Artifactuality, season 2, episode 10.
Kim Thúy: On this episode of Artifactuality… a legendary athlete, the struggle and discipline it takes to reach the top, and the importance of learning from defeat. My name is Kim Thuy. On this podcast from the Canadian Museum of History, together, we’ll explore what objects and stories from the past can tell us about who we are today. What will resonate tomorrow? How will the events unfolding around us be remembered in the future? In September 2024, I sat down for a conversation with Olympic champion Donovan Bailey in front of a live audience. In 1996, he became both the world champion and Olympic gold medalist in the men’s 100 meter sprint. His Olympic time of 9.84 seconds was a new world record, which gave him the unofficial title of The Fastest Man on Earth. Donovan won a total of seven international titles and Olympic gold medals, and became an enduring Canadian sports hero. Here is some of our fun and wide ranging conversation. Did you start running because of your brother O’Neil?
Donovan Bailey: No. I was born in Jamaica and track and field there is like hockey here. Every Canadian, when you’re a kid, gets to, you know, when they start walking, every parent’s first thought is, I got to get that kid a skate, some skates, right? Okay, so Jamaica is different. Ice is what you put in your drink. So there’s no rinks there, but there’s a lot of grass and a lot of soccer fields and rolling hills. So track and field would be the sport that all kids, actually, every single kid in Jamaica do track and field and so we found out very quickly when I was quite young that I was, I was one of the fast kids.
Kim Thúy: And that was the only sport you were looking at? Or did you play other sports as well? But running was your thing?
Donovan Bailey: I played every sport. I’m one of those, you know, as a kid, well, basketball is my favorite sport. I think the whole world know that. And if you don’t know, now, you know! Basketball is my favorite sport to play. I still play it to this day. The amazing camaraderie that I probably that I have, that I have to this day. Most of my best friends from school are we like we met on the field of play. I mean, back in the day, we used to go break dancing and we’d do all that stuff, but basketball was the thing. Uh, soccer. We played a lot of soccer, but we played tennis. We like we did every single thing because I gravitated to sport. And that’s why when I travel the world and I speak and parents are going, well, my kid is 5 or 7, we need to start feeding this kid so he can be a better skater or runner or whatever. My first thought is, please leave the kid alone and let that kid expose him to every single thing. Because ultimately, I just think that sports probably is the greatest expression that anyone’s going to have, and it’s really preparing that child for a role in society.
Kim Thúy: So when did you start really, you know, putting your effort into running and said, I’m going to make it my sport and become an athlete, a top athlete in running?
Donovan Bailey: I took it for granted until I was probably 21.
Kim Thúy: Eh? That’s very late, no?
Donovan Bailey: Yeah, well..
Kim Thúy: I’m sorry, I don’t know at what age we start.
Donovan Bailey: No, no, but I’ll tell you, as a high school athlete, I was one of the fastest guys in Canada.
Kim Thúy: Okay, so you were running already?
Donovan Bailey: Yeah, of course. In high school, again, I wanted to play basketball, but I was one of the fastest kids in Ontario and across the country. But I just took that for granted. I knew that I could make the team. I knew that I could run faster than the other kids in my school or in my region, or offset. I mean, that’s actually where I met Glenroy. I met Glenroy, and I ran against each other in high school, and so did Michael Smith, the great decathlete. But I took it for granted. I knew I could compete, and so I finished school, and then I was working on Bay Street in Toronto, and I just hated being in the office. And so I saw Glenroy had made the team and a couple of other guys had made our national team, and I’m like, I used to beat those guys in high school. How come?
Kim Thúy: I can do that!
Donovan Bailey: Yes, that’s actually what it was. And so I went like, I didn’t say, oh my God, you know, when I was 10 or 12 or 15, I’m going to grow up to be an Olympic champion. I didn’t think that way. I mean, I knew I was talented and gifted, but I didn’t think that way. So when I finally decided I was also quite lucky because I ended up meeting a really good coach that was at Louisiana State University at the time. So when I met Dan Pfaff, we were at a Canadian relay camp and he said, you’re being disruptive. However, you can be the fastest man in the world. And so anytime you want to get serious, I’m here at LSU, you can come down, you can pick up some classes if you want, and you can come train with me when you get serious.
Kim Thúy: Oh! So how was the discipline? Was it very difficult for you to get into that discipline to become an athlete and really focus?
Donovan Bailey: Yeah. Extremely, extremely. A quick backstory: I tried out for the Canadian bobsled team, but I got to tell you, being out there, what I learned was discipline. And it was the very first time that I was in an environment of real athletes. I was in an environment of people living and breathing every like molecule, every day, every hour, preparing for a goal. So it was the first time I was in an environment with just athletes. So what I learned from the bobsled was what it took, and I was a very undisciplined person. I was in my early 20s and when I got to LSU, it also took a while to adjust to being disciplined because when you are now focused on a goal, then you have to understand what it takes to actually be a professional athlete and understand that you are responsible. Especially post Ben Johnson for track and field, especially for me, personally.
