Saturday, August 16, 2008

Inspiration

I've been watching the Olympics, and I've found the excitement I was lamenting was missing. Dara Torres is amazing.

I've watched her swim her heart out, true.  But the part that made such an impact on me is her sportsmanship.  She acts like a mentor to the other swimmers.  During one of the heats yesterday, a competitor had an issue with her swimsuit.  Dara asked them to hold the heat for a minute to allow this swimmer to fix/change what need to be done on her suit.  While waiting, she chatted with the other competitor explaining why and trying to keep them calm as well.  As soon as she finishes the race, she's hugging the winners and congratulating them.  On the medal podium, there are tears and smiles.

There are quite a few Olympians this year that are considered "older" than normal for the Olympics.  I think this speaks volumes of our world today.  More and more, we are finding that age really doesn't matter.  We can be whatever we want, whenever we want.  I'm not saying that achieving these goals will be easy, or that we won't want to quit at some point.  But we can achieve it.  Anything. All we have to do is get up and start.

What are you going to achieve?

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

well said, I've been enjoying the same! Dara is great. and I was cheering for Paula Radcliffe in the marathon despite the fact she was minutes behind the leaders ... she's mom of an under-two-year-old and another big inspiration to me :). I'm 37 and training for my first marathon this fall ... started running when i was still nursing my 2nd. not that old for a runner, but much harder to do than when i was younger and free-er!