The "Silver" story is the American swimmer, Dara Torres. She's 41 years old, a mother, and someone who embodies the concept of Olympic sportsmanship. She encourages everyone around her, and holds up the start of a race so that a competitor can change a malfunctioning swimsuit (instead of forfeiting). And to those cynics who think that a 41-year-old can only compete via illegal performance-enhancing drugs, she offers to give extra blood and urine samples, in case better detection methods are developed somewhere down the road. The score : Confidence 1, Skepticism 0.
Congratulations Dara Torres! You make all of America proud!!
The "Bronze" story is the American sprinter, Walter Dix. He's at the far-left in the picture below, showing the finals of the 100-meter dash. Yeah, the Jamaican, Usain Bolt, routed everyone else in this race, even coasting and mugging for the cameras the last 15 meters. That is quite an accomplishment, given that the race is over in less than 10 seconds..
But it's Dix that caught my eye. In a sport where wind-resistance is a compulsive obsession, his dreadlocks were a welcome sight. And he wore his sunglasses, even though it was a nighttime event.
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Congratulations Walter Dix! All of us who "march to the beat of a different drum" have a new role model!!
Oh yeah, some guy won a bunch of Gold medals in swimming. Michael Phipps, I think. Or maybe his name was Michael Philbin. No wait, I think it was Michael Pheromone. Whatever.
3 comments:
I saw the Tunisian win as well, that's who we were cheering for. I don't know if he's one that was born and raised in the US though, just born to Tunisian parents. I have less respect for that. Kirsty Coventry, backstroker for Zimbabwe, actually made it to her first Olympics straight from training in her native country and nto from the US. Her medals are really ones to be proud of, she can say she actually represents her country.
his msnbc bio says he attends and trains at USC. prior to that, he was at a boarding school in France. he also had an 18-month suspension for doing amphetamines.
so he was technically born and raised in Tunis, but probably owes his Olympic gold medal to US training.
That's okay. I don't mind if internationals go to any of the countries where there is top-notch training. I only mind when people who are definitely not from that country are competing for it. There are swimmers who try to get citizenship to other countries just in order to make it to the Olympics (probably other sports as well, but I watch mostly swimming). Like Cavic "from" Serbia who lost to Phelps in the 100-fly.
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