Olympic Games Quotes

How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.

No matter how old you are now. You are never too young or too old for success or going after what you want. Here’s a short list of people who accomplished great things at different ages 1) Helen Keller, at the age of 19 months, became deaf and blind. But that didn’t stop her. She was the first deaf and blind person to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree. 2) Mozart was already competent on keyboard and violin; he composed from the age of 5. 3) Shirley Temple was 6 when she became a movie star on “Bright Eyes.” 4) Anne Frank was 12 when she wrote the diary of Anne Frank. 5) Magnus Carlsen became a chess Grandmaster at the age of 13. 6) Nadia Comăneci was a gymnast from Romania that scored seven perfect 10.0 and won three gold medals at the Olympics at age 14. 7) Tenzin Gyatso was formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in November 1950, at the age of 15. 8) Pele, a soccer superstar, was 17 years old when he won the world cup in 1958 with Brazil. 9) Elvis was a superstar by age 19. 10) John Lennon was 20 years and Paul Mcartney was 18 when the Beatles had their first concert in 1961. 11) Jesse Owens was 22 when he won 4 gold medals in Berlin 1936. 12) Beethoven was a piano virtuoso by age 23 13) Issac Newton wrote Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica at age 24 14) Roger Bannister was 25 when he broke the 4 minute mile record 15) Albert Einstein was 26 when he wrote the theory of relativity 16) Lance E. Armstrong was 27 when he won the tour de France 17) Michelangelo created two of the greatest sculptures “David” and “Pieta” by age 28 18) Alexander the Great, by age 29, had created one of the largest empires of the ancient world 19) J.K. Rowling was 30 years old when she finished the first manuscript of Harry Potter 20) Amelia Earhart was 31 years old when she became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean 21) Oprah was 32 when she started her talk show, which has become the highest-rated program of its kind 22) Edmund Hillary was 33 when he became the first man to reach Mount Everest 23) Martin Luther King Jr. was 34 when he wrote the speech “I Have a Dream." 24) Marie Curie was 35 years old when she got nominated for a Nobel Prize in Physics 25) The Wright brothers, Orville (32) and Wilbur (36) invented and built the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained heavier-than-air human flight 26) Vincent Van Gogh was 37 when he died virtually unknown, yet his paintings today are worth millions. 27) Neil Armstrong was 38 when he became the first man to set foot on the moon. 28) Mark Twain was 40 when he wrote "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", and 49 years old when he wrote "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" 29) Christopher Columbus was 41 when he discovered the Americas 30) Rosa Parks was 42 when she refused to obey the bus driver’s order to give up her seat to make room for a white passenger 31) John F. Kennedy was 43 years old when he became President of the United States 32) Henry Ford Was 45 when the Ford T came out. 33) Suzanne Collins was 46 when she wrote "The Hunger Games" 34) Charles Darwin was 50 years old when his book On the Origin of Species came out. 35) Leonardo Da Vinci was 51 years old when he painted the Mona Lisa. 36) Abraham Lincoln was 52 when he became president. 37) Ray Kroc Was 53 when he bought the McDonalds Franchise and took it to unprecedented levels. 38) Dr. Seuss was 54 when he wrote "The Cat in the Hat". 40) Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger III was 57 years old when he successfully ditched US Airways Flight 1549 in the Hudson River in 2009. All of the 155 passengers aboard the aircraft survived 41) Colonel Harland Sanders was 61 when he started the KFC Franchise 42) J.R.R Tolkien was 62 when the Lord of the Ring books came out 43) Ronald Reagan was 69 when he became President of the US 44) Jack Lalane at age 70 handcuffed, shackled, towed 70 rowboats 45) Nelson Mandela was 76 when he became President

Leo resisted the urge to throw a grenade in Frank's face. "I suppose I should know who Pelops was?" "He was a prince, won his wife in a chariot race. Supposedly he started the Olympic games in honor of that." Hazel sniffed. "How romantic. 'Nice wife you have, Prince Pelops.' 'Thanks. I won her in a chariot race.

Why is luge a sport? You dress up like a giant sperm and go sledding really fast. That’s hardly athletic. Phallic and sexy, yes. But hardly athletic.

So you wish to conquer in the Olympic Games, my friend? And I, too... But first mark the conditions and the consequences. You will have to put yourself under discipline; to eat by rule, to avoid cakes and sweetmeats; to take exercise at the appointed hour whether you like it or not, in cold and heat; to abstain from cold drinks and wine at your will. Then, in the conflict itself you are likely enough to dislocate your wrist or twist your ankle, to swallow a great deal of dust, to be severely thrashed, and after all of these things, to be defeated.

At the Olympic Games, it isn't the most beautiful or strongest who are crowned, but those who compete.