Kim Thúy: How hard was it to be right after Ben Johnson?
Donovan Bailey: Well, I didn’t think about it. I didn’t think about it. But I’m just saying the discipline that it took for me to be in that environment and then on top of that was obviously the cloud of competing for a country that had the athlete with the greatest sports scandal in history at the time, you know. So I became the most tested athlete in the world. And so I had to embrace the responsibility of taking that on, whether I liked it or not, but also be responsible for every single second of the day. Everything.
Kim Thúy: So how hard was it, you know, to handle that pressure as a young man, because you were still well only 21? 22?
Donovan Bailey: 22 when I started. Um, not a lot of pressure. I think that when you embrace….
Kim Thúy: Did you get help? You know, was there a coach who is talking to you nonstop every day to say, okay, stay focused and stay away from this or that or?
Donovan Bailey: So, maybe? I mean, I did not have a sports psychologist. So I always thank my father, being the Jamaican man that he is, to be a sports psychologist, because basically he’ll just tell you, hey, listen, you’re quitting a job, that you’re making all of this and you’re an investment banker and a broker and all of this stuff, and you’re going to go run track. So my dad was always on me, and I know that I couldn’t disappoint him. But Dan was someone also who was very, Dan Pfaff my coach, who was someone that was extremely focused and probably the best biomechanics coach in the world. My mom was probably the greatest supporter and greatest cheerleader, so I was one of those kids that had an incredible support system, even, you know, my old high school coach. I mean, you know, guys I used to train with back then. I had a great support system that allowed me to get where I got to. And also with that, the Canadian landscape and the fans here are incredible. The Canadian fans have always been very, very gracious and very thankful. There’s no better motivation than that.
Kim Thúy: Who were your heroes? You know, who did you look up to and say, okay, I’m going to be faster than this person? Or were they athletes or, you know, heroes from different fields and areas?
Donovan Bailey: It is certainly different fields. The person that I looked up to, that, I mean, I had the chance to meet and speak to is Muhammad Ali. You see a guy and he’s talking about how good looking he is, and then he goes out and he boxes his opponents and he wins. But it’s not only that. I think that it’s kind of like the mannerisms, the bravado and and him digging deep to find and beat opponents that people thought he couldn’t. But there was just something within him that allowed him to do that. So Muhammad Ali is someone that I looked up to when I was quite young. A lot of people thought I looked like Michael Jordan. I got the chance to meet him too, and I just think that his drive and tenacity, you know, there’s nothing like it. So those are the two athletes. I mean, obviously Tiger Woods later on. But you look at people who, number one put the work in. Right. But exude confidence. And that’s the balance. So I thought that the three that I just mentioned, Tiger’s younger than me. So clearly he can’t be my hero. But for sure, Muhammad Ali is someone that I looked at, how he carried himself, what he did in the world, his social responsibility with the platform that he has. Michael Jordan for his business savvy. So these are people that had a chance to be around and meet, and not only being blessed to observe them from afar as to how they do what they do with what they have been given and blessed with. But I realize that I’m in that place also.
Kim Thúy: Did they teach you how to be the best of the world? The fastest? You know, at the top of the world and the best and the fastest man in the world? Did you learn from them how to be this number one person?
Donovan Bailey: You know what? I think it taught me that my work is never done. I think it taught me that I shouldn’t settle. It taught me that I should continue to be a student. I mean, I think it’s teaching me today because, I mean, we’re sitting here and I’m known around the globe as one of the fastest man that ever lived. But I still think that my work or purpose is still not fulfilled.
Kim Thúy: What is your purpose?
Donovan Bailey: I’m looking for it Kim and hopefully someone will tell me today.
Kim Thúy: What is your legacy?
Donovan Bailey: But I don’t know…
Kim Thúy: If it’s not a purpose… Well, purpose is probably the future for yourself, but what would be your legacy?
Donovan Bailey: You know what? For me, I think that I want to use my platform for good. From digging deep into philanthropy or passing the baton and cheering on the young kids and building schools around the world, and my parents, one parent has passed from cancer, the other one from complications from Alzheimer’s. So, I’m raising money to help research and that. So whatever it is, I mean, like I want to fill my days with things because I do not have a track and field outlet where I can go, ah, and go and explore other blocks and break a world record. I don’t have that. So I have to look at all these small victories to get there, wherever there is.
Kim Thúy: Yeah. Because I’m a woman, right? And you named three men as heroes. So I have to ask you for one hero, you know, a woman hero.
