Raising an elite athlete can be a challenge the equal of, if not greater to, becoming an elite athlete.
On the one hand there is the personal dedication and sacrifice. On the other there is the financial element. Forbes estimated that raising and Olympian can cost around USD 15,000 a year more than a “normal” child and total costs of over USD 100,000 are common.
Moreover when there are multiple athletes in the family, that bill and sacrifice can rise higher still.
At the weekend, then, there were instances of WTCS parents showing that while they have raised elite athletes of their own, they can still throw down in their own time.
The parents of both winners of WTCS Abu Dhabi, Alex Yee and Beth Potter, took on the London Marathon. Running in the 60-64 age category, Ronald Yee produced a time of 4:49:58. Meanwhile, Alex Potter showed that running talent must be in the family as he dropped a 3:08 marathon.
As an impressive aside, Potter had already run a 3:06 marathon in Boston earlier in the week.
There is one very important piece of information to come out of this. The dads of Alex Yee and Beth Potter are officially better marathon runners than their WTCS gold medallist and former international track running children (yes, this is a victory by default as Yee and Potter have not run marathons, but it still counts!)
Yee and Potter have a vast array of credentials to their names and will both likely contend for this year’s world title and next year’s Olympic crown. They should not yet forget, though, that their dads have better marathon personal bests.
And those family bragging rights are the kind that last.
