Let it come: Lessons from Paris, 2024

Summary: Being poised, lowering the stakes at the most critical moment, and focusing on the imperative of the moment, can be the key to victory.  Translated to the writing sphere, there are moments when you’ve got to let the story and words come to you.

Life lessons are abound in every setting. I got one such lesson during the summer of 2024, while watching the men’s 100 metres final at the Paris Olympics.  For many, including myself, this is the signature event of the Olympics, particularly when larger-than-life characters have been involved, aka Carl Lewis, Ben Johnson, Maurice Greene, and Usain Bolt.

Pre- Paris, the favorites were Jamaica’s Kishane Thomson and the USA’s Noah Lyles. As I couldn’t stand the braggadocious Lyles, I desperately hoped the understated, self-effacing Thomson would prevail.

After the qualifying rounds, both Lyles and Thomson made the finals, along with six other contestants, any of whom could upset the apple cart. Consolingly for me as a Thomson fan, Lyles’ form was suspect as he’d barely scraped through the rounds.

As the evening of the scheduled contest drew to a close, the eight men bidding for glory made their way into the stadium and each took their positions at the start of the strobe-lit lanes. While priming themselves for battle, they engaged in a whole assortment of Usain Boltesque pre-race ritualistic gesticulations, including mimicking anime characters, ostensibly to mask their anxiety and to kick themselves into a heightened-performance state. Lyles stood out with his antics of grinning, jumping, and prancing around as if possessed. False bravado, I thought. Nonetheless, after months of anticipation, listening and reading commentary and predictions, the time for mind-reading was over, and a part of me just wanted to know who the victor would be.

However, after the athletes had been introduced, the start was delayed  for about two minutes against the backdrop of dramatic music. It felt like an eternity. Bear in mind that the split in time between the winner and the last person can be a tenth of a second. I swore at my screen and concocted all sorts of conspiracy theories. Who said we needed this additional sideshow? Do they think we are captive audiences of an Apprentice episode? Are they trying to unsettle the rookies like Thomson? It reminded me of the occasions where a nondescript MC prolongs their introduction of the main speaker with a deluge of logistical and procedural minutaie and the odd stale joke, oblivious that all the audience wants is to hear the guest speak.

Thankfully, the finalists eventually descended to their blocks and the whole galaxy was rapt in silence. What would transpire?

***

At the top echelons of sprinting, victory lies in the ability to extract milliseconds of advantage and to sync up one’s mind, body, and spirit. Like a good story, the sprint has a beginning, middle, and end phases. Success hinges on the perfect execution of a myriad decisions across all three phases in less than ten seconds. To win, an athlete has to rise to the occasion while being aware of the tens of thousands of hollering fans present in the stadium, and billions of other eyeballs on screen, passionately rooting for or against him or her. One has to be able to bear the burden of expectations from the countries they represent and of the billions who vicariously derive joy or anguish from their performance.

A maniacal will to win and a paradoxical detachment from outcomes and the burden of expectations are a must. As is the ability to focus on executing one’s game plan with poise while having full situational awareness of what one’s rivals are up to. The athlete has to galvanize the benefits bestowed by countless hours of sacrifice and preparation, and apply the lessons learnt from past successes and failures across multiple races over the years.  

***

The intense-faced finalists, each crouched at their starting blocks, were ready to go. The time for mind games was over and before them were: extremely high stakes, less than ten seconds to execute, and no second chances.

A few seconds later, the starter’s gun fired. In unison, the contestants bolted off the blocks with a ferocity alien to normal mortals.

To my relief, after 30 meters, Thomson marginally edged ahead of the pack. This type of explosive start was his schtick. Through the qualifying rounds and in prior competitions, such a start sufficed to secure victory. So far, the race was reminiscent of the now-infamous final at the Seoul Olympics in the 80s, whereby the steroid-filled Ben Johnson secured an early advantage and thereafter charged towards the finish line with a blend of majesty and brute force hitherto unseen. In so doing, Johnson obliterated the world record, leaving a yawning chasm between him and his hapless rivals, including Carl Lewis.

However, the complexion of the Paris race began to differ from Johnson’s mauling of his foes in Seoul. Between 30 and 60 metres, in the middle phase, Thomson left the door ajar.  Somehow his opponents hung with him, stride by stride, arm swing by arm swing, teeth clench by teeth clench. Seeming to be unaccustomed to this level of resistance, by the 70 meters mark, Thomson’s facial expression tightened, and he pounded the ground a tad harder. Still, there was no sight of Lyles, and only Thomson’s name was mentioned by the yelling TV commentators.

Clutching my fists and on my feet, I desperately yearned for the finish line to come to Thomson’s rescue. However, with about 10 meters left, several lanes to the right of Thomson, from behind the pack, like a hot knife through butter, Lyles charged past each contender except perhaps Thomson.

