David The Goliath

David Oliver has an Olympic medal, and you don’t!

By Sebastian del Marmol; Photography by Dirk Franke

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The 110-meter hurdles is no race for the meek. That’s good for Olympic bronze medalist David Oliver, because meek he is not. Just ask him. “You can’t go to the track as a sheep. There are seven lanes beside yours, with wolves in each of them. If you run timidly, you’ll be eaten alive every time,” he says. “You have to be aggressive and attack the hurdles.” One look at David and you can see that he knows what he’s talking about.

In appearance and attitude, David is imposing. His physique is as chiseled as a Michelangelo sculpture (think David), with his 6-foot-2-inch, 205-pound frame supporting mountains of muscles. At full throttle, his muscles are so striated it’s hard to believe there is a layer of skin covering them. And did we mention he was fast? It takes him less than 13 seconds to run 110 meters while clearing 10 42-inch hurdles.

The 27-year-old Colorado native, who now lives in Orlando and trains at Disney’s Wide World of Sports, came out of relative obscurity last year (even though he had an “all-American” career in college) to capture several major honors. Now you can’t mention the best hurdlers in the world without uttering his name—a fact he admits gives him great pleasure. “I always wanted to have my name mentioned among the greats.”

David’s success is a testament to determination over destiny, as he readily admits that he became a hurdler by default. “I got talked into the event in high school. Nobody else wanted to do it,” he says. Though his natural ability led him through his first few years, his greatest successes came only when he combined his mental toughness, technical ability and work ethic to distinguish himself from the rest of the wolf pack nipping at his heels. It took him a while to find his pace, but now that he has, few have been able to match it.

“Some don’t expect to win; they hope to. And that’s just it: the difference between having a hope or wish, as opposed to having an ‘I know’ list. When I go to a track meet, my ‘I know’ list is full. I know I trained hard, I know I have the right technique, and I know I have the ability to win every single time I step on the track.”

Want to jump hurdles like David Oliver? Click here to find out how.

Discover more about David Oliver in the September/October 2009 issue of SOBeFiT Magazine.

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