UNIT 7 Sporting Legends

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Michael Phelps: A Talented Swimmer

Michael Phelps -- the name is now in the air. We all know what he's doing; we're all cheering him. He is the American swimmer who's won FOURTEEN Olympic gold medals! Now he holds the record for the most gold medals won at a single Olympics: a total of eight, in the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He's been called not only the greatest swimmer, but also the greatest Olympian of all time.

Phelps holds all sorts of "youngest ever" records. He first competed in the Olympic Games when he was 15.In 2000, at 15 years and 9 months, he became the youngest man ever to set a swimming world record, by breaking the world record in a 200 m butterfly.

Dreaming big

After winning his seventh gold medal in the Beijing Olympics, Phelps said that tying Mark Spitz's record had been his goal "In my dreams I always wanted it," he said. "I thought in the perfect circumstances I could do it."

In an interview, when asked whether he'd expected such a big success when he'd started swimming as a small child, Phelps said he'd always wanted to win Olympic gold medals and set world records.

You can achieve only what you dream of. The beliefs "I can't", "I'm not worthy", and "I'm not talented" have a far more profound effect on what you do than you think. Believing in yourself and your ability to achieve your dream is a must if you're to really get there, and no dream is too big.

Single-minded focus

But we all know that, don't we? Of course we also know that Phelps has a body particularly suited to swimming. And many will say his talent is God-gifted. But when you ask him what makes him so special, and he'll tell you, "I love the competition and I love to train."

That's what makes the biggest difference, not only to an Olympic level sports career, but to any life, for anyone. Success in any field comes down to your attitude.

Perseverance

This brings us to the second thing about him that amazes me -- his ability to be "at it", hour after hour, day after day, year after year. I read a newspaper article which described his daily routine as "eat-sleep-train. Repeat". Do you think he'd ever have achieved his success he's now enjoying, if he hadn't worked so hard? Put up a poster of Phelps on your bedroom wall and write on it: "eat-sleep-train!", so that the next time you feel like resorting to the old I'm-not-talented-enough-to-be-successful routine, he keeps you right on track.

Lessons from Michael Phelps

Despite his successes in the pool, he was caught taking drugs at a party. Michael Phelps is a hero and role model for millions but now his name is greatly stained. He later apologized to his fans and all those who have supported him and said "I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, Iacted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

So that's a life lesson, straight from Michael Phelps! While we keep cheering him for his performance in the pool, we should keep his lessons in mind!

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Olympic Effort

No matter how much her legs screamed or back ached, she couldn't stop. Her son was dying, she had no insurance, so she couldn't stop. The medical bills were stacked to the sky, and she had no money.

Gymnastics once saved Oksana Chusovitina. Now, she needed it to save her boy.

"If I don't compete, then my son won't live," Chusovitina said after her xon was found to have cancer before his third birthday. "It's as simple as that. I have no choice." To get better medical care for her son Alisher, she moved to Germany in 2003.

The story deeply moved the gymnastics world. Maybe that's why Chusovitina, the first female gymnast to compete in five Olympics, heard a loud cry on every tumbling pass and backflip from the thousands in the National Indoor Stadium at the team qualification this week.

Chusovitina, more than twice the age as many competitors, has pushed her 33-year-old body beyond where it was meant to go.

Her son is well now, but she won't stop.

"I feel perfect," she said. "I feel young."

From a few feet away, she was with the young competitors she's trying to beat. She finished fourth in the vault during the qualification and will compete for a medal in that event this weekend.

Whether it's flawless technique, or simply a gift from the heavens, Chusovitina has turned into an inspiration to gymnasts all over the world.

"I don't know how she does it," said U.S. gymnast Alicia Sacramone, one of the medal favorites in the vault. "She's a role model to so many of us."

"She was always doing very difficult routines. She was doing harder routines than the boys, that's what I remember. She was really amazing," said Valeri Liukin, a member of the men's Unified Team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics with Chusovitina.

Chusovitina was born and brought up in the former Soviet Union. She rocketed up the gymnastics ladder, winning the country's junior all-around title in 1988 when she was 13 years old. She was elevated to the senior level the following year before most of this year's Olympic gymnasts were born.

Chusovitina helped the Unified Team win the team gold in Barcelona. She became one of the world's top vaulters, winning a record eight of her 10 world titles on the apparatus.

"She's quick," said German national coach Ursula Koch. "You cannot teach that. She's a phrnomenon."

Her body sometimes hurts, but...

"She doesn't speak about pain," Koch said.

The workouts are shorter.Chusovitina spends much more time sharing more than 25 years of knowledge with her teammates than sharpening her routines. She's more efficient.

"She's like an idol," said a 17-year-old teammate. "She doesn't do routines 20 times in training. She does it once and well. She knows her body very well. She knows when something is wrong, she stops."

Koch insisted Chusovitina could tumble, jump and flip forever. Hermann said "maybe one or two years more… or maybe to London (for the 2012 Olympics)."

Asked to explain how she's pulied it off and persevered through the years of pounding, Chusovitina broke into a wide smile and flashed the little English she knows:

"My secret."

UNIT 8 An Embarrassing Moment

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Getting to the Airport

After years of study, I have determined there are only two types of people in this world: those who get to the airport early and those who stroll in as the plane is about to take off.

If there were any justice in this world the early-airport people would be rewarded for doing the right thing. And the late-airport people would be punished.

