Everyone Is Entitled To My Opinion -On The Olympics

Dear Friends,

      The Olympics, the best athletes from every country come together to compete for the Gold strength, endurance, speed, team work, agility, as the human body is pushed to the limit and tested. I remember when I was young hearing the adults talk about the excitement of this great sporting event, every aspect from the lighting of the Olympic Flame to the last competition they followed every event, athlete, and score. These were the best of the best amateur athletes in the world and they gave us heroes and goals to aim for. Jesse Owens the fastest man on earth, later we admired him for his showing in front of Adolph Hitler and the Nazis, he represented America! Jim Thorpe the first Native American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics (1912) in fact he won two, classic pentathlon and decathlon. Sadly his medals were taken from him when it was found he had played two seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the Olympics. The medals were replaced with replicas thirty years after his death. Apparently the decision to strip him of them fell outside of the required 30 days. Jim was proud of the medals he had won for America. In 1992 the United States Olympic basketball team, nicknamed the “Dream Team” featured active professional players from the national Basketball Association, they won the Gold.

      The Olympics set the standard for athletes in every aspect of sports to aspire to win the Gold. I lifted weights at the YMCA with a powerhouse named Chimesy, he was benching over six-hundred pounds he wanted to go to the Olympics. I worked with Olympic Wrestlers, knew and watched some of the fastest runners as they chased their dreams of winning the Olympic Gold. Besides their dreams of winning the Gold they shared another driving force, to bring that Gold home to America. What happened, when did the dream of being an American Olympic Gold Medal Winner die, how many of the “athletes” I grew up with, worked out with, cheered as they chased their dreams would been proud to stand and salute the American Flag, recite the Pledge of Allegiance, and push their bodies to the limit to come home with a Gold Medal around their American neck.