The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

Liam cleared his throat again and turned to fully face me. “So, it’s the summer and you’re in Salem, suffering through another boring, hot July, and working part-time at an ice cream parlor. Naturally, you’re completely oblivious to the fact that all of the boys from your high school who visit daily are more interested in you than the thirty-one flavors. You’re focused on school and all your dozens of clubs, because you want to go to a good college and save the world. And just when you think you’re going to die if you have to take another practice SAT, your dad asks if you want to go visit your grandmother in Virginia Beach.” “Yeah?” I leaned my forehead against his chest. “What about you?” “Me?” Liam said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear. “I’m in Wilmington, suffering through another boring, hot summer, working one last time in Harry’s repair shop before going off to some fancy university—where, I might add, my roommate will be a stuck-up-know-it-all-with-a-heart-of-gold named Charles Carrington Meriwether IV—but he’s not part of this story, not yet.” His fingers curled around my hip, and I could feel him trembling, even as his voice was steady. “To celebrate, Mom decides to take us up to Virginia Beach for a week. We’re only there for a day when I start catching glimpses of this girl with dark hair walking around town, her nose stuck in a book, earbuds in and blasting music. But no matter how hard I try, I never get to talk to her. “Then, as our friend Fate would have it, on our very last day at the beach I spot her. You. I’m in the middle of playing a volleyball game with Harry, but it feels like everyone else disappears. You’re walking toward me, big sunglasses on, wearing this light green dress, and I somehow know that it matches your eyes. And then, because, let’s face it, I’m basically an Olympic god when it comes to sports, I manage to volley the ball right into your face.” “Ouch,” I said with a light laugh. “Sounds painful.” “Well, you can probably guess how I’d react to that situation. I offer to carry you to the lifeguard station, but you look like you want to murder me at just the suggestion. Eventually, thanks to my sparkling charm and wit—and because I’m so pathetic you take pity on me—you let me buy you ice cream. And then you start telling me how you work in an ice cream shop in Salem, and how frustrated you feel that you still have two years before college. And somehow, somehow, I get your e-mail or screen name or maybe, if I’m really lucky, your phone number. Then we talk. I go to college and you go back to Salem, but we talk all the time, about everything, and sometimes we do that stupid thing where we run out of things to say and just stop talking and listen to one another breathing until one of us falls asleep—” “—and Chubs makes fun of you for it,” I added. “Oh, ruthlessly,” he agreed. “And your dad hates me because he thinks I’m corrupting his beautiful, sweet daughter, but still lets me visit from time to time. That’s when you tell me about tutoring a girl named Suzume, who lives a few cities away—” “—but who’s the coolest little girl on the planet,” I manage to squeeze out.

It has been a wonderful experience to compete in the Olympic Games and to bring home a gold medal. But since I have been a young lad, I have had my eyes on a different prize. You see, each one of us is in a greater race than any I have run in Paris, and this race ends when God gives out the medals.

Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race—the Olympic standard—takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes.

If we think of life as a kind of Olympic games, some of life's crises are sprints. They require maximum emotional concentration for a short time. Then they are over, and life returns to normal. But other crises are distance events. They ask us to maintain our concentration over a much longer period of time, and that can be a lot harder.

The important thing in life is not victory but combat; it is not to have vanquished but to have fought well.

The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.

When anyone tells me I can't do anything, I'm just not listening any more.

The first is to love your sport. Never do it to please someone else. It has to be yours.

They don’t give Olympic medals out for talking a good game.

the Olympic Games: ‘The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.

If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.

There are species that can run faster, climb higher, dig deeper, or hit harder, but humans are special because we can run, climb, dig, and hit. The phrase jack of all trades, master of none fits us perfectly. If life on earth were like the Olympic Games, the only event that humans would ever win is the decathlon. (Unless chess became an Olympic sport.)

The thing about dreams, though, is they usually sound crazy to everyone but you. All it takes is one other person to buy into them to keep you going.

It is the inspiration of the Olympic Games that drives people not only to compete but to improve, and to bring lasting spiritual and moral benefits to the athlete and inspiration to those lucky enough to witness the athletic dedication.

War is always far worse on the poor than the rich. Always.

I knew God gave me these dreams. How could I give up on them?

I am always amazed when I hear people saying that sport creates goodwill between the nations, and that if only the common peoples of the world could meet one another at football or cricket, they would have no inclination to meet on the battlefield. Even if one didn't know from concrete examples (the 1936 Olympic Games, for instance) that international sporting contests lead to orgies of hatred, one could deduce it from general principles ... There cannot be much doubt that the whole thing is bound up with the rise of nationalism — that is, with the lunatic modern habit of identifying oneself with large power units and seeing everything in terms of competitive prestige.

When you get rid of the estate tax,” he (Warren Buffet) said, “you’re basically handing over command of the country’s resources to people who didn’t earn it. It’s like choosing the 2020 Olympic team by picking the children of all the winners at the 2000 Games.

The Stadium Have you ever entered an empty stadium? Try it. Stand in the middle of the field and listen. There is nothing less empty than an empty stadium. There is nothing less mute than stands bereft of spectators. At Wembley, shouts from the 1966 World Cup, which England won, still resound, and if you listen very closely you can hear groans from 1953 when England fell to the Hungarians. Montevideo’s Centenario Stadium sighs with nostalgia for the glory days of Uruguayan soccer. Maracanã is still crying over Brazil’s 1950 World Cup defeat. At Bombonera in Buenos Aires, drums boom from half a century ago. From the depths of Azteca Stadium, you can hear the ceremonial chants of the ancient Mexican ball game. The concrete terraces of Camp Nou in Barcelona speak Catalan, and the stands of San Mamés in Bilbao talk in Basque. In Milan, the ghosts of Giuseppe Meazza scores goals that shake the stadium bearing his name. The final match of the 1974 World Cup, won by Germany, is played day after day and night after night at Munich’s Olympic Stadium. King Fahd Stadium in Saudi Arabia has marble and gold boxes and carpeted stands, but it has no memory or much of anything to say.

No wrong in aiming or applauding the win but always agnize one's efforts.

Arguing is the Olympics of talking

Who knows how many potential Olympic medalists have turned away from sports because of youth-league coaches who preach that the purpose of life lies in beating the school on the other side of town, and that it doesn’t matter how you play the game, just so you win.

You would fain be victor at the Olympic Games, you say. Yes, but weigh the conditions, weigh the consequences; then and then only, lay to your hand-if it be for your profit. You must live by rule, submit to diet, abstain from dainty meats, exercise your body perforce at stated hours, in heat or in cold; drink no cold water, nor, it may be, wine. In a word, you must surrender yourself wholly to your trainer, as though to a physician.