But there is no justice. The early-airport people get ulcers, heart attacks and bite their fingernails to the bone.

The late-airport people barely are aware they are flying.

I once found myself in an airport bar with a man on the same flight as me. Our flight bad been called three times, but he insisted we stay for another round.

"If we miss this one, there's always another plane in an hour," he said, signalling for two more drinks.

"To Dhahran, Saudi Arabia?" I said, "There isn't another flight for a week."

"I have a theory," he said. "If you miss your flight, it's because God didn't want you to go."

This is clearly a guy who is never going to get an ulcer.

Early-airport people suffer another abuse. They are called exactly what they are: wimps.

I know. I was an early-airport person for years.

My luggage will get on the plane first, I told myself.

Indeed it will. Which makes it the last luggage they take off the plane when you land.

You know who really gets his luggage first? The late-airport person, who strolls into the airport three minutes before the plane takes off.

The pilot is practically in the air when these people are still paying off the taxi.

Then they make a big fuss at the gate in order to get their luggage on board.

And when we finally take off, all us wimps know that not only will that late luggage be the first off the plane, but it is probably sitting on top of our luggage, crushing our shirts.

But if I get there real, real early, I told my old wimpy self, I will get the best seat.

Well, just try to show up early and get the seat you want. Go ahead and try.

No matter how early I showed up, I was always told that someone had called two or three years ahead of me and asked for that seat.

I figured it was a conspiracy. I figured there was someone in America who called every airline every day and said: "Is that wimp Simon flying somewhere today? If he is, give me his seat."

The ultimate embarrassment of the early-airport person happened to me a few years ago when I was flying from La Guardia to O'Hare.

When I got to the ticket counter, the person there said: "Sir, you have a seat on the 9:15 a.m. flight to Chicago, is that right?"

"Yes," I said.

"Well, it's only 7 a.m., and the 7:05 a.m. Flight has not left yet. If you hurry, you can make it."

Do you think so?

I was too embarrassed to say that I arrived at airports early so I wouldn't have to hurry. Instead, I ran down the corridor to the plane.

I climbed on board, out of breath, red-faced, and stumbled over a woman's legs to get to the last unoccupied seat.

The woman I stepped over was no wimp. She had the guts to complain. "You should get to the airport earlier!" she snapped at me.

"I was here early," I said weakly. "But then somehow I wasn't anymore."

After a lifetime of arguing over whether I really have to pack 24 hours in advance and set the alarm clock four hours ahead, I have learned one other fact about the early-airport people and the late-airport people. They always marry each other.

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An Embarrassing Moment

"At that moment, I wished the ground would open and swallow me up." You must have had moments like that. You say to a woman at a party, "Who is the ugly man over there?" and she replies, "He is my son." Or you sound your horn angrily at a motorist who has done something stupid, and when he turns to stare at you, you realize that it is your boss. No? You have never experienced a moment like that? Then you have been lucky. Unlike poor Arthur Bridge.

Wolfsburg in Germany is the home of Volkswagen. It is also where trainees from all over the world are sent to study chemistry in Dr. Schumann's Chemical Institute. Some years ago, the Libyan government asked a group of German companies to build a chemical plant at Abu Kammash. The German companies also agreed to train several hundred young Libyans. This is how, one year, Dr. Schumann's institute came to have a large group of Libyan trainees.

Arthur Bridge, a British chemical engineer, was asked to visit the Wolfsburg trainees to report on their progress. His visit was taken seriously not only by Dr. Schumann, but also by the companies who were building Abu Kammash. For Arthur's visit, there were six company representatives in Wolfsburg that day.

That evening, Arthur and Dr. Schumann and the representatives went into Hannover for dinner. Conversation was about the trainees and Abu Kammash. But, as the evening wore on, conversation became more and more difficult. Silence fell on the company. Authur, feeling that someone should try to keep the conversation going, turned to the man sitting next to him, a bald man with glasses that kept slipping down his nose. "The wine is excellent, but I admit that I know nothing about German wines. What do all these different labels mean?"

The man, equally keen to break the embarrassing silence, gave Arthur a detailed explanation of the different grades of German wine. Arthur nodded frequently, but, to tell the truth, his German was not very good (except when he was talking about his chemical engineering) and he understood very little. Anyway, it didn't matter, because the evening ended well. Everyone said goodnight, and Arthur went back to his hotel, able to relax at last.

He went back to his company, and thought no more about his German trip. The trainees stayed on in Wolfsburg, the plant in Abu Kammash was nearly completed. Months went by. One day, Arthur was asked to visit the trainees again. When he arrived at Dr. Schumann's institute, he vaguely remembered his first visit. The sooner this is over, the better, he thought.

That evening, he found himself in a restaurant in Hannover with Dr. Schumann and a number of company representatives, whose faces he could scarcely recognize. The evening dragged on. Once the usual topics -- training and Abu Kammash -- had been exhausted, conversation died. Arthur tried to find something else to talk about. He turned to the man sitting next to him and said: "This wine is excellent, but I admit that I know nothing about German wines. What do all these different labels mean?"

The man pushed his glasses back up on his nose. Spacing his words out as if he were speaking to an idiot, the man said to Arthur, "Mr. Bridge, -- you -- asked -- me -- exactly -- the same -- question -- nine -- months -- ago..."

Are you sure you have never had a moment like that?

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