Donovan Bailey: My mom. My mom. I’m a mama’s boy, and I’m proud. Yeah, but my mom. My mom communicated with me differently as a little boy. My mom had a lot of patience in understanding how it is to communicate with me, to get the very best out of me without ever raising a voice. I was one of those blessed kids. My mom’s passed now. I never heard her raise her voice once, but she could get me to do anything in the world. I’m one of those blessed people, especially in my culture, where I have both parents and they both love me to death. And so I’m going to say my mom. It has to be my mom.
Kim Thúy: So you arrived here when you were 12?
Donovan Bailey: Yes. Well, I arrived when I was seven, went back to Jamaica and went to school, ended up going to boarding school and then came back permanently when I was 12.
Kim Thúy: I was going to ask you if sports helped you to, you know, dive into a new society, a new group of people, new culture and so on, so forth here in Canada, when you arrived?
Donovan Bailey: I always preach about sports because I think that every kid and that was also my experience. I think that what it does is prepare every single child that’s capable of playing any sport. It’s preparing them to adjust to their role in society. I think that sport will allow us to be exposed to everything and everyone, and that’s why I’m such a supporter.
Kim Thúy: So you have never experienced racism or, you know, that you feel that you’re not part of the group or you’re not, you know, that people don’t want you in a group?
Donovan Bailey: Well, that’s two different questions, Kim. I think experiencing racism is different. Like, I think me as a man, me as a black man, I think racism is different. I think that the playing field of sport gets leveled when you’re talking about your physical gifts, compared to someone else’s physical gifts. I think that when you speak on racism, you’re talking about being disparaged because of something you have zero control over not getting a job, not getting a promotion, not making a team. But that can happen because of the color of your skin.
Kim Thúy: So if you go back, is there anything that you would change? If you could.
Donovan Bailey: Wow, that’s deep. So, I’m going to say no. I’m going to say no because I would not be my authentic self if I didn’t embrace every single thing about my life, and then look at it as my personal journey and learn from every mistake that I might have made and celebrate every victory. So that’s my balance. So the answer is no.
Kim Thúy: I have one question because I watched your run in 96. There were two false starts, right? Before the right one, before the right start?
Donovan Bailey: There was three.
Kim Thúy: Three? Three false starts. And before the right one there were like four minutes or more than four minutes.
Donovan Bailey: There’s a lot of time.
Kim Thúy: Five minutes. And then I saw that the other athletes, right? They walk around.
Donovan Bailey: Right.
Kim Thúy: And you were just crouching. You have to explain to me, how did you work on yourself so that you could stay focused for the next trial or for the next run? How easy is it to make a false start?
Donovan Bailey: Very, very. You have, you know, we’re operating by thousands of seconds and people are nervous and there’s 100,000 people in the stadium, a couple of billion people watching you, and someone’s yelling your name, and there’s seven other athletes that want to take your head off. So very, very, very. But it’s focused though. I mean, for me, again, I was blessed to have an incredible team and my coach, Dan Pfaff, had prepared me and understand, we spent, after the World Championships in 1995, we spent an entire year, and the entire year was a focus on one race. The focus on perfecting one race, and that was Atlanta. I mean, that’s really what it was. So we had practiced everything. We had practiced people wanting to false start. I had the fastest top speed for human being in in 1996. So there was athletes trying to get out, get ahead of you, or trying to get a jump on you or trying to get whatever advantage they can. You know, so my job with Dan and the team was to prepare for every single thing. So my focus to your question was, every time there’s a false start, we look at it as a spring basically. So there’s a spring. It comes out of the block, so it unwinds. And so you get back to the blocks and you’re literally whether it’s mentally, physically, psychologically, I was actually reloading the spring. So when you saw me, it was just kind of like, okay, that went I didn’t do it. So I’m going to prepare myself again to be the guy or to get the greatest start and acceleration out of the blocks. So yes, when you saw me, the focus was really just on the simple things that I monotonously did in training with Dan to get ready for the Olympics, because this was my opportunity, and there’s no way that I was going to mess this up. Not with my dad in the stands. No.
Kim Thúy: A young person asked how Donovan felt when he was the fastest man on earth.
Donovan Bailey: I felt fast. No. You know, I felt responsible. Again, I knew I was going to be successful. So the things that came with fame, you don’t expect that. And I’ve always been someone who craves and loves privacy. And so the Fastest Man in the World is a huge title. And so the responsibility that I have was to one balance between my real, authentic self, telling my truth every single day, but also understand that it’s an incredible privilege to influence, you know, a kid like this or kids around the world.
Kim Thúy: Another audience member asked how Donovan coped with coming in second after his record breaking gold medal performance.
