The Making of an Olympian

In the fourth lap, Potts’s heart rate hits 180. With a quarter mile to run, the death gaze returns, and he charges. He strides past Kemper with 200 yards to go, then crosses the finish line four seconds ahead of him—and 20 seconds behind Reed. Kemper storms off the course. Reed, a New Zealander who received U.S. citizenship only four months earlier, starts talking ecstatically to television cameras about the Olympic berth he has just won. Andy Potts and Hunter Kemper, the country’s two best triathletes, are still not on the Olympic team.

POTTS SPENDS the evening with Doane, poring over data. His numbers were as good as they could possibly be. Roughly 110 minutes of the 112-minute race were perfect. “As an athlete, Andy is a diesel engine, and he should be on that team,” says Olympic coach Lance Watson. “But any triathlete is always subject to the events of the race. Even Andy.”

Potts waxes philosophical. “You win a race by having the fastest swim and the fastest run,” he says. “I did. I just didn’t respond when I should’ve. I don’t feel like I had a mental lapse—it was just a tactical move that I didn’t counter. That’s the best run Matt’s ever put out.” He pauses. “I did a good job handling all the things that I could control.”

And that’s really all an athlete can do. No matter how meticulously someone like Potts trains, on race day he confronts chance, in the form of bad weather, equipment failure and, yes, misinformed volunteers. The triathlon will always be a game of training the body to take advantage of opportunities, and then praying like hell that those opportunities appear.

On June 22 in Des Moines, Potts and Kemper will fight it out one more time for the last spot on the Olympic team. As of press time, the U.S. team was safely above eighth place in the volatile international rankings, so that third Olympic slot was secure.

And so the day after Tuscaloosa, Potts flew home and continued his feedback training, preparing his body for the many things that could go wrong, or right. And that’s really what gives the Olympics its drama: the fact that the best athlete—the one with the most finely tuned training regimen, the most phenomenal genetics and the most passion—doesn’t always win.

Arianne Cohen, a former competitive swimmer, is the author of The Tall Book, a scientific exploration of the tall side of human stature to be published next year by Bloomsbury.