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  Swimming for Life

　by David Maule

    Some athletes have to beat more than their rivals on their way to success at the Olympics. Shelly Mann, the American swimmer, had to beat polio as well. The doctors recognized she had this terrible disease in 1945, when she was six years old. As the years went by, Shelly gradually lost the power to move her fingers and toes, her arms and her legs. In time, she could hardly move any part of her body.

    When she was ten, Shelly's family took her to a summer camp in Maryland. Many American children spend part of their summer holidays in camps like this. There are various activities to try, and usually these include a number of sports.

    This was a difficult situation for Shelly to be in. All the other children were getting involved in sports like tennis and golf, and she couldn't join in.

    However, there was one thing she could do. She tried the swimming pool. At first, she couldn't move very much, but she could at least be with the other children. Then, as the days went by, she found that with the water supporting her weight, she was able to move her arms and legs a little.

    Her mother encouraged her. "Lift your arms, Shelly. You can do it," she would say. Every day in the pool, Shelly worked to get the strength back into her body. It was hard and difficult work, but that didn't matter, because she could feel the improvement. Also, in the water, she felt more and more equal to other children. She couldn't move around as freely or as fast as they could, but she could move. That was important, and because of that swimming soon became the most important part of her life.

    And the amazing thing was that all the improvements she made when swimming were still there when she got out of the pool. She could walk better as well, and do many other things she had never been able to do before.

    Shelly continued to work hard, and her swimming improved steadily. At the age of twelve, she began competitive training in Washington D.C. She was taught all the strokes used in swimming races, and found she could master them very quickly.

    Shelly swam for an hour or more every day before and after school. "I love to swim, and I love to win, so I work hard without knowing it," she said happily.

    Swimming had done a lot for Shelly. It had given her a chance to fight back against the disease that had taken away the power of her body. And, as the years passed, she had changed from a girl with polio who could swim a little into a very good swimmer. Now she was able to beat many others of her own age. She knew that she had an ability to swim, which the polio had not been able to destroy.

    In the early 1950s, Shelly won the US National Championship for butterfly, backstroke, freestroke, and medley races. ("Freestroke" means that swimmers can use any stroke they like. Almost all use the fastest stroke, the front crawl.) Shelly was also part of a record-breaking relay team. Then, at the age of 17, came the great moment. Shelly was elected for the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne, Australia.

    "You have to have the desire and you have to practice. Those are the two most important things," she said, just before the Games began.

Her first event was the 100-meter freestyle. She qualified without any problem, but on the day of the race, Shelly didn't swim well. The gold was taken by Dawn Fraser of Australia, and Shelly didn't even get a bronze.

    In the 100-meter butterfly, Shelly stood waiting for the starter's signal. As the sound echoed around the pool, she dived into the water, her powerful butterfly stroke moving her quickly down the pool. This time, she felt better. As her arms came over her head, she almost seemed to fly over the water. She left the other swimmers behind. Her time of 1 minute 11 seconds was a new Olympic and world record.

    As Shelly received her medal, tears ran down her face. The girl who first learned to move her arms and legs again at a summer camp in Maryland had beaten the best in the world. She had reached out and touched the gold.
     

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Pain and Glory

    "Do you really think you can do it? Can America win gold?" asked the TV reporter from the Atlanta News, pushing a microphone towards Kerri Strug. The camera flashed.

    "This is the best women's gymnastics team we've ever had." said Kerri to a crowd of over a hundred reporters standing around her. "We're good enough to do it," she added, with a smile.

    Leaving the reporters behind her, Kerri went back to join her teammates as they left by bus for their final training session.

There were only a few days left until the start of the 1996 Atlantic Olympics, and pressure was growing for them to do well. For Kerri Strug it was to be the greatest occasion in her career as a gymnast.

    Kerri grew up in Tucson, Arizona, and first became interested in gymnastics because her older sister Lisa was active in the sport. Kerri said that she wanted to be just like Lisa. She entered her first competition at the age of eight.

    Four years later, she had her eyes fixed on the Olympics, but she needed a good coach. The best was Bela Karolyi, but his gym was in Houston, Texas ― several