Bruce Jenner's story is one of remarkable athletic achievement, celebrity, and personal transformation. Best known for winning the gold medal in the decathlon at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, Jenner became an American hero and later transitioned to a media and entertainment career. This article explores Bruce Jenner's athletic journey, his dedication to the decathlon, and the broader context of athletic achievement in the face of evolving technology and personal challenges.
The Making of an Olympian
Born on October 28, 1949, in Mount Kisco, N.Y., to William and Esther Jenner, Bruce Jenner's athletic inclination was evident early on. Jenner wrote in his book, Finding the Champion Within, "By the time I turned two, I'd already developed a big chest, wide shoulders and boundless energy, prompting my dad to nickname me Bruiser." Despite excelling on the playing field, Jenner faced challenges in the classroom, struggling with dyslexia. Jenner credited this learning disability with teaching the value of hard work to achieve goals. "If I wasn't dyslexic, I probably wouldn't have won the Games. If I had been a better reader, then that would have come easily, sports would have come easily."
In August 1966, the Jenner family moved to Sandy Hook, Conn., where Jenner became the school's MVP in football, basketball, and track. An athletic director at another school introduced Jenner to L.D. Weldon, who coached the decathlon at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa. After being rejected by UConn and Central Connecticut and concerned about the possibility of being drafted to fight in Vietnam, Jenner accepted a football scholarship to Graceland.
The Decathlon: A Test of Complete Athleticism
The decathlon is a grueling two-day athletic competition that tests an athlete's power, strength, endurance, coordination, and timing across ten different events. These events are:
- Day 1: 100m, Long jump, Shot put, High jump, 400m
- Day 2: 110m hurdles, Discus, Pole vault, Javelin, 1,500m
The distances are 100m, 110m hurdles, 400m and 1,500m. The competitor needs to possess peak energy sources across the spectrum: the phosphagen system for the short-burst power of the sprints, the glycogen system for the 400m, and tapping into the oxidative system for the 1,500m run.
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To be a competitive decathlete requires attention to detail and near superhuman dedication. They’re able to train their bodies to achieve peak ability in an array of physical contests that can be physiologically contraindicated. To excel at one can come at the expense of another.
Montreal 1976: Triumph and Heroism
At the 1972 Summer Olympics, Jenner placed tenth. Over the next four years, by all accounts, Jenner trained relentlessly, driven by the singular goal of winning the Olympic decathlon. At the Olympic Trials in 1976, Jenner did what he expected himself to do.
At Montreal, amid the heat of the Cold War, Jenner was the all-American boy, at 26 bringing home a gold medal in the year of the Bicentennial. The image of Jenner that forever endures is a painting on the front of a cereal box. He has been drawn in a red, white and blue tank top and shorts, frozen in mid-run. His right knee is bent deeply. His arms are aloft in a triumphant V, as if he's making a victory lap and carrying a banner with the word "WHEATIES" swooshed across it.
Then the 6-foot-2, 194-pound Jenner ran his victory lap and retired that day. He said he had given up too much to get there. "Not very many people are ever in a situation where they can find out how good they can be in anything that challenges them," Jenner said. "I made the commitment to myself in 1972 to go to the Olympics in 1976."
Life After the Gold: Media and Entertainment
Post-Montreal, Jenner seized upon his celebrity to forge an existence in which no life event -- great, small, good, bad -- escaped the spotlight's beam. There were Bruce Jenner T-shirt, Bruce Jenner dolls, Bruce Jenner board games. So newsworthy was he, The Washington Post did a 1,007-word story on him six months after the 1976 Olympics because he was doing … nothing. Ever since becoming a matinee idol with his Olympic victory, Jenner has spared himself few enjoyments. He appeared on a host of television shows, including "Murder, She Wrote" and "ChiPs," though his career as an actor sputtered more often than it succeeded.
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In 1979, with their second child on the way, the Jenner's were legally separated after seven years. In January 1981, Jenner married Thompson with whom he had two more children. They separated in 1986. Jenner's two divorces cost him millions. He moved into a one-room apartment in Los Angeles, had only a couple of hundred dollars in the bank and a healthy debt. But Jenner rebounded in the 1990s with the help of Kris Kardashian, a divorcee with four children whom he married in 1991. They have two children of their own and the family lives in Hidden Hills, Calif. About his life, Jenner has said, "Nobody has milked one performance better than me -- and I'm damn proud of it."
Embracing Technology in Sports
Bruce Jenner's athletic career occurred in an era where technology's impact on sports was beginning to accelerate. Today, technology plays an even more significant role in athletic training and performance. The evolution of sports technology raises questions about how athletes of different eras compare and whether technological advancements diminish the achievements of past athletes.
Consider the example of swimming. Mark Spitz won gold in the seventies and over the years set the world record in the men’s 200 meter butterfly seven times, his fastest time being 2:00.70. In a pool with H2O just like Spitz, Michael Phelps swam the same exact distance but at 1:51.51. Did the water get slicker? Did Mark Spitz mustache cause him to swim nearly 10 seconds slower than Phelps. Did the human body change so much so that a man could shave off nearly ten seconds off the best time ever in just 40 years?
Technology helped Phelps. For one, after each race he has four trainers work on his body, one trainer per limb. After virtually each workout he receives micro-current therapy, electronic-stim therapy, active release therapy, ultra-sound therapy. His workouts are filmed and that film is digitized into stick figure type drawings showing Phelps and his team of coaches every nuance of his form, kick, arm motion, drag in the water, every aspect of his start, turns, and stretch at the end of the race. He has access to a hyperbolic chamber. He travels first class in a jet while icing with a Game Ready machine, supplementing his diet with the best supplements and nutrients.
These Olympic sports continue to grow in audience and sponsorship and they continue to get more exciting as the numbers get smaller or bigger depending on the sport. What these sports all have in common is the fact that they are evolving and also fully and unabashedly embracing technology.
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Ultimately, technology can only go so far, as the weakest link is the human link. A bobsled can only go so fast until the human reflexes can no longer control it. A race car can only go so fast until the human driver can no longer steer it from hitting the wall. A bench shirt can only have so much resistance and then the weak link, the radius and ulna, break.