He loathed Jimmy Carter, whom he called a “big-toothed cretin.” In 1980, when we were still in Kabul, the U.S. announced it would be boycotting the Olympic Games in Moscow. “Wah wah!” Baba exclaimed with disgust. “Brezhnev is massacring Afghans and all that peanut eater can say is I won’t come swim in your pool.

Folks like poor Misty Marie, they're limited, borderline dummies, but nothing enough to get a handicapped parking space. Or get any kind of Special Olympic Games. They just pay the bulk of taxes but get no special menu at the steak house. No oversized bathroom stall. No special seat at the front of the bus. No political lobby.

For athletes, the Olympics are the ultimate test of their worth.

The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself.

The thing about dreams, though, is they usually sound crazy to everyone but you.

I do not know how we could run so far and so fast and so long. We did not run with our own strength but with strength from God. That is the only explanation. The

The Olympic games held in Berlin in August 1936 afforded the Nazis a golden opportunity to impress the world with the achievements of the Third Reich, and they made the most of it.

The Olympic Games is a celebration of discipline.

She won the four-horse chariot race in 396 BC and again in 392 BC in what we call the ancient Olympic Games.

This is the temple of Zeus. And that is a statue of Zeus himself,” said Plato. “The Olympic Games are played in his honor. He is the chief god of the Greek gods and goddesses.

Approach life as your own Olympic Games—

world knew nothing of this. The illusion surrounding the Olympic Games was complete, the deception masterful. Joseph Goebbels had artfully accomplished what all good propagandists must, convincing the world that their

Willingness to take risks and reactions to failure differ dramatically around the world. In some cultures the downside for failure is so high that individuals are allergic to taking any risks at all. These cultures associate shame with any type of failure, and from a young age people are taught to follow a prescribed path with a well-defined chance of success, as opposed to trying anything that might lead to disappointment. In some places, such as Thailand, someone who has failed repeatedly might even choose to take on a brand-new name in an attempt to reboot his or her entire life. In fact, in the 2008 Olympics, a Thai weight lifter attributed her victory to changing her name before the games.

As much as I love teamwork, for this game, you all need to fly solo, like Han in Star Wars, although he always had Chewbacca in the copilot seat. But that is neither here nor there, because it is in a galaxy far, far away. Play on, Olympians.

Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race—the Olympic standard—takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes. A well-conditioned oarsman or oarswoman

I’m categorizing them according to attraction type,” said Marjory. “Outdoor activities, historical sites, shopping opportunities—subcategorized, of course, into fashion, antiques, and souvenirs.” “Of course,” said Andrew. “And, over here, you’ll find dining options.” Andrew smiled. “Isn’t informational organization awesome?” “Yes,” said Marjory. “It’s certainly more intellectually stimulating than video games.

Venus and her pentacle became symbols of perfection, beauty, and the cyclic qualities of sexual love. As a tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks used her four-year cycle to organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment—its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games’ spirit of inclusion and harmony.

The first was the news that if the great American swimmer Buster Crabbe, winner of the 1932 men’s 400-meter freestyle, had swum in the present Olympic Games at the same pace he did in 1932 (and admittedly this would be asking a lot, as he has been dead for many years), he would have lost to Ian Thorpe by two full pool lengths. Isn’t that amazing?

There can be distractions, but if you're isolated from the heart of the Games, the Olympics become just another competition.

Boycotting the Beijing Games in the name of Tibet seemed as logical to him as shunning the Salt Lake City Olympics to protest America’s treatment of the Cherokee.

No rugby player, no matter how talented, has ever won a game by playing alone.

It hurts my heart that doing what I love has been kind of taken away from me to please other people. I wanted it to be for myself. But I was still doing it for other people

I walked down the track, beaming with pride. God had brought me so far, through war, through eating garbage and running to forget about my empty stomach. No matter what I went through, God was always with me. He had always had this moment planned for me through both the good times and the bad, from the killing fields of Sudan to these Olympic Games and back again.

A happier occasion was in 2012 when the Queen agreed to take part in a spoof film for the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. She was seen walking along a corridor in Buckingham Palace accompanied by the actor Daniel Craig, aka James Bond. Also in the video were Her Majesty’s favourite corgi and ‘Big Paul’ Whybrew in his dark uniform complete with decorations.

In fact, flow and religion have been intimately connected from earliest times. Many of the optimal experiences of mankind have taken place in the context of religious rituals. Not only art but drama, music, and dance had their origins in what we now would call “religious” settings; that is, activities aimed at connecting people with supernatural powers and entities. The same is true of games. One of the earliest ball games, a form of basketball played by the Maya, was part of their religious celebrations, and so were the original Olympic games. This connection is not surprising, because what we call religion is actually the oldest and most ambitious attempt to create order in consciousness. It therefore makes sense that religious rituals would be a profound source of enjoyment.

Twenty-one out of twenty-two of the stadiums, arenas, sports halls and swimming pools built for the Games are either derelict, in a state of disrepair, boarded up or unable to find a buyer and underused.

The result of all this muscular effort, on both the larger scale and the smaller, is that your body burns calories and consumes oxygen at a rate that is unmatched in almost any other human endeavor. Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race—the Olympic standard—takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six minutes.

Physiologists, in fact, have calculated that rowing a two-thousand-meter race—the Olympic standard—takes the same physiological toll as playing two basketball games back-to-back. And it exacts that toll in about six

So a contemporary wedding is like the Olympic Games, a spectacle of detailed research and preparation but lasts only a short time. Even if it all goes according to plan, a wedding is over in a day, much of it spent being ordered around by photographers, and when the audience is gone and the costumes returned to their boxes (never again to be taken out), an ordinary man and woman look to each other and think: 'Is this all it is?

