He is the Greatest Swimmer of All Time!
Monday August 18, 2008
What an incredible weekend for this Olympics and
Olympic History! We witnessed the fastest man ever in
the world on land and in the pool. Usain Bolt broke
the world record in the 100m dash in track and Michael
Phelps, as everybody knows, became the greatest
Olympian of all time and easily the greatest swimmer
ever, by winning 8 gold medals in 7 world records.
Unbelievable!! And we got to say we saw it with our
own eyes. We can look back and remember that we saw
history being made.
Michael’s story began with a goal when he was 11 years
old. First he wanted to be the best 11-12 year old he
could, then the best 13-14 year old, then at 15 made
his 1st Olympics. I was with Michael on that team in
2000 and I never would have guessed that he would
accomplish all that he has. But he and his coach had
a dream and a goal and then they just worked really
hard for about 10 years. From age 13-23 Michael
worked harder than anybody else in the world and he
went on to do the most amazing feat the world has ever
seen. I read an article the other day about success.
It says that no matter who you are, no matter what
line of work: sports, medicine, businesss, one can
achieve greatness if they work very hard for about 10
years or 10,000 hours, regardless of talent! I think
that last phrase is cool because sometimes we think we
need more talent or genetic gifts to be better, but
it’s not true! Most of the time it’s just not giving
up. I’m so excited about where you and I will be 10
years from now as we keep reading and working hard!
We can be like Michael and set goals and work hard and
see our dreams come true also!
Well, despite plans and preparations we still can
experience set backs. Falling short of a goal is not
the same as failure. One is a failure only when they
fail to get back up and try again. Several of our
Olympians fell short of their goals but they are still
champions because they did their best.
By the way, I got to look at one of the new Beijing
Gold medals last week while I was in China. I was
holding the medal of my friend from Austin, TX, Aaron
Piersol, who reset his own world record in the 100m
backstroke. The medals for the Beijing 2008 Olympic
Games are the most beautiful I’ve seen yet. They are
as big as the Atlanta one and with the same cool
design on the front as the Athens one, but the back is
dictinctly Chinese. The back is designed with
inspiration coming from “bi“, which is a flat jade
disc with a circular hole in the center- China’s
ancient jade piece inscribed with a dragon pattern.
The back of the gold medal has a white jade ring, the
back of the silver medal has a light green jade ring,
and the bronze medal has a dark green jade ring. The
medals, made of gold and jade, symbolize nobility and
virtue and are the embodiment of traditional Chinese
values of ethics. I hope you get to see one in person
sometime because I think they are the prettiest
Olympic medals I’ve ever seen.