At the finish line, both Lyles and Thomson dipped. It was unclear who had won.  

A chill ran through my spine. Oh No! Not again!

Both Lyles and Thomson stared at the screen, awaiting the verdict. From Thomson’s facial expression, it dawned that he may not have done enough. Seconds later, the verdict was on the screen. Lyles had pipped Thomson to the finish line.

Though astounded, Lyles deservedly didn't forgo exercising his gloating rights as he took the victory lap. Unmoored by the occasion, the American's flawless finish made up for a so-so start. Once again, he'd scraped through with a skin-of-the-teeth victory and inflicted a gut-wrenching defeat on his rivals. He'd done exactly the same at the World Championship in Budapest in 2023.

In contrast, a crestfallen Thomson was left to offering philosopical explanations to the media for the unfavorable turn of events. With hindsight, it seemed, unlike Lyles, he was unaccustomed to being in a foot race. Hitherto, he'd gotten away with super starts and easing off in the final phase. It almost seemed like he couldn't let go of this pattern. At least that’s what appeared to the eye. The reality is that the final phase of the race is one of deceleration, and what appears like a charge is more of the athlete better holding form and minimising deceleration. To hold form requires relaxation exactly at the moment the stakes are highest, and all instincts are to exert oneself the most. Said differently, for victory, one has to let the line come to them and pick the right moment to dip. It calls for utmost poise, lest tightening up occurs and victory slips away.

Thomson’s bid for glory got scuppered because he’d breached one of the golden rules for sprinting success: Don’t push for the finish line; instead, let it come to you.

***

Can the above lesson apply elsewhere? Yes. In my world, my day job involves technical writing while developing position papers, and I’m also dabbling in fiction writing. For both forms of writing, many times, I’m in the ‘flow’ state, and putting words to paper is effortless. Other times, however, it’s a slog, especially when the notorious writer’s block rears its ugly head.

For fiction, for instance, this has occurred when drafting scenes, where the intended objective/s and outcome/s in relation to the characters are clear, but how these can be pulled off within the scene isn’t.  This state of creative gridlock has normally arisen when the stakes to me, as the author, are high (i.e., I’ve said to myself this has to be the best scene or better than what I’ve ever written before), or when I’m running on empty after working on other intense scenes and I’m trying to avoid repetition.

For technical position papers, I’ve experienced writer’s block when piecing together critical sections such as an executive summary or a section/chapter with recommendations, whereby I need to synthesize and find a common thread across multiple analytical findings. In these situations, I often grapple with the questions of what to prioritize, how to reconcile conflicting findings, and explain unexpected findings while ensuring the coherence of the overall content.

For both forms of writing, inertia stems from being overwhelmed, particularly when the stakes are high. Rather than racking one’s brain in vain or procrastinating and shelving one’s writing, an antidote to this situation is to create the enabling circumstances for the story, structure of content, and words to come to you. The following steps have helped me.

• Lower the stakes: Often, the stakes are raised when thinking of the finish line instead of being present and focused on the imperative of the moment. Taking a step at a time without getting ahead of oneself is key. To borrow and paraphrase Martin Luther King’s words: Move. Fly, if you can’t fly, run, if you can’t run, walk, if you can’t walk, crawl, at all costs keep moving. In practical terms, this means that, for a fiction scene, if I can’t spontaneously draft a seamless scene comprised of a catchy first line followed by captivating prose vividly describing the characters and their surroundings, punchy dialogue, and goosebump-triggering action; I could simply start by writing a few bullet points, be at ease with that, and build it from there block by block and with iterative refinement.

  
  

• Orthogonal/perpendicular writing: Switching to a different form of writing can help. For instance, in my day job, in 2025, I was writing a corporate reporting discussion paper, and I found it helped me immensely when I switched to the seemingly unrelated fiction writing. And vice versa. One form of writing can provide a ‘chance to recharge’ from the other form of writing.

  
  

• Grow and generate ideas: Read and immerse yourself in related ideas. Allow yourself and your imagination time to grow. A writer has to allow time for unconstrained ideation or imagination. In my case, I tend to imagine while taking walks, during train rides, when showering, and even when sleeping/dreaming.

  
  

• Leverage ruminated ideas. Revisit ideas you had developed and stacked away. Past half-baked ideas could have matured; they may have been the kernel of a great idea that can be better conceptualised in the present.

  
  

• Bottle the ideas: Make sure new ideas are not confined to the ether and your subconscious. Write them down.

In sum, being poised, lowering the stakes at the most critical moment, and focusing on the imperative of the moment, can be the key to victory.  Translated to the writing sphere, there are moments when you’ve got to let the story and words come to you. You’ve got to create the enabling circumstances for this to happen and the finish line will come to you with no regrets.