Player's Own Voice podcast: Moh Ahmed's 5,000-metre chess game
Canada's 1st Olympic medallist at the distance is hungry for more
Devotees of endurance running will tell you, the beauty of a 5,000- or 10,000-metre race is that those long, fast laps are track and field's chess board.
Physical endurance counts. An ability to compartmentalize pain helps. Raw speed matters.
But it is those long minutes of strategic survival ... taking and relinquishing control, testing opponents' fitness, staying upright in a jostling pack of spikes, and carving a path to the finish line. That's the thrill of long-distance running events.
Mohammed 'Moh' Ahmed, 30, has emerged as North America's fastest man in the 5,000.
His duel with some legendary African names in the semifinals in Tokyo, and then the capper: an Olympic silver medal — a game-changer for Canadian distance running.
Which is why the Player's Own Voice podcast took a slightly different tack in sitting down with Ahmed today. Anastasia gave in to temptation and had an 'inside baseball' chat with Mo Ahmed.
You don't have to love running to enjoy this talk from Tokyo ... but it'll help!
Player's Own Voice is dropping new episodes almost daily straight through the Tokyo Olympics. These are quick and dirty conversations with athletes at the pinnacle of their careers.
Like the CBC Sports' Player's Own Voice essay series the podcast allows athletes speak to Canadians about issues from a personal perspective.
To listen to the entire fourth season of POV podcast, subscribe for free on Spotify, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Tune In or wherever you do your other podcast listening.
