Undisputed: A Champion's Life by Donovan Bailey

Author:Donovan Bailey [Bailey, Donovan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-30T00:00:00+00:00

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A bomb at the Games, a major injury barely recovered from, a death in the family—my time in Atlanta wasn’t peaceful, and it was further complicated by issues behind the scenes.

I had two sets of agents: Kevin Albrecht handled areas like sponsorship, while Mark Block and Ray Flynn took care of dealings specific to track and field. Kevin worked for International Management Group (IMG), and we hadn’t been seeing eye to eye for a while. I was a creature of habit and structure, and had crafted a daily routine with Dan that ensured my optimal performance in competition. In order for my body to work as I expected, I had to treat it as it expected. The closer I got to a competition, the more important my schedule became. Kevin didn’t seem to understand that or care, and wasn’t taking my schedule into account when arranging business commitments for me, such as advertising shoots. A few times in 1996, he had booked me to film a commercial through the night, from 12:00 to 9:00 a.m. At that point, I was deep into my training and, of course, didn’t want to deviate.

I was building a strong brand and viewed myself as Bailey Inc. My employees worked for me, and I was the one who gave instructions. It wasn’t the other way around. My agents had a responsibility to recognize my training and competition schedule and to slot my commitments around that. I was the talent, and I needed to do what I needed to do to remain the talent.

As the 1996 Olympics were approaching, my contract with IMG was coming up for renewal after the Olympics. I hadn’t given any indication that I was interested in re-signing with the agency, since I wasn’t happy with what Kevin was doing. Apparently, around this time, my other agents, Mark and Ray, heard from Kevin that he had research that concluded I wasn’t going to win the 100-metre, so he wasn’t going to represent me any longer.

Mark and Ray debated telling me about that slight and waited until after I’d won the 100-metre gold to do so. Kevin called me, gold undisputedly hanging from my neck, to tell me he had secured $50 million in contracts for me. I was so livid that he would have the balls to reach out to me after saying he didn’t think I’d win.

“No!” I shouted. “You’re fired. You no longer represent me.”

This wasn’t going to be good for my soon-to-be-former agent. If his bosses saw my success in Atlanta and asked him, “Hey, Donovan Bailey is the biggest track star in the world right now—why is his contract extension not in place?” Kevin would have some explaining to do.

For years after Atlanta, I faced a constant battle with the perception that I was difficult to deal with. This reputation made it easy to just say no to me, a convenient excuse to leave me out. More headwinds coming my way, headwinds I was feeling but nobody else was seeing or not seeing by design.

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