Nena Slighting, executive director of the Utah Debate Commission, Jason Perry, director of the University of Utah’s Hinckley Institute of Politics, Sen. Jerry Stevenson, R-Layton, Gov. Gary Herbert, Thomas Wright, co-chairman of the Utah Debate Commission, and Senate Majority Whip Dan Hemmert converse outside Kingsbury Hall on Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, after announcing the U. has been selected to host the vice presidential debate on Oct. 7, 2020. | Laura Seitz, Deseret News
“I’m the happiest man. No human is limited. You can do it,” marathoner Eliud Kipchoge said.
SALT LAKE CITY — Do you know the name Roger Bannister? With each passing year the importance of his feat grows more distant, yet it is no less spectacular.
The grainy black-and-white film record of the events of May 6, 1954, from Iffley Road Track in Oxford shows the effort it took this Olympic runner and neurologist to become the first person in the world to break the four-minute-mile barrier.
Decades later, he offered this perspective in an interview with The Associated Press:
“Even then people were talking about whether it would ever be possible for someone to run a mile in 4 minutes. ... There was no logic in my mind that if you can run a mile in 4 minutes, 1.25, you can’t run it in 3:59. ... I knew enough medicine and physiology to know it wasn’t a physical barrier, but I think it had become a psychological barrier.”
He had believed it could be done.
Today add the name of Eliud Kipchoge to the list of barrier breakers. He holds the world record for the marathon at 2:01:39, averaging under 4:45 a mile in the 26.2 mile race. Saturday he ran a remarkable 1:59:40 in Vienna, Austria, the first man to ever break that elusive two-hour mark. It won’t count as a world record because of the use of pacers in the race. But it is a feat so remarkable it is resonating around the world.
“I’m the happiest man,” said Kipchoge, as he spoke with reporters with a Kenyan flag draped over his shoulders. “No human is limited. You can do it.”
Kipchoge came close before, running 2:00:25 on a closed flat track running with pacers in an event sponsored by Nike. That didn’t count as a world record either because of the controlled environment and the use of pacers. But that wasn’t the point. He wasn’t trying to set a record, he was trying to break a barrier. He was trying to give the world a vision that it could be accomplished.
That’s what leaders do, regardless the field of endeavor.
Utah officials, Friday, were alerted that the University of Utah has been selected to sponsor a debate among the vice presidential candidates. It is the only presidential debate of the four (three others will feature the presidential candidates) that will be held in a Western state.
It is thanks to the work of Utah Debate Commission Executive Director Nena Slighting, Scott Howell, Thomas Wright and the other members of the Utah Debate Commission who had the vision to try to help the community years ago, and then that vision expanded.
As Deseret News reporter Dennis Romboy reported this week:
“After successfully putting on a series of congressional and attorney general debates in 2014, the commission’s board — a consortium of media outlets and universities — started thinking bigger. It occurred to them that though neighboring Arizona and Colorado had played host to presidential debates, Utah never had.
“‘It morphed from this little thing,’ said Scott Howell, an original Utah Debate Commission co-chairman who now serves as a board member.”
That little thing began in 2013. As editor of the Deseret News I serve on the board of the debate commission. So does Salt Lake Tribune editor Jennifer Napier-Pearce. So do news directors from every station in Salt Lake City. As do representatives of public television. The Hinckley Institute of Politics is here, so are KBYU and Salt Lake Community College. And leaders in the business community take part.
Media outlets compete for readers and viewers. But competition is set aside on the Debate Commission in order to cooperate and organize debates between candidates that are then covered and broadcast by those outlets. From that intent came conversations about the presidential race. Bringing the nation to Utah to listen to the vice presidential candidates will get our electorate more engaged and involved. It will give students a chance to see the process up close. Hopefully that will translate into strong turnout at the polls.
How is that vision and cooperation related to the races run by Bannister and Kipchoge?
Perhaps the names of Chris Chataway and Chris Brasher can teach us something about that. They ran with Bannister. They were his pacesetters, pulling him along knowing they would not be a part of his glory, but willing to be a footnote to history. Saturday in Vienna, 41 world class runners worked to pace Kipchoge. They were in it to help him, not themselves, bring a greater vision to the world.
The debate commission is relatively a small thing. Encouraging an electorate to become civic-minded, learn the issues and vote is a big thing.
Since Bannister broke the four-minute barrier more than 1,400 athletes have repeated the feat and the record has been lowered by 17 seconds. Who knows where the world of marathoning will go.
“Now I’ve done it, I am expecting more people to do it after me,” Kipchoge told reporters following the race.
We hope for greater participation from Utah’s electorate. The vice presidential debate will be held Oct. 7, 2020. It’s a small thing that could bring about a big thing.
from Deseret News https://ift.tt/2MuvEUs
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