Every Competitor Winner In Some Way Look Beyond The Gold Many Athletes Earn Public’S Admiration

Fri., Sept. 22, 2000

By Jackie Van Allen jackiev@spokesman.com

Are gold medal winners the only Olympics champions?

Athletes who win an Olympic gold medal have reached a pinnacle of athletic achievement. What about those who place second, third or tenth place? Are their achievements any less impressive? Is the only valid reason for competing in the Olympics to earn the gold?

The focus shouldn’t be on the gold medal winners alone. On any given day, many competitors are gold medal contenders.

It is impossible for an athlete to be at peak performance at every competition. Sometimes everything comes together and other times it all falls apart.

American speed-skater Dan Jansen wasn’t at his peak for three Olympics. After the 1992 Olympics some thought he should hang up his skates. Yes, he did not medal in those Olympics, but he did learn about perseverance and mental toughness. He came back in 1994 to win a gold medal in the 1000-meter race.

If the whole focus is on the top athletes, where does it leave everyone else?

Every year Bloomsday has a female and male overall winner, but the race would be nothing without the remaining 45,000-plus runners, walkers and wheelchair participants behind them.

South African swimmer Penny Heyns won a gold medal in the 100- and 200-meter breaststrokes at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. On Monday, she won the bronze medal in the 100 breaststroke. She said “I felt more like a champion after that experience than any other gold medal or world record has ever given me. I am just proud inside for the fact I could get up and give it everything I had.”

African swimmer, Eric Moussambini, from Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea, competed in the 100-meter freestyle. An Olympic wildcard rule allows each country to enter at least one person in each event, regardless of ability.

Moussambini began swimming eight months ago. His training pool is a snake and crocodile-infested river. After a false start by the other two wildcard swimmers, he jumped into the pool and continued swimming. By the end of his swim, the crowd was giving him a standing ovation. He thought he had won something. There was no medal for him; he was more than a minute behind the eventual winner. But his experience goes beyond any medal. The experience has him thinking about the future and competing in the 2004 Games.

Even without a gold medal, he is a winner.

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