So decide now that you are worthy of living as a full-grown man who is making progress, and make everything that seems best be a law that you cannot go against. And if you meet with any hardship or anything pleasant or reputable or disreputable, then remember that the contest is now and the Olympic games are now and you cannot put things off any more and that your progress is made or destroyed by a single day and a single action

championships, and went on to break the U.S. record in distances from three miles to the marathon. At the 2004 Athens Games, Deena outlasted the world-record holder, Paula Radcliffe, to win the bronze, the first Olympic medal

You sound more like them every day," Andrew said. Neil guessed he meant their more optimistic teammates. "You're going to have to come up with something of your own to hold onto. I'm safe, Kevin doesn't need your protection anymore, Nicky's going back to Erik eventually, and Aaron's got Katelyn. What are you going to live for if you're not playing sheepdog for us?" "Aaron doesn't have Katelyn." "Denial doesn't suit you. We talked about this." "You talked," Andrew said. "I didn't listen." "Choose us," Neil said. It was enough to shut Andrew up—maybe only for a second, but Neil would take any opening he could get. "Kevin's going to retake his spot on Court before he graduates. He thinks I can make the cut with enough practice and time. Come with us. Let's all play in the Olympics together one day. We'd be unstoppable." "That's your obsession, not mine." "Borrow it until you have something of your own.

It's the hard things in life that hold the most achievement. Would you rather win a small-town race or win the gold at the Olympics? Think of this as the big games, the Mount Everest. Tackle it, conquer it, and bring home the gold.

As a tribute to the magic of Venus, the Greeks used her four-year cycle to organize their Olympiads. Nowadays, few people realized that the four-year schedule of modern Olympic Games still followed the cycles of Venus. Even fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment—its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games’ spirit of inclusion and harmony.

fewer people knew that the five-pointed star had almost become the official Olympic seal but was modified at the last moment–its five points exchanged for five intersecting rings to better reflect the games' spirit of inclusion and harmony.

If you want to understand what a year of life means, ask a student who just flunked his end-of-the-year exams. Or a month of life: speak to a mother who has just given birth to a premature baby and is waiting for him to be taken out of the incubator before she can hold him safe and sound in her arms. Or a week: interview a man who works in a factory or a mine to feed his family. Or a day: ask two people madly in love who are waiting for their next rendezvous. Or an hour: talk to a claustrophobia sufferer stuck in a broken-down elevator. Or a second: look at the expression on the face of a man who has just escaped from a car wreck. Or one-thousandth of a second: ask the athlete who just won the silver medal at the Olympic Games, and not the gold he trained for all his life. Life is magic, Arthur, and I know what I'm saying because since my accident I appreciate the value of every instant. So I beg you, let's make the most of all the seconds that we have left.

In January 1951, high commissioner of occupied Germany John McCloy announced that only five of the 15 death sentences from the Nuremberg judgments would be carried out. He then reduced the sentences of 64 out of the remaining 74 war criminals. One third of these were to be released immediately. He also reduced the sentences of all remaining convicted doctors who had experimented on concentration camp inmates. McCloy had sat in Adolf Hitler's box at the 1936 Olympic games in Berlin.

Joseph Goebbels had artfully accomplished what all good propagandists must, convincing the world that their version of reality was reasonable and their opponents’ version biased. In doing that, Goebbels had not only created a compelling vision of the new Germany but also undercut the Nazis’ opponents in the West—whether they were American Jews in New York City or members of Parliament in London or anxious Parisians—making all of them seem shrill, hysterical, and misinformed. As thousands of Americans returned home from the games that fall, many of them felt as one quoted in a German propaganda publication did: “As for this man Hitler. . . . Well I believe we should all like to take him back to America with us and have him organize there just as he has done in Germany.

Watching people run on television was a revelation for me. Never before had I thought of running as a sport. When I ran, I did not think about conditions in the camp or the hunger in my belly. Running was my therapy, my release, my escape from the world around me.

IOC member and future president Lord Killanin sent a packet of critical letters to US Olympics official Clifford Buck and exclaimed: “I fear these political, social and technical problems in Colorado are not helping the Olympic Movement! The letters seem reasonable and not cranky!”17

Clemens was a passenger, Clemens Briels, and when teachers at the school did a little further checking, they learned that he was a renowned Dutch artist. In fact, Briels was one of the official artists for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. The drawing he crafted on the school blackboard was a version of his piece A Jump for Joy. one of the paintings he created especially for the Olympic Games and which was on display in Salt Lake City. The principal had the blackboard removed from the wall, framed, and covered with Plexiglas. It now hangs in the school’s library.

No, I want to keep celebrating.’ [106] Yes, just as initiates want the mysteries to continue, or crowds at the Olympic Games want to see more contestants. But the festival is over; leave and move on, grateful for what you’ve seen, with your self-respect intact. Make room for other people, it’s their turn to be born, just as you were born, and once born they need a place to live, along with the other necessities of life. If the first people won’t step aside, what’s going to happen? Don’t be so greedy. Aren’t you ever satisfied? Are you determined to make the world more crowded still?

Would you tell a USA Olympic Team hopeful that did not qualify for The Games, to give up and try another sport? No. You would tell them to work harder. Train harder. Try again at the next Olympics. However, that is not what we hear in life. When did it become okay to tell people to quit trying and give up? When did it become okay to promote hopelessness? If we all believe that hard work will not pay off, that we cannot try again, that we should give up early... well then... imagine all he great things that will never happen. I believe in hard work. I believe in dreams. I believe that you can fall and still get up. And no one can take that away from me.

