Sprinter: Tyler Christopher

Sprinter: Tyler Christopher

His TRACK coach, Kevin Tyler, calls him a "thoroughbred," but 24-year-old sprinter Tyler Christopher holds a different view. He is a businessman. An athlete, to be sure, but a businessman who makes a living by covering a set distance of ground - usually 400 metres of track - in the shortest time possible. "I make money off it and I plan on keeping it that way," he says, "so I approach a lot of things as a business and as a businessman."

Like most businesses, the start-up costs were high, and the prospects uncertain. He made a tough decision at 18 to move from his hometown of Chilliwack, B.C., to train in Edmonton, which has a top-level track program centred at the University of Alberta's aptly named Foote Field. Until then, he concedes, he'd been something of an aimless and angry adolescent. "Once I moved to Edmonton, I thought I'd better grow up a bit and deal with my life," he says. The early days were lean. He juggled training between jobs like short-order cooking and landscaping to pay the rent.

He was already a rising star by 2004 when he began training with coach Kevin Tyler, director of Edmonton's Canadian Athletics Coaching Centre. A year later, Christopher burst onto the world scene with a bronze medal at the World Championships in Helsinki, covering the 400 metres in a smoking 44.44 seconds, a time that remains his personal best and a Canadian record. A Nike sponsorship, appearance fees and prizes followed. The two Tylers have worked together ever since. Coach Tyler - a one-time track athlete and OLYMPIC bobsledder, and a former sports marketing manager for Nike Canada - shares his charge's pragmatic approach to the business of winning. So linked are they that when Christopher talks of training, he often speaks in the plural. "We train quality, not quantity, so we make sure that the body is always healthy," he says. "If we're feeling any pain we just stop. It keeps us from having multiple injuries and weakening the body."

The body, at six foot two with a lean build and a long stride, is ideal for the 400-m, says his coach. Coupled to that, Christopher is both physically, and mentally, "dynamic and explosive." This is both his greatest strength and, occasionally, his weakness. A case in point was his near meltdown last year at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. Christopher says he didn't hear the start gun over the bedlam of the stadium crowd. As a result, he trotted out of the blocks, convinced that track officials would signal a false start. It was only after spotting the competition ahead as much as six metres that he realized the race was on. At that point, fuelled by adrenalin and rage, he lit the afterburners, salvaging a silver medal from disaster. Almost overshadowing his near-impossible comeback was his post-race tantrum. He kicked a plastic lane marker and stormed past race marshals, blew through the media interview zone, punching a door in the stadium basement. He finally cooled off and returned to accept his silver medal. He then flew out of Rio, citing an injury, leaving his 4x400-m relay team in the lurch. For the usually savvy Christopher, it was a disastrous bit of marketing. He later gave the team a written apology.

"It was a learning experience," Christopher concedes. "Emotions got the better of me. I've just got to control that once I cross the finish line. I experienced that once, I just won't do it again." Tyler called his sprinter's response that of a thoroughbred. "I know some people don't like that word. Some people see it as excusing bad behaviour, which is not what it was meant to be at all." Sprinters, by their very nature, have a "live-wired nervous system," says Tyler. "But you wouldn't want to strip that out of anybody, that's what makes them good. It's like trying to compare your Toyota Tercel to a top fuel dragster, very different characteristics."

In retrospect, both Tylers say there were positives to draw from the Rio experience. Aside from knowing to never again let up in a possible false start until he hears the recall gun, Christopher tapped into an extraordinary store of power and acceleration. Tyler's subsequent analysis of the race shows that with a clean start, Christopher would have run a 44.30- or 44.20-second race, the kind of speed that would put him into medal contention in Beijing. "I know that he is capable of doing that if the circumstances are right," Tyler says. "Ultimately we would like to be the first non-American to break 44 seconds." Christopher says he has a new appreciation of his body's potential. "If I can tap into that reserve, well, shoot, I think 'why can't I do that every day?' "

This year, in fact, Christopher has built on that result. In March, he ran a tactically brilliant come-from-behind race in Spain to win the world indoor 400-m track title, a championship that came with a US$40,000 prize. On May 18, at the Adidas Track Classic in Carson, Calif., Christopher opened his outdoor racing season by finishing a strong second to American Jeremy Wariner, the reigning Olympic champion and the dominant force in sprinting for the past four years. Christopher's time of 44.71 was his fastest-ever season opener. "That is a real confidence booster," he says. "And to be able to have Jeremy as close as he was, it's been a long time since I, or, shoot, since anybody has been that close." Christopher loped to an easy win on July 5 at the Canadian track championships in Windsor, Ont., running an underwhelming 45.03 seconds. He promised better when he's pressed by his chief American rivals, Wariner and LaShawn Merritt: "Always looking forward to running against them."

Christopher is limiting his races this season, gearing to peak in Beijing. The training, however, continues without a break. He grew up on his mother's small farm in Chilliwack, "with every frigging animal possible. It was a big enough farm that you had to work, that's for sure," he says with a laugh. "Hard work in track and field is not foreign to me. I'm a labourer so I don't mind working hard."

The 400, he says, isn't about running flat out, it's about controlling speed and resources. He breaks down a race into components: building speed for the first 80 metres; cruising until about 220 metres, where he takes a read of his body and of his competitors and calculates when to push for the finish. In practice, Tyler times from the sidelines while Christopher runs the numbers in his head. "I'll just look over and tell him the time, and I can be within a hundredth of a second." In track, as in business, the same principle applies: time is money.

Tyler Christopher: Olympic Nuggets

Why track and field, and why the sprints?

Track was just something I came back to every year. And sprinting, I just left it up to the coaches to decide what was best for me, it was my coach's instinct.

Do you remember your first competition?

Ah, no. The earliest one I do remember, I think I was eight years old doing high jump. I wasn't old enough to compete for my elementary school [in Chilliwack, B.C.], but I begged and begged and eventually they let me.

What is your favourite sport besides your own?

Paintball.

Do you have a pre-race ritual or lucky charm?

No.

What music do you listen to in training?

I don't listen to any at all. You can't hear your coach if you're listening to music.

Do you have a special diet?

I just stay away from junk food and sugar. I try to eat as [healthily] as possible.

Do you have a guilty pleasure that breaks training?

No, I don't break my training.

What is the secret to surviving on Canadian sport funding?

Become top in the world.

Do you have any post-competition life plans?

I'm kind of an entrepreneur so I've got a lot of ideas. Nothing specific, though. Sports is part of it, but I have a lot of other things I'd like to do as well.

What has sport given you?

It's just a different view on life. I've been almost everywhere in the world. The only places I haven't been are Africa and Australia. It's a great life experience. In the position I'm in now it's taught me a lot about business and about trying to grow up quick.

Maclean's August 4, 2008