At the starting line for the 800 meters. Photo: Marc Fader

"The competitiveness that I have on the floor carries over to athletics, which is an area I usually reign supreme in,” Craig Capurso, an options and derivatives trader at the New York Mercantile Exchange, told The Observer. "It is man versus man out here, and the better man will win.”

It was Sunday morning, and we'd arrived at Columbia University's Wien Stadium to watch financial professionals trade Gucci loafers for Nike cross-trainers and challenge each other to physical feats. These weren't the London Olympic games, but the vibe at the RBC Wall Street Decathlon, an annual competition to benefit the Memorial-Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, was nearly as intense. “The adrenaline here is definitely pushing me over the edge,” Vinnie Illiano, a vice president at Fortress Investment Group, told us.

Participants racked up points for their performance in 10 events—the 40-yard dash, 400- and 800-yard runs, bench press, agility drill, vertical leap, rowing, dips, pull-ups, and football toss—with the high-scorer earning the title of best athlete in the financial services industry.

Competitors sought sponsorships from colleagues and friends, or asked donors to engage in something Decathlon founders Marc Hodulich and Dave Maloney call charity betting, in which donors determine how much to give based on an athlete's performance or the outcome of a given competition. That might mean challenging a friend to complete 25 pull-ups, or betting that the equities analyst at Morgan Stanley can outrun his counterpart from Merrill Lynch.

"I have a bet with a friend over at Deutsche Bank to beat him by at least three places," said Mr. Illiano, as he stretched, reaching his long arms towards the ground. "So there is some Fortress-Deutsche rivalry out there."

A shot went off, and a JPMorgan brokerage sales analyst and former All-American college sprinter named Jason Price ran the 400 meters in 51.1 seconds, breaking a Decathlon record and prompting Sageview Capital co-founder Scott Stuart to donate $100,000. Mr. Carpuso, the NYMEX trader, lifted a 175-pound bench press bar 39 times, one more rep than he managed last year, and good enough to best Douglas Schlack of BCG Cantor Fitzgerald for the title of strongest man on the Street.

At the end of the day, the worn out athletes had raised $1,247,813, with Goldman Sachs analyst Brian Kuritzky raising $90,798 alone. Caleb Allen, Chris Heinrich and Steve Zieminski won top team honors for RBC, while Clinton Biondo, a managing director at Fir Tree Partners claimed the executive division trophy.  Mark Rubin, who played football for Penn State University and the St. Louis Rams, and now works in Barclays' fixed income unit, took home the overall crown. Impressed by Mr. Rubin's all-around efforts, we asked if we'd see him in Rio de Janeiro for 2016 Olympics. “I'm fine with just running around the track occasionally,” he told us.

Infrastructure: it's not free (adrian_lafond, flickr)

(CFR)

Who wants to spend tax money on new roads and bridges and infrastructure? Not the U.S.! We hate taxes here, after all.

The U.S. slowed down to from fifth to 24^th in a ranking of infrastructure quality on a global level, according to a report released by the Council of Foreign Relations. And quality is not the only thing slowing down. Time and fuel wasted in traffic congestion cost the country $101 billion—or $713 per commuter in 2010. The percentage of economic growth in 2011 would have been .2 percentage points higher had the necessary infrastructure maintenance and improvements been made, according to the report, which was the first first installment of the Renewing America Report and Scorecard series.

The answer? More money! The  immediate cost of fixing the roads, bridges and railroads cannot be done with the $48 billion the government invests, but needs an increase of at least 60 percent. The report warns that the longer the government waits to fix the transit systems in place the cost ticks upwards.

But wait, you might ask, has not President Barak Obama prioritized infrastructure investment? Has not he supported legislation for an independent infrastructure bank?

Well, yes, and while the bank is great and all, "it would do little to address the country's transportation infrastructure problem," the report alleges. "Overall investment would be kept at current and inadequate levels, and spending priorities would also remain unchanged.”

Long story short, report says we need more money. Currently, only 1.6% of America's GDP is spent on transportation infrastructure, compared to 4.8% on social security and 3.6% on Medicare. And while Americans think it's important—66 percent of U.S voters believe that fully funding transportation infrastructure is extremely or very important—we don't want to pay for it. Voters oppose not only new gas taxes and new tolls, but also replacing the gas tax with a mileage fee.

lhammerman@observer.com