The men were famous once. Some of them still are. They were the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and Brooks had brought them together, 24 summers before. He had picked them and provoked them and pushed them, sometimes irritating them and often infuriating them by his hardness and his aloofness, his scathing rebukes and his unrelenting mind games.

We are strangers in this world, and the body is the tomb of the soul, and yet we must not seek to escape by self-murder; for we are the chattels of God who is our herdsman, and without his command we have no right to make our escape. In this life, there are three kinds of men, just as there are three sorts of people who come to the Olympic Games. The lowest class is made up of those who come to buy and sell, the next above them are those who compete. Best of all, however, are those who come simply to look on. The greatest purification of all is, therefore, disinterested science, and it is the man who devotes himself to that, the true philosopher, who has most effectually released himself from the 'wheel of birth.

I learned lots of things those first few weeks. First and foremost, I learned what it meant to be a refugee. From the moment I stepped into Kakuma, I became a boy without a country. A refugee camp is a kind of no-man’s-land. No one lives there by choice. You end up in places like Kakuma when you have no better option. Everyone who lived there just wanted to go home.

The human police had come to the bar outside Shiftertown to ask Liam about the reported noise in Shiftertown that day, and Liam had glibly told them, “Shifter games.” He’d smiled his warm smile and let his Irish lilt roll from his tongue. Kim had backed him up, as had Silas the reporter. “Running and jumping and other frolicking,” Liam had said. “Like your human Olympics but not as organized.

Life may have been hard, but we were happy. Yes, boys died and food was difficult to come by, but at least no one was shooting at us. We only ate one meal a day, but for me, coming into the camp at the age of six, I accepted this as normal. I never thought that life was unfair because I had to eat garbage. Instead, I looked at the scraps of food from the dump as a blessing. Not all the boys in the camp could do this. I knew some who chose to feel sorry for themselves, who complained constantly about their lot in life. What is the point of such complaining? After all the whining and complaining is over, you still live in a refugee camp. All the complaining in the world will not make your life any better. Instead, you must choose to make the best of whatever the situation in which you find yourself, even in a place like Kakuma.

I looked up at the giant Jumbotron television screen. There on the screen I saw President Bush, standing, saluting the flag. They then split the image in half. On one side was the president, his hand over his heart. On the other side was me, Lopez Lomong, the lost boy carrying the flag of his new home. I am no longer a lost boy or an orphan. The flag in my hand is my identity; it is who I am now and who I never was before.

The rise of the western crews may have shocked eastern fans, but it delighted newspaper editors across the country in the 1930s. The story fit in with a larger sports narrative that had fueled newspaper and newsreel sales since the rivalry between two boxers—a poor, part-Cherokee Coloradoan named Jack Dempsey and an easterner and ex-Marine named Gene Tunney—had riveted the nation’s attention in the 1920s. The East versus West rivalry carried over to football with the annual East-West Shrine Game and added interest every January to the Rose Bowl—then the nearest thing to a national collegiate football championship. And it was about to have additional life breathed into it when an oddly put together but spirited, rough-and-tumble racehorse named Seabiscuit would appear on the western horizon to challenge and defeat the racing establishment’s darling, the king of the eastern tracks, War Admiral.

It was an excellent place to be if you wanted to hear crowds of wretched philosophers heaping abuse on one another—an endless number of historians reading out their imbecilic writings—innumerable poets reciting their drivel to the wild applause of other poets—gaggles of magicians showing their tricks—throngs of fortune-tellers telling fortunes—countless lawyers perverting justice—or armies of peddlers hawking whatever rubbish came to hand. . . . —DIO THE GOLDEN-TONGUED, C. A.D. 100 ONCE

Hockey is a club that holds its members tightly, the bond forged by shared hardship and mutual passion, by every trip to the pond, where your feet hurt and your face is cold and you might get a stick in the ribs or a puck in the mouth, and you still can’t wait to get back out there because you are smitten with the sound of blades scraping against ice and pucks clacking off sticks, and with the game’s speed and ever-changing geometry. It has a way of becoming the center of your life even when you’re not on the ice.

Brooks wanted to abandon the traditional, linear, dump-and-chase style of hockey that had held sway in North America forever. He wanted to attack the vaunted Russians with their own game, skating with them and weaving with them, stride for high-flying stride. He wanted to play physical, un-yielding hockey to be sure, but he also wanted fast, skilled players who would flourish on the Olympic ice sheet (which is 15 feet wider than NHL rinks) and be able to move and keep possession of the puck and be in such phenomenal condition that they would be the fresher team at the end.

One of the many real-life examples comes from Charlie Jones, a well-respected broadcaster for NBC-TV, who revealed that hearing the story of Who Moved My Cheese? saved his career. His job as a broadcaster is unique, but the principles he learned can be used by anyone. Here’s what happened: Charlie had worked hard and had done a great job of broadcasting Track and Field events at an earlier Olympic Games, so he was surprised and upset when his boss told him he’d been removed from these showcase events for the next Olympics and assigned to Swimming and Diving. Not knowing these sports as well, he was frustrated. He felt unappreciated and he became angry. He said he felt it wasn’t fair! His anger began to affect everything he did. Then, he heard the story of Who Moved My Cheese? After that he said he laughed at himself and changed his attitude. He realized his boss had just “moved his Cheese.” So he adapted. He learned the two new sports, and in the process, found that doing something new made him feel young. It wasn’t long before his boss recognized his new attitude and energy, and he soon got better assignments. He went on to enjoy more success than ever and was later inducted into Pro Football’s Hall of Fame—Broadcasters’ Alley. That’s

When you're making whoopee, it's most like which Olympic sport: marathon running, gymnastics or ice hockey?' When Cam came home from the station, she'd asked him what he thought. 'Hockey,' he had said without hesitation. And he was right – there was a fury to their lovemaking, as if they were punishing each other for being something different from what they each had hoped. Many nights after that game show she had lain awake, listening to the tide of Cam's breathing, wondering why one of the multiple choices hadn't been something slow and lovely, like pairs' skating or water ballet, something partnered in grace and beauty and trust.

