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The 2004 JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship will be the most global and competitive in history. The best corporate runners from six countries on five continents will compete on Saturday, October 2 on New York's famous Park Avenue. This is one of a series of features about teams training for the Championship. You'll want to visit all the stops on the Road to the Championship to read about the participants who have found the perfect blend of workplace productivity and race course swiftness. |
13th STOP: SYRACUSE
Javier Martinez cools off after completing the Syracuse JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge in August. Martinez is the "Lance Armstrong" of Lockheed Martin's championship Male team. Find out why below.
Obstacles overcome, Lockheed Martin
returns to its championship form
Alan Evans finishes for Corning in the 2002 Championship. Corning's move to the Mixed Division opened up a title path for Lockheed Martin. |
Syracuse, NY (September 24, 2004) – When its college basketball team won the NCAA Divison 1 championship behind Carmello Anthony in 2003, Syracuse became recognized as a city of champions. The stage may not be quite as large, but at the Syracuse JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge, Lockheed Martin clearly fits the role of champion as well.
When Lockheed Martin won a surprising Male team title at Syracuse in August, it marked the company's third team title in five years. But the roots of winning extend so deep at the company that they transcend even its name.
“Due to acquisitions and mergers, we've changed our company name over the years, from General Electric, to Martin Marietta, and finally Lockheed Martin,” said company captain Marty DiBattista. “The company name has changed, but the people have stayed the same. When we lost in 2001, it was the first time we had lost the men's title since 1990. In fact, since 1982, our men's team has only lost five times. Because of our team's history, it was good to win the title back. You don't want to be the team that breaks tradition!”
Despite that storied tradition, this year's victory may have been the team's finest. It was so surprising to DeBattista, in fact, that after the Tiffany awards were delivered, he got on the phone to race director Dave Oja to say a mistake had been made. Lockheed Martin could not possibly have won.
“I thought Dave was playing a mean joke or had mixed up the mailings,” said DiBattista. “Since we didn't have a runner under 20 minutes, and I knew how good Corning is, I assumed we lost. Then, I found out Corning ran a Mixed team, and I realized we'd won. I was very excited.”
But, that excitement and surprise is only part of the story. As are the numbers. In this case, the Lockheed Martin team of DiBattista (20:40), Jeff Felice (20:41), Javier Martinez (21:02) and Matt Miling (21:10) combined to run 1:23:33. It's a respectable time and got them the title by 22 seconds over Syracuse City Schools, but it's not likely to turn heads at the October 2 JPMorgan Chase Corporate Challenge Championship.
It is most notable, probably, for the consistency of the runners, separated by only 30 seconds. But, therin lies the real story of this year's championship Lockheed Martin team.
“A reason we were so close (in times) this year was illness,” said DiBattista. “Our best runner – Javier Martinez – is recovering from cancer. He is our team's ‘Lance Armstrong,' if you will.”
The fact is that throughout this year, Martinez has battled the same type of testicular cancer that Armstrong successfully fought before returning to big-time cycling to win a record six consecutive titles at the Tour de France.
“Javier had the operation in the early spring and has recently finished his radiation treatments,” said DiBattista. “He's kept running through all of this and he is getting better all of the time. He was more than two minutes off his normal time. Had he been healthy, we wouldn't have been so close in times.”
Lockheed Martin's team photo sends a message of unity.
That's no doubt true, but the Lockheed Martin team probably has never been so close in spirit.
At a company that goes well beyond the extra mile to support physical fitness among its employees, DiBattista and his teammates are a special breed, which makes their winning tradition all the more special and understandable.
“Most of us run together at lunch throughout the year, in all types of weather – rain, snow, heat – the same as all the top teams do, and we push each other during those runs,” said DiBattista. “Each day, someone almost always feels good and wants to pick up the pace, and everyone else follows, turning the runs into impromptu races.
"When we get new guys joining us, the ‘veteran' runners have some fun by pushing the pace hard and dropping the new guys. If the new guys stick with it, after a few months they inevitably start keeping up with us, and especially if they are younger, they start dropping us. Payback is tough, but we like seeing the new guys improve.”
One suspects that this year, those runs included numerous discussions of Martinez ' medical condition and his progress in fighting it.
Now, Martinez, DiBattista and the rest of the Lockheed Martin team are heading back to the Championship as unlikely 2004 Syracuse champions.
“I believe we'll run better, much better, in New York than in Syracuse,” said DiBattista, “but realistically I don't think we will crack the top 10. I think we can shave about 2-3 minutes off our team time, and we'll be respectable, but it won't get us in the hardware (a top 10 finish).
“We've been training hard the past two months and Javier is slowly getting back into form. Winning the Syracuse race really upped our motivation to train for the Championship race and for next year's Syracuse race.”
it's easy to see why. No matter their result on Park Avenue, this team already has had a championship season in 2004.
NOTES: SUNY Upstate Medical University won the Female title at Syracuse by more than eight minutes behind women's runner-up Karen Kemmis ( 21:46 ), Barb Tremper-Wells (24:02), Cassandra Crane (24:20), and Anne Dow (29:35).
After shifting from the Male Division, Corning, Inc., won the Mixed team title behind the efforts its two top male runners - Jim Derick (18:08) and Alan Evans (19:24) – as well as Isabelle Melscoet-Chauvel (23:52) and Ljerka Ukrainczyk (26:14).
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