PARK CITY, Utah - Galen Rupp and Mo Farah are 8,000 feet above sea level, and battling hard.

No mercy is asked for or given.

"We don't take it easy on anybody," Rupp says, which makes the intensity level for the video soccer game they are playing in the living room of a condo above Park City not that different from the last lap of a 10,000-meter race.

"Galen absolutely embarrassed me," says mid-distance runner Matthew Centrowitz. "For a family man who doesn't play FIFA that much, he is the best right now, as hard as that is for me to say."

That same sort of all-in, competitive ruthlessness with which Rupp rules the video soccer tournaments at the Nike Oregon Project's altitude camp has made him one of the world's best distance runners.

His climb to the pinnacle of his sport has taken more than half his life. It's been a dedicated, single-minded pursuit that began when Rupp was a 14-year-old student at Central Catholic High School, and coach Alberto Salazar convinced him he one day could be great.

Rupp is 29 now, and close enough to greatness to touch it. He became the first male U.S. runner to medal in an Olympic 10,000 since 1964 when he finished second to Farah in 2012.

Rupp clocked the fastest 10,000 run in the world last year when he reset his own U.S. record at the 2014 Prefontaine Classic with a winning time of 26 minutes, 44.36 seconds.

Farah, Rupp's friend and training partner in Salazar's Oregon Project training group, won 2012 Olympic gold in both the 5,000 and 10,000, and hasn't a lost a 10,000 race in nearly four years.

The 32-year-old Farah, a British citizen, probably still has a head-to-head edge over Rupp on the track. But it's very close.

Next year at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, who knows?

"Galen believes at the least that he is one of the top three distance runners in the world in the 10k," Salazar says. "He doesn't think anybody can pull away from him. He knows he is going to be there with a lap to go. Now, it's how well can he kick, and what's the color of the medal he is going to get?"

Galen Rupp at altitude camp in Park City, Utah 44 Gallery: Galen Rupp at altitude camp in Park City, Utah

Salazar is the visionary, who saw Rupp's potential when he was an adolescent.

He has been Rupp's coach ever since, and worked with him incrementally from the ground up, adjusting Rupp's training and running form along the way to correct even the slightest deficiencies.

Oregon Project runners lack for nothing, from the best gear and equipment to every training aid advanced technology can provide.

They have a dedicated strength and conditioning coach who travels with the team, massage therapists, their own sports psychologist. They wear wristbands that monitor the length and quality of their sleep.

Nike hasn't made this kind of investment without wanting a return.

Oregon Project runners are expected to aspire to the top of an Olympic award stand.

"I'm going to give it everything I have," Rupp says. "I realize this is probably my best shot to win a gold medal. Ever since high school, this was the Olympics that was going to be my chance.

"For a while, all this stuff seemed so far away. You just have to get better and better and better, and eventually you will claw your way up. Now it's to the point where I'm right there. Now is the time to perform and make sure I'm at my best."

There still are steps to take before Rio de Janeiro.

Rupp is entered in Friday night's 5,000 in the Prefontaine Classic at Hayward Field, where he starred as a college athlete for the University of Oregon.

He will compete at the USATF Championships at Hayward, June 25-28, and expects to qualify for the World Outdoor Championships later this summer in Beijing.

In summer meets in Europe, Rupp and Salazar hope to continue to hone Rupp's finishing speed, which Salazar believes they neglected last year.

"I think that was our mistake," Salazar says. "We worked on strength so much, and he got a great result in the 10k. But we got off the speed stuff and the kick. He didn't finish as fast as he had."

Instead of closing with 54-second final laps, Salazar says, Rupp "was running 57s or 58s. I think we've tweaked it back in a way to not lose the strength but to gain the speed."

It's delicate to get everything in balance and properly aligned. But the tools are there.

Rupp's sheer athleticism often is underestimated.

It's clear from sprint drills near the end a training session on the BYU track last week, that he has serious, top-end speed.

While using a football to play catch with Dave McHenry, the Oregon Project's strength and conditioning coach and a former Penn State quarterback, Rupp shows a fluidity of movement, and a nice set of hands. He throws a tight spiral.

He is deceptively strong in the weight room. In work the Oregon Project athletes do with a speed bag, Rupp reveals nimble feet, quick hands, balance and an ability to get his weight behind a punch.

But perhaps what serves Rupp best is his single-minded focus on the task at hand.

He gets his sleep. He eats right. He trains all-out. He avoids bad habits as if they were radioactive.

He spends his spare time with his family - Rupp and his wife, Keara, have nine-month-old twins, Grayson and Emmie - or his teammates.

"When you talk about somebody who lives the lifestyle of a champion, it's him, 24 hours a day," Oregon Project assistant Pete Julian says.

Rupp, Salazar and the Oregon Project have detractors, who see something underhanded in the group's embrace of technology and in Salazar's eagerness to find and use new and different training methods.

This is a sport that frequently has been touched by scandal and the use of performance-enhancing drugs. There have been no documented cases, or even credible accusations, of Oregon Project athletes using banned substances. But it hasn't stopped the message board chatter.

Rupp ignores it. He stays off the message boards, keeps his profile low and remains intent on his goals.

"Galen doesn't care what other people think," Salazar says. "What's the solution? You can't convince those people. ...

"You have to get to the point where you're not going to let them bother you. As long as you realize you're doing things correctly, if you're good before God, good before your family, good before your friends, if you have your tight-knit group, you can't worry about these other people."

There is too much at stake now to get sucked away by negative energy.

The goals are too big and too near. The concentration and effort it will take to reach them too total.

If Rupp puts so much of himself into winning video soccer games at night in Park City, what about an Olympic 10,000?

"He knows how close he is to being the best," Julian says. "It's right there for him.

"But it's that last couple hundred feet on Everest that are the hardest."

-- Ken Goe

kgoe@oregonian.com

503-221-8040 | @KenGoe