We celebrate the dedication of Olympic athletes who diet and train and exercise daily for years in order to prepare for the games. They give up not only physical comfort but also any hope of a normal social and family life. When police officers or firefighters die, often thousands turn out for their funerals. We honor our children who die in military service in much the same way—often arranging public ceremonies and holidays. We expect television celebrities such as actors, news correspondents and musicians to sacrifice any kind of normal life in order to entertain us around the clock—and they are paid millions of dollars to do so. The names of astronauts become household words because they risk their lives in order to forward the conquest of space. But the minute a Christian young person starts to fast and pray, consider the mission field or give up career or romance for Christ—concerned counselors, family and friends will spend hours trying to keep him or her from “going off the deep end on this religious stuff.” Even devout Christian parents will oppose Christian service when their own son or daughter is about to give up all for Christ. Discipline, pain, sacrifice and suffering are rewarded with fame and fortune in the world. Why then do we refuse to accept it as a normal part of giving spiritual birth in the kingdom of our Lord?

Nobody ever took time out in a boat race,” he noted. “There’s no place to stop and get a satisfying drink of water or a lungful of cool, invigorating air. You just keep your eyes glued on the red, perspiring neck of the fellow ahead of you and row until they tell you it’s all over . . . Neighbor, it’s no game for a softy.” When you row, the major muscles in your arms, legs, and back—particularly the quadriceps, triceps, biceps, deltoids, latissimus dorsi, abdominals, hamstrings, and gluteal muscles—do most of the grunt work, propelling the boat forward against the unrelenting resistance of water and wind. At the same time, scores of smaller muscles in the neck, wrists,

The other boys came up to me and complained, “Lopepe, you never pass the ball to your teammates.” I did not listen. After all, the point of soccer is to score more goals than the other team, not to pass the ball. I kept playing the way I always had. Eventually the other boys had enough. One day I walked out on the soccer field and one of the older boys who ran the games told me, “From now on you are the goalkeeper.” At first I hated being the goalkeeper. You cannot score from the back side of the field, and I love scoring goals. But what could I do? Instead of sulking, I told myself, Okay, you are now the goalkeeper. Make yourself the best goalkeeper in all of Kenya. And I did.

In every affair consider what precedes and what follows, and then undertake it. Otherwise you will begin with spirit, indeed, careless of the consequences, and when these are developed, you will shamefully desist. “I would conquer at the Olympic Games.” But consider what precedes and what follows, and then, if it be for your advantage, engage in the affair. You must conform to rules, submit to a diet, refrain from dainties; exercise your body, whether you choose it or not, at a stated hour, in heat and cold; you must drink no cold water, and sometimes no wine—in a word, you must give yourself up to your trainer as to a physician. Then, in the combat, you may be thrown into a ditch, dislocate your arm, turn your ankle, swallow an abundance of dust, receive stripes [for negligence], and, after all, lose the victory. When you have reckoned up all this, if your inclination still holds, set about the combat. Otherwise, take notice, you will behave like children who sometimes play wrestlers, sometimes gladiators, sometimes blow a trumpet, and sometimes act a tragedy, when they happen to have seen and admired these shows. Thus you too will be at one time a wrestler, and another a gladiator; now a philosopher, now an orator; but nothing in earnest. Like an ape you mimic all you see, and one thing after another is sure to please you, but is out of favor as soon as it becomes familiar. For you have never entered upon anything considerately; nor after having surveyed and tested the whole matter, but carelessly, and with a halfway zeal. Thus some, when they have seen a philosopher and heard a man speaking like Euphrates[3]—though, indeed, who can speak like him?—have a mind to be philosophers, too. Consider first, man, what the matter is, and what your own nature is able to bear. If you would be a wrestler, consider your shoulders, your back, your thighs; for different persons are made for different things. Do you think that you can act as you do and be a philosopher, that you can eat, drink, be angry, be discontented, as you are now? You must watch, you must labor, you must get the better of certain appetites, must quit your acquaintances, be despised by your servant, be laughed at by those you meet; come off worse than others in everything—in offices, in honors, before tribunals. When you have fully considered all these things, approach, if you please—that is, if, by parting with them, you have a mind to purchase serenity, freedom, and tranquillity. If not, do not come hither; do not, like children, be now a philosopher, then a publican, then an orator, and then one of Caesar’s officers. These things are not consistent. You must be one man, either good or bad. You must cultivate either your own reason or else externals; apply yourself either to things within or without you—that is, be either a philosopher or one of the mob.

In every act observe the things which come first, and those which follow it; and so proceed to the act. If you do not, at first you will approach it with alacrity, without having thought of the things which will follow; but afterward, when certain base things have shown themselves, you will be ashamed. A man wishes to conquer at the Olympic games. I also wish indeed, for it is a fine thing. But observe both the things which come first, and the things which follow; and then begin the act. You must do everything according to rule, eat according to strict orders, abstain from delicacies, exercise yourself as you are bid at appointed times, in heat, in cold, you must not drink cold water, nor wine as you choose; in a word, you must deliver yourself up to the exercise master as you do to the physician, and then proceed to the contest. And sometimes you will strain the hand, put the ankle out of joint, swallow much dust, sometimes be flogged, and after all this be defeated. When you have considered all this, if you still choose, go to the contest: if you do not, you will behave like children, who at one time play at wrestlers, another time as flute players, again as gladiators, then as trumpeters, then as tragic actors: so you also will be at one time an athlete, at another a gladiator, then a rhetorician, then a philosopher, but with your whole soul you will be nothing at all; but like an ape you imitate everything that you see, and one thing after another pleases you. For you have not undertaken anything with consideration, nor have you surveyed it well; but carelessly and with cold desire.

