Saturday, August 16, 2008
Torres and Bolt and Lezak and Phelps
Awesome. Amazing. Dara Torres is 41 years old, twenty years older than most of her fellow Olympians, and a mother who managed to win two silvers at this Olympics, one by that ridiculously small margin of .01 of a second (less than two inches). Bolt is the Jamaican who cruised the 100m sprint in 9.69 and won looking as if he was just in a practice (probably the point of all those practices, come to think of it). 
Lezak (see my post on him earlier this week), 10 years older than Phelps, is amazing and under-hyped, a superb swimmer and team-mate without whom Phelps' medal count might have been smaller and indeed Phelps 
has paid him much credit. And there's Phelps himself, of course, who physically and mentally handled everything both smooth and not so smooth (grabbing the wall at the end of the fly instead of letting it slip away, enduring nasty remarks by rivals, being unable to see in one race because of slipped goggles, etc.), 17 races in 9 days (heats plus finals) and, on top of it all, cracking 7 world records in the process.Phelps' butterfly stroke is mesmerizing - strong and beautiful. I must pay tribute to my daughter's butterfly, too, however, every bit as amazing as his. Yes I'm prejudiced but others who saw her fly said so, too. (And her high school fastest time still holds, years later. Who's a proud mom?!) I felt happy for Phelps' mother tonight, I must say. All those early morning practices, hurried dinners, rushed homework, weekends full of chlorine and humidity atop uncomfortable metal bleachers and cheering on all the other age-group swimmers. It was gracious and very sweet of M.P. to publicly acknowledge his mother's part in his success when he climbed over the photogs to give her his bouquet and his 8-medal plaque.
As many (tired) people have said, this is a particularly exciting Olympics.
Labels: good people, sports, tv
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