Ben Blankenship Resurgence (Part 3) - Road to the Olympics
After a successful comeback to the track over the previous seasons, Blankenship was looking to make the jump to a world class athlete. Ben Blankenship wanted to climb the mountain higher, he wanted to reach the Olympics rather then being stuck in mediocracy.
Coming off a strong season in 2015 Blankenship would start to realize his full potential in track and field. With the Olympic year in sight Blankenship said that, “I think after 2015 … there was a click of if I’m not trying to make teams, and I'm not trying to get to the next level, then I think this is all kind of useless. Like I’m at the point where we either have to decided if we wanna run at the world level-at the championship level- or if we wanna do something else.” This was a big decision for Blankenship like in 2012, he was ready to commit fully again to running and take the leap to next level. In the coming year Blankenship placed pressure on himself, “to me it was like we have one more year to show we are a world competitor and so everything we did after 2015 was all pointing towards that Olympic final and anything else was a let down.” With the Olympics or bust mentality he was determined to qualify for the Olympics in 2016.
Throughout the next year their would need to be comprise between Blankenship and his coach in the build up to Rio. Blankenship says, “I think we had to do a lot of compromise, I’m a guy who loves to compete. I am always reminded of that Billy Bean quote, “I hate losing more than I like winning” and I think that really resonates with me. I just wanna compete. I love to compete.” While Ben Blankenship loves to compete, he says, “my coach has always been champs focused, that’s his DNA. We got to get ready for Champs, that’s when it matters.” With different ideals on how they want to attack the season they would need to compromise. “So we kinda had a little back and forth, okay we’re gonna go race, I wanna go race, I need to race and I think he fully understands that. It’s also picking and choosing the right opportunities, you have to run a standard, get that done, race enough to feel prepared but get to the champs ready to go.” Blankenship and his coach were able to figure out how to approach the season correctly as he would qualify for the Olympics in the 1500 metres.
Now that Ben Blankenship had qualified for the Olympics, he would now reset his goals for the upcoming Games. “I took the trials as you gotta make it through each round, there’s three rounds, you got to treat each round as a final. Make sure you put yourself in the best situation possible and that’s how we treated Rio.” Blankenship would qualify for the Olympic finals where he would start out with a strong idea of backing himself. “I think there were somethings we did in the final that I’m not overly proud of. I think you get out there and you think I’m going to back myself and I’m going to put myself in the best possible position. And then the gun goes off and you kind of realise that there’s that like solitary moment that you realise that I’m in this Olympic final, maybe you don’t selfishly try something, and I’m not overly proud of that moment. I think there were things that I wish I had done differently in that final but going back it’s impossible to make that decision any different” Unfortunately the way in which the race went Blankenship would finish 10th in the Olympic Finals.
In the years after the race, Blankenship would start to elevate his racing to an even higher level. Blankenship after Rio, he would take advantage of down years and freedom of not worrying about a major championship. “One of the things that has changed a little bit is that you know you have to be ready for finals. I think we’ve had consecutive years, we had an off year coming off of Rio and it was like okay take it down and just kind of race.” Blankenship continues saying, “And then ’18 we had London and we had some really big goals and I knew their was an opportunity at USA’s to do something radical and it may not work and I was willing to live with that.” Having the ability to try new things and work on his running, Blankenship was able to learn and improve for the future. “But we have changed it in the sense that we need to best prepare for the finals, we have to be best prepared to run our best at USA’s. Where as I think there was some inherent difference prior to Rio where we wanted to be competitive everywhere. Everywhere we could be competitive whether that was at World Relays, or if that was on a road race, or if that was in Doha, or wherever it was let’s get out their and be competitive. And I think now we have to be a little bit more structured, in terms of just where we race and how much we race.” After a strong first Olympics, Ben Blankenship was able to learn over the next few years to prepare for the next Olympic years.
Ben Blankenship was able to go from a Division One star runner to being out of racing for over a year. Then following over year of injuries Blankenship found his rhythm working back to the national stage in the United States. Following a mental change, Ben Blankenship decided to make the stakes higher by making it Olympics or bust. Blankenship was able to pursue through all the adversity leading to great success and more to come.
Direct Quotes via Ben Blankenship phone interview with Evan Smith
Photos via Getty Images
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