Donovan Bailey: Oh, man. First of all. No, no, wait! In all of my appearances, ever. That’s the first time I got asked that question. And it’s the and it’s the one. Thank you. But I still have PTSD to this day because as an athlete, what you do every day, you train to run or to compete and prepare and to execute the perfect race. And that was not it. 1997 at the World Championships, I ran a really good semi-finals, although I was a little injured from the Michael Johnson race. A month and a half before that, I knew that if I executed properly, I would win and it was for me to lose. So every time I see that, I’m like, oh, look at that. Like, I mean, I’m yelling at the TV or the video, like I do that to this day. So the answer is, how did I deal with that? I’ve always been taught to ignore the noise again just because of my support system, my coaches, parents, training partners, just positive people around me, people that were always supportive. So I’ve always been one to ignore the noise. I knew I made a mistake. And so for me it was to forget about what just happened. I do preach about winning or learning.
Donovan Bailey: I didn’t win that day because I didn’t get first place. But I did win that day because I learned something by making an incredible mistake. I didn’t execute properly. After the race, I just got mad. I got mad and I thought, okay, I am injured, but we have the number one ranked relay team in the world and there is zero chance that the Americans are going to beat us. That was, we were in Athens. I said, there’s zero chance. And I said to the coach, I’m like, I am going through the preliminaries, but you’re hurt, I don’t care. I said, if you have to glue my hamstrings together. So if you watch the 1996 race, it was the exact same thing that happened this year in Paris. I got the baton in fourth place and I’m like, uh uh, not today. It’s gold, baby. It’s gold baby. You know, so that pacified my silver medal. So it’s not a bad thing that I have 12 championship medals and one of them happened to be a silver. The rest are gold. So I’m okay. So yes, how I handle it. Yes, yes. I dried my tear from the silver medal with the gold medal. So I’m all right. Yes.
Kim Thúy: So the museum is acquiring some of your gear from the 1996 Olympics? Yes. What’s their significance to you? Is it hard to let them go?
Donovan Bailey: Extremely hard. Extremely hard to let it go. But, I mean, you know…
Kim Thúy: Do you keep everything?
Donovan Bailey: Yeah. So again, one of the things I learned from Michael Jordan, what him and Muhammad Ali is that all of their game worn uniform outfits is saved. I learned from them because I realized that we don’t have that kind of history in track and field, and I think it’s terrible. I think it’s a terrible thing that, you know, you do historical things representing your country all over the world. But then history is kind of deleted and it’s probably self deleted. So it was tough. But I also recognize that this is a collaboration and this is also a partnership. I also know that I could come and visit this at any time. I also know that the people here are exceptional at storing, restoring and taking care of on a daily basis things that matter to them, especially when it’s of historical proportions. And I just feel that this is the place where everyone in Canada or everyone visiting Canada need to come and see this, and I need to share that. I mean, if I’m going to be the person who preaches about paying it forward, I certainly can leave these in the hands of the very best people. This country has to take care of them.
Kim Thúy: The final question of the night was about graciousness in losing and what it means to do well, but not come first.
Donovan Bailey: So I speak about winning or learning, and my first track season was 1994. And so I tell this story quite a bit, because people always ask about the significance of it and what it meant. I was just my first season on the circuit. I was competing in Rome, Italy, and I was winning in the 100m with all the fast men at the time Carl Lewis, Leroy Burrell, Dennis Mitchell, all of the the top people. And so at about 80m, I was ahead. But then I decided to look at all of these people and try to find them. And in looking and searching for them, I went from first to third. And so I passed the line and I was extremely mad. I got down and I slammed the track and I was upset at myself, but then I popped myself up when I realize that one, it was the first time that I was competing with those people and I was ahead of them. And so what I learned from that race was the third place allowed me to understand that one, I was on the right path, two, Dan was the right coach, three, I was embracing my support system, four, that I belonged. And that sometimes winning doesn’t mean that I come first. But if you take a step back and understand that your privilege to be in that place, then hey, why not appreciate and respect the personal wins, but definitely embrace the fact that you are one of the best.
Kim Thúy: Thank you for being yeah, the best man today.
Donovan Bailey: Thank you, have a good evening.
Kim Thúy: Thank you to Donovan Bailey and to our audience. Thanks for listening to Artifactuality, a podcast from the Canadian Museum of History. I’m Kim Thui. Artifactuality is produced by Antica Productions. Jenny Ellison, Robyn Jeffrey and Steve McCullough of the Canadian Museum of History are the executive producers of this podcast. This episode was produced by Power of Babel. Chantale Renée and Eric Geringas are producers for Power of Babel. Recording, mixing and sound design are by David Moreau. Check out historymuseum.ca for more stories, articles and exhibitions from the museum.