NBC’s Bob Costas—when he is not out praising Vladimir Putin at the Olympics—is railing against the dangerous gun culture of America, perpetuated by (cue low piano keys) the villainous NRA. When it was pointed out to Costas by Greg Gutfeld that he was protected by armed security, Costas blanched. Costas responded, “In truth, Greg was accurate if you consider 180 degrees from the truth accurate. I have never had a personal bodyguard a single day in my life. There are security people at NFL games that the NFL employs, and there is always massive security at an Olympics, and there…is NBC security.” But Gutfeld never said that Costas had hired a personal bodyguard. Just pointing out that Costas was benefiting from the gun culture he was simultaneously attacking. He doesn’t have to be armed, because the companies he works for have the power and money to make other carry arms for him.

BLACK WINGS At the same Olympics, staged by Hitler to consecrate the superiority of his race, the star that shone brightest was black, a grandson of slaves, born in Alabama. Hitler had no choice but to swallow the bitter pill, four of them actually: the four gold medals that Jesse Owens won in sprinting and long jump. The entire world celebrated those victories of democracy over racism. When the champion returned home, he received no congratulations from the president, nor was he invited to the White House. He returned to the usual: he boarded buses by the back door, ate in restaurants for Negroes, used bathrooms for Negroes, stayed in hotels for Negroes. For years, he earned a living running for money. Before the start of baseball games he would entertain the crowd by racing against horses, dogs, cars, or motorcycles. Later on, when his legs were no longer what they had been, Owens took to the lecture circuit. He did pretty well there, praising the virtues of religion, family, and country.

The Greeks were the first people in the world to play, and they played on a great scale. All over Greece there were games, all sorts of games; athletic contests of every description: races—horse-, boat-, foot-, torch-races; contests in music, where one side out-sung the other; in dancing—on greased skins sometimes to display a nice skill of foot and balance of body; games where men leaped in and out of flying chariots; games so many one grows weary with the list of them. They are embodied in the statues familiar to all, the disc thrower, the charioteer, the wrestling boys, the dancing flute players. The great games—there were four that came at stated seasons—were so important, when one was held, a truce of God was proclaimed so that all Greece might come in safety without fear. There “glorious-limbed youth”—the phrase is Pindar’s, the athlete’s poet—strove for an honor so coveted as hardly anything else in Greece. An Olympic victor—triumphing generals would give place to him. His crown of wild olives was set beside the prize of the tragedian. Splendor attended him, processions, sacrifices, banquets, songs the greatest poets were glad to write. Thucydides, the brief, the severe, the historian of that bitter time, the fall of Athens, pauses, when one of his personages has conquered in the games, to give the fact full place of honor. If we had no other knowledge of what the Greeks were like, if nothing were left of Greek art and literature, the fact that they were in love with play and played magnificently would be proof enough of how they lived and how they looked at life. Wretched people, toiling people, do not play. Nothing like the Greek games is conceivable in Egypt or Mesopotamia. The life of the Egyptian lies spread out in the mural paintings down to the minutest detail. If fun and sport had played any real part they would be there in some form for us to see. But the Egyptian did not play. “Solon, Solon, you Greeks are all children,” said the Egyptian priest to the great Athenian.

He liked how brave she was—that dauntless courage she’d had when she faced off against Gargoyle at the trials. The lack of hesitation to chase after Hawthorn or take out the Detonator. The bravery that veered just a bit toward recklessness. Sometimes he wished he could be more like her, always so confident in her own motivations that she didn’t mind bending the rules from time to time. That’s how Adrian felt when he was the Sentinel. His conviction that he knew what was right gave him the courage to act, even when he would have hesitated as Adrian or Sketch. But Nova never hesitated. Her compass never seemed to falter. He liked that she defied the rules of their society—refusing to bend for the Council, when so many others would have been falling over themselves to impress them. Refusing to apologize for their decision to go after the Librarian, despite the protocols, because she believed wholeheartedly that they made the right choice with the options they’d been given. He liked that she’d destroyed him at every one of those carnival games. He liked that she hadn’t flinched when he brought a dinosaur to life in the palm of her hand. He liked that she’d raced into the quarantine to help Max, despite having no clue what she was going to do when she got there, only that she had to do something. He liked that she showed compassion for Max, sometimes even indignation for the way his ability was being used—but never pity. He even liked the way she feigned enthusiasm for things like the Sidekick Olympics, when it was clear she would have rather been doing just about anything else. But no matter how long the growing list of things that attracted him to Nova McLain had become, he still found her feelings toward him to be a mystery, with an annoying shortage of evidence to support the theory that maybe, just maybe, she sort of liked him too. A smile here. A blush there. It was an infuriatingly short list. He was probably reading into things. It didn’t matter, he told himself again and again. He couldn’t risk getting too close to anyone right now.

