By David Uprichard
I frequently play a very pointless game with a fellow squash nut. It’s a game called, “guess which squash player would win the Olympic Decathlon?” Yes, I know, I just said it’s pointless. But it does lead to several lively debates, none of which ever come to any satisfying conclusion.
Exclamations like:
“No way, man, David Palmer would completely crush Thierry Lincou at the shot put!” Or:
“Gaultier and Shabana would be amazing at the 100m, but I’m not sure they could hold a candle to Nick Matthew in the 1,500m.” Or how about:
“Ramy would definitely win the high jump; have you seen how he does those standing leaps at the start of a match?”
And on and on…ad nauseam!
What we are largely taking for granted, though, is just how accomplished any professional squash player would actually be, were they to try something as grueling and demanding as a decathlon. We inherently know how physically demanding squash is. Most of us have read the Forbes.com article which lists squash right at the top of a long list of sports, putting it on a par with marathon running and cross country skiing (visit SquashMagazine.com for the link). We all assume it’s a sport that lends itself well to other athletic endeavors; we just rarely have the opportunity to see it happen.
Wait no longer. There have been a couple of noteworthy recent accomplishments, by squash players in other sports, which I think admirably demonstrate what a truly amazing foundation squash is for general physical fitness.
Last year, Squash Magazine ran an article on my friend, Ben Oliner, who had completed the annual Empire State Building. He ran the amateur division (there is a separate pro race) and finished in a very commendable 52nd place in a time of 14 minutes 49 seconds. “I think I could have gone faster,” he mentioned at the time. Turns out he was right. This year, Ben, 27, entered the race again and won the amateur division! His time of 13 minutes 15 seconds would have placed him 21st in the pro draw. He still thinks he can do better (“maybe under 12 minutes,” which, incidentally, would put him top 15 in the pro draw). The impressive facet of this achievement is that aside from a few training runs up the stairwell in the Yale Club, his only training was to simply play squash.
“I guess my real training was what I had done the race before,” he said, “I feel badly because I had to push a few old men out of the way at the start!”
He notes he was in 3rd place at the 22nd floor, then passed the two leaders and never saw them again. He won the race by over 45 seconds. Simply an amazing accomplishment, but are we really that surprised to see a squash player fare so well at another sport? As Ben himself notes,“I’m quite fit, but there are definitely fitter people than me in the squash world. I mean, can you imagine Olli Tuominen doing it?!”
What many of us probably don’t know is that another US squash player, Jamie Crombie, also achieved remarkable success in a sport outside of squash—duathlon. A duathlon is a run (typically 10k), followed by a bike ride (40k), followed by another run (5k). In most normal sporting contexts, completing any one of those events would be noteworthy, but it is probably no surprise that a highly conditioned squash player would naturally gravitate to such an event. Jamie is a 43-year-old squash pro at the Cincinnati Country Club, with a highest world ranking of 32 (Feb. ‘94). Last summer, prompted by his friend and fellow pro in Dayton, Rob McFadzean (who had entered the world of triathlons), Jamie decided to try a local duathlon.
“It seemed a good way to stay fit at the time,” he simply noted.
He reports that he did pretty well on the run segments, but “I had no idea what I was doing on the bike”.
Not terribly surprising; it wasn’t even his own bike!
But the m
an had been inspired and he set his sights on a qualifying event in Tulsa, OK, a few weeks later. In the world of triathlons and duathlons, certain events are listed as “qualifying events;” if you do well in your age group, you can snag a spot in the world championships of each respective sport. He did some training runs, a few bike rides, borrowed another bike, ‘fessed up to shaving his legs and buying some spandex, and showed up at the event. This time it was a 5k run, followed by a 20 mile bike ride, followed by a 5k run. On run. On a swelteringly hot day in July, (95 degrees) in humidity approaching 100%, Jamie won the masters division of the race in what was his third ever attempt at the sport! In doing so he qualified for the US National Team due to compete in Rimini, Italy, later that year!
Jamie showed up in Rimini with his own bike, but was gently mocked by several of his co-competitors for shipping it in the same cardboard box it was initially delivered to him in. “I didn’t know you were meant to buy special boxes to ship your bikes in!” he told me.
On the big day, he started out well in the first run (10k), finishing it in 39 minutes 32 seconds, good enough for a spot in the top 20, but started having trouble on the 40k bike ride, which left him cramping badly at the end of it; so badly in fact, that he was unable to begin his second run (5k) for at least five minutes. Inexperience had finally gotten the better of him, and he is pretty sure he had over-hydrated, which can be just as deadly as under-hydrating. Still, he finished in 43rd place in the masters division. Let me repeat that, he spent five minutes sidelined due to an injury and came 43rd in his age group against people from all over the world—who all had to qualify for the event!
We can certainly debate the merits (or lack thereof) of the PAR scoring system, and how it perhaps favors less fit players. I think it safe to say, however, that our sport is unquestionably a fantastic foundation for overall physical fitness. I’d venture to say that Ben and Jamie are superlative examples of just how fit some squash players are, but the rest of us racquet-wielding mere mortals are undoubtedly ahead of the fitness curve. For the record, Ben already has his sights set on next year’s Empire State Building run (possibly in the pro division), and Jamie is registered for the National Duathlon Festival Championships, due to be held in Richmond, VA, April 25-26. Ben and Jamie have never officially played squash against each other, but I’m not sure I’d want to see that. I’d prefer to see them compete in an Olympic Decathlon!
