To encourage I said to myself that day: to hell with parties, Beijing is once in a life time, but my birthday is every single year. However, what was waiting for me in the next two months, because 7th of July was the date I officially knew Beijing failed, is far-off from what I expected, believed, wanted, prepared, dreamed, breathed and lived for. Let me now go ahead and tell how it all unwrapped the way it in fact did.

Injury like training, recovery, etc, is part of the game, and unfortunately this time was heavily part of my game. I feel that’s important to say that in fifteen years of running no injury has kept my back from not racing, or even worse like this year loosing a whole outdoor season, not to mention this “tiny-little” competition called Olympics. So what injury am I talking about in here? I arrived in Romania on the 8th of May, which was a Thursday. Our track&field federation scheduled an appointment for complete medical tests at NIMS, mandatory for all Beijing candidates of all sports. The National Institute of Medicine and Sports is located in Bucharest and mainly serves elite athletes of all sports in Romania. Among many things doctors check athletes for are the following: blood samples, heart monitor/check, response/measure to/of effort, etc, etc. There was one single problem I told doctors about, my left groin, which was hurting me more intensely since I arrived in the country few days prior. Most likely the pain came about after jumping the water jump not being warmed up for it. The orthopedic doctor said that the spot I was pointing at as hurting leads to inguinal hernia, however I should visit a specialist for an accurate answer. Hearing the doctor’s diagnosis did not relax me before starting my first training camp in preparation for Olympics, however I tried to stay calm and don’t get too distracted.

As soon as I finished the physicals did not hesitate and went straight to the training camp three hours away from Bucharest, a small Romanian city called Saint Gheorghe, where people mainly have Hungarian heritage. I love this training camp because twenty minutes from the hotel there’s a huge forest perfect for long runs, tempos, fartleks, etc. My expectations for a perfect training camp were shaded by terrible and deep pains I was having during every run because of my left groin. It was already the middle of May, about three weeks away from my first race of the season, having serious health problems. The first visit to the doctor to check for inguinal hernia revealed that 90% according to the doctor is not it. In the mean time ice and anti inflammatory medicine was part of the menu I was taking for pain relief, and positive results did not take long to show up. However, taking medicine/treatment without lowering the intensity of training won’t give the best results, therefore the pain decreased only until some extent. Time was passing by and the first track meet was about to take place. It was the 5th of June and due to my medical problems there was no way to compete in the steeple, so we considered the 1500m. The thing here is that my injury was amplified whenever I was trying to jump/hurdle, as a result I eliminated jumping from my training for then.

The decision for the first track meet of the season was not to compete at all, but instead run some more medical tests. I was sent to a private Clinique for an MRI, a scan which accurately reveals most of internal health problems such as of mine. The result of the MRI surfaced the following: exostosis benigna (osteochondroma-surgery needed) surrounded by a hematoma on the left pelvic girdle pointing outrward; a varicocele (surgery needed); and a muscular lesion in the left gluteus (mainly hurting when getting a massage). Basically, an exostosis is a benign (not cancerous) bony growth projecting outward from a bone surface. In my case, the exostosis has grown on the pelvic girdle and is rubbing on the iliac muscle. As a result, doctors said the best thing is surgery. Given the circumstances no matter how good I was fighting stress, pressure and challenge-I was overwhelmed by the whole situation. At that time staying positive, calm, and not responding or being affected by the hits is like faking a K.O.

Full of hope and faith, living a drama of a blind man gazing and chasing the Olympic dream, the ultimatum goal, are the ingredients almost withdrawn from a movie, which I never wanted to play. The injury needed surgery, but doctors said to postpone it
after the Olympics and for now treat it in Bucharest with medicine, time off, laser, ice and acupuncture. To keep my muscles active I was doing strength training exercises with a gym professional using own body weight and sand bags. Running during the seven to eight days of x-training was occasional and in very small quantities. The results after this period were encouraging to some extent, nevertheless the pain was still there, just sufficient to make running uncomfortable. At this point we had just passed the mid of June and there was no time to lose recovering and taking time off from running. It was a now-or-never type of situation which needed quick acting. At my request, the decision to continue training at an altitude (2000m) camp (Piatra Arsa) was taken. It was Monday the 16th of June, exactly two months before my race in Beijing. I was in horrible shape, but full of hope that I can make the impossible possible or if you want, turn the dream in reality.

First week back into training was horrible as it was the whole training camp and implicitly the whole summer. Treatment helped the pain minimize quite a bit, however physically I was completely down. The consequence of stress caused by this whole situation negatively affected my sleeping, eating, and training. During the three weeks I spent in Piatra Arsa I did my best staying positive and hoping that things will eventually turn around. I’d like to believe I used/did all I knew and was told to get healthy. As the days were passing by, the month of June was over and the last major competition, the Romanian National Championships, was getting close. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to compete in this meet either and this was the last chance to get a race in before Beijing. The Romanian federation unfairly decided July 7th to exclude my name from the list of athletes competing at the XXIX Olympiad. The decision struck me as a thunder at that time, hardly accepting the defeat after fighting and believing for so long that I could still make it to China. Helpless and embarrassed by my own luck, talent and faith, and betrayed by my own destiny, I wondered if can ever justify, forget or forgive this summer. I said to myself, “maybe I need to learn that you can’t always be happy as you will not enjoy it as you do coming from being sad”. With wounds wide open from both professional and personal defeat, I soon I came to realize that life gave me an unforgettable lesson, a test which I admit was never ready for.

The next step after knowing that Beijing was out of the question was to solve my health problems. I started taking action as soon as possible because there was no time to waist as I wanted to continue my running career regardless of what has happened. I visited several doctors in Romania and did more scans and tests to get a better clue of what is going with me. I don’t want to rush things knowing that one mistake could bring my running career to an end. Surgery is indeed an easy and fast alternative to solve the problem- however it carries some risks due to the deepness of the injury.

Note: Romanian Olympic Committee offered the track and field federation 20 spots to be filled for Beijing with athletes having the A standard only. Because our country didn’t have 20 track athletes with the A standard, they only sent 19 (18 females and 1 male).
Currently I am waiting to visit another doctor across the border in Hungary, which I hope will help me decide on the surgery and surgeon.



In life we all have an unspeakable secret, an irreversible regret, an unforgettable love and an unreachable dream.
Diego Marchi