Moment, momentum, momentous If you reduce sports to its smallest discrete units, its subatomic particles, you're left with protons and electrons and neutrons called moments. They're the building blocks of every season, every game, every series of downs. Two or more moments may accrete into something more, a propulsive energy called momentum, which in turn can snowball into something greater still, that which is momentous. Consider those consecutive moments last Aug. 4 (2012 summer Olympics) in London, when Michael Phelps-in his final Olympic race-caught and then overtook Japan's Takeshi Matsuda on the butterfly leg of the men's 4 x 100 medley relay. Momentum passed to Phelps's U.S. teammate Nathan Adrian, who pulled away on the freestyle leg, sealing a victory that yielded Phelps's 18th gold medal, and 22nd medal overall, more than any other Olympian in history. It was like the conjugation of some Latin verb: moment, momentum, momentous. Or if you prefer: Veni, vidi, vici (we came, we saw, we conquered). From "moments of the year

Porridge is our soup, our grits, our sustenance, so it's pretty much the go-to for breakfast. For the first time, I ate with a bunch of other Taiwanese-Chinese kids my age who knew what the hell they were doing. Even at Chinese school, there were always kids that brought hamburgers, shunned chopsticks, or didn't get down with the funky shit. They were like faux-bootleg-Canal Street Chinamen. That was one of the things that really annoyed me about growing up Chinese in the States. Even if you wanted to roll with Chinese/Taiwanese kids, there were barely any around and the ones that were around had lost their culture and identity. They barely spoke Chinese, resented Chinese food, and if we got picked on by white people on the basketball court, everyone just looked out for themselves. It wasn't that I wanted people to carry around little red books to affirm their "Chinese-ness," but I just wanted to know there were other people that wanted this community to live on in America. There was on kid who wouldn't eat the thousand-year-old eggs at breakfast and all the other kids started roasting him. "If you don't get down with the nasty shit, you're not Chinese!" I was down with the mob, but something left me unsettled. One thing ABCs love to do is compete on "Chinese-ness," i.e., who will eat the most chicken feet, pig intestines, and have the highest SAT scores. I scored high in chick feet, sneaker game, and pirated good, but relatively low on the SAT. I had made National Guild Honorable Mention for piano when I was around twelve and promptly quit. My parents had me play tennis and take karate, but ironically, I quit tennis two tournaments short of being ranked in the state of Florida and left karate after getting my brown belt. The family never understood it, but I knew what I was doing. I didn't want to play their stupid Asian Olympics, but I wanted to prove to myself that if I did want to be the stereotypical Chinaman they wanted, I could. (189) I had become so obsessed with not being a stereotype that half of who I was had gone dormant. But it was also a positive. Instead of following the path most Asian kids do, I struck out on my own. There's nature, there's nurture, and as Harry Potter teaches us, there's who YOU want to be. (198) Everyone was in-between. The relief of the airport and the opportunity to reflect on my trip helped me realize that I didn't want to blame anyone anymore, Not my parents, not white people, not America. Did I still think there was a lot wrong with the aforementioned? Hell, yeah, but unless I was going to do something about it, I couldn't say shit. So I drank my Apple Sidra and shut the fuck up. (199)

Some martial arts, or combat sports at least, offer a career path that includes fame and riches. An Olympic gold medal, perhaps. But that is not true of ours. I train martial arts because they can offer moments of utter transcendence. The ineffable made manifest. This is traditionally described as “beyond words” or “indescribable” but, as a martial artist and a writer, that would feel like a cop-out. I will take this feeling and wrestle it down onto the page, or at least give it my best shot. It is a moment when every atom in your body is exactly where it should be. Every step you have taken on life’s path makes sense, and is part of a coherent story. The pain of every mistake is made worthwhile by the lessons contained within. There is a feeling of physical power without limit; strength without stiffness; flow without randomness; precision without pedantry; focus without blinkers; breadth and depth; massive destructive capability, but utter gentleness; self-awareness without self-consciousness; force without fury; your body alive as it has never been, all fear and pain burned away in a moment of absolute clarity; certainty without dogma; and an overpowering love, even for your enemies, that enables you to destroy them without degrading them. For a religious person it is the breath of God within you; for an atheist it is a moment of attaining perfection as a human being.

umping events are contested for height or distance. The jumps contested for height are called the vertical jumps, which include the high jump and the pole vault. The jumps contested for distance are known as the horizontal jumps, which include the running long jump, the standing long jump, and the triple jump. See table 9.1 for a list of the jumping events for each age group for both the USATF Junior Olympics and the Hershey's Track & Field Games.

That legend—and it is more legend than historical fact—inspired a race in 1896 at the first modern Olympic Games over approximately the same route. Only 17 runners participated in that first race. In 2010, 20,000 runners appeared for the 2,500th anniversary celebration.

DUTCH MASTERS: Historic Olympic Dominance AP SOCHI, Russia (AP) — Jorrit Bergsma set an Olympic record and led another Dutch speedskating sweep Tuesday, winning the 10,000 meters with an upset of countryman Sven Kramer. Kramer wanted this gold more than any other after giving away the longest race with an inexplicable mistake at the 2010 Vancouver Games. But Bergsma's finishing kick was a stunner, giving him a winning time of 12 minutes, 44.45 seconds. It was the fastest sea-level time ever and shattered the Olympic record of 12:58.55 set by South Korea's Lee Seung-hoon four years ago. Kramer settled for silver in 12:49.02. The bronze went to 37-year-old Bob de Jong. It was the fourth Dutch sweep of the podium at Adler Arena, giving them 19 speedskating medals in all. Bergsma's last five laps were all under 30 seconds, a pace Kramer simply couldn't match. Grimacing in a desperate search for more speed, his lap times climbed steadily higher. When the bell rang for the final lap, Bergsma already was celebrating in the infield. On his cool-down lap, Kramer stopped to shake hands with his countryman. Yet this was a bitter disappointment for the world's greatest distance skater, who already had captured his second straight 5,000 gold but really wanted to make up for the victory that got away in Vancouver. During a routine crossover on the backstretch four years ago, Kramer's coach, Gerard Kemkers, inexplicably directed him to the wrong lane. The skater dutifully followed the instructions, leading