By Gary CohenLorraine Moller is a native of New Zealand who competed internationally for 28 years highlighted by an Olympic Bronze Medal in the marathon at Barcelona in 1992. She won the Boston Marathon in 1984. She also is a three-time champion of both the Avon Women’s World Marathon Championship and Osaka International Ladies Marathon. At the Commonwealth Games Lorraine won bronze medals in 1982 at Brisbane at both 1,500 meters and 3,000 meters and a silver medal in 1986 at Edinburgh in the marathon. She is the only woman to compete in the first four Olympic marathons. As a Masters runner she was undefeated and ranked number one in the world in 1995 and 1996. Lorraine was a forerunner for equality in women’s athletics and an activist for professionalism in distance running. After retiring from competitive sport in 1996, this longtime Boulder, Colorado resident continued her travels as Vice President of Hearts of Gold, a charitable organization that raises money through running events in Japan, Cambodia and Mongolia. She writes for various publications and published her autobiography, ‘On The Wings of Mercury,’ in 2009. She currently resides in Boulder, Colorado with her husband and daughter.
GCR: Perhaps your greatest achievement was winning the Olympic Bronze medal in the marathon at the 1992 Barcelona Games. Describe the magnitude of this, especially since you had been competing internationally for over 20 years.
LM When I look back on my career it certainly is the highlight. At times it seemed that I should retire and by the time I was 37 many thought that if I had something to achieve I would have done it by then. But I kept sticking at it; you know you’re not done until you’re done. I had to take it to its completion or I would never have been happy with myself. That drive brought me some of my best performances when I was technically past my prime. For me the whole process of being in the sport was breaking my own personal barriers and even after twenty years of competition I still knew there was better in me. The bronze medal was the culmination for me of a very exciting career that gave me a ringside seat to phenomenal changes in the sport especially for women.
GCR: How had competitive racing for women changed since the beginning of your career?
LM I began running when I was 13 and competing internationally at age 16. Back then the longest Olympic event for women was the 1,500 meters. Kazankina of Russia won the first women’s Olympic 1500m in Munich in 1972. I ran track because that was all there was available for one who had Olympic aspirations. When the Olympic marathon was added in 1984 it was another huge milestone for women. It brought parity with the men in terms of opportunity. The ideas of what women were capable of were more cultural limitations than physical limitations. Given the opportunity women quickly filled the void that existed and I was fortunate to be a part of it.
GCR: What kept you motivated in training and helped you mentally prepare for your third Olympic Marathon in Barcelona?
LM When Barcelona rolled around after two Olympics I knew that this was probably by last chance to medal so I synthesized everything from my long career and tried to put it all together. That’s what kept me going as I knew in my heart I could do what I hadn’t done before and achieve an Olympic medal. When I started out I thought an Olympic medal would be the be-all and end-all, but when I got one and it was ‘only’ bronze it wasn’t good enough at the time, though now I am very proud of it.
GCR: The weather conditions were very hot and humid in Barcelona which led to a slow early pace, eventual winner Valentina Yegorova breaking the race open with a fast split between 20k and 30k and Japan’s Yuko Arimori catching Yegorova who still was able to prevail over Arimori by eight seconds. You were a little over a minute back. Is there anything you would have done differently and was there a time when you thought you might reel in the leaders?
LM I prepared for that race better than for any other. I went to Barcelona a year before the Olympics to scout the course, get familiar with the weather conditions and visualize the race. Then I prepared accordingly. I knew it would be very hot and that the last three or four miles finished uphill. I usually don’t like hot weather and in Barcelona it was 96 degrees for the late afternoon start with temperatures on the road as high as 118 degrees. It was something that dashed the hopes of many racers. Due to the preparation on my reconnaissance trip I had a feeling of ‘mind over matter’ during my training and knew I had to redefine myself - my thoughts that I wasn’t a good hill runner and heat runner had to go by the wayside. During that year I worked on my weaknesses by running in the heat as much as I could and completing my runs with a strong finish uphill behind my house. I would sprint up the hill at the end imagining that the Olympic Stadium was at the hilltop. Then I would throw my arms into the air and pretend I was running into the stadium. It’s the best way to do visualization. Sitting down and thinking about it isn’t nearly as effective as ‘play-acting’ during training. One of the beauties about sport is you learn how to use your mind effectively. In hindsight I gave the race away when I let the other runners get away from me. There is a point that happens in every marathon that’s usually after halfway and around three quarters of the way when there is what I call a ‘crunch point’ where you won’t win unless you make a bid to win. You won’t win at a high level unless you make a move as too many others are willing to do so. At the crunch point I was running side by side with Yuko Arimori and had to make a decision whether to go after Valentina Yegorova and I decided to play it safe and hold back. Yuko eventually caught Yegorova and they raced each other as we were going up the hill. There was a gap and there was no way I could close it so I maintained third place the rest of the way. Afterward I wondered, ‘What if I had gone with Yuko instead of holding back?’ That’s what kept me going for another round in Atlanta.
GCR: Several leading marathon racers at the time including Ingrid Kristiansen, Rosa Mota, Uta Pippig, Liz McColgan and Grete Waitz didn’t even make it to the starting line in Barcelona for various reasons including injury, age or racing another distance. What does this say about the difficulty to bring home a medal of any color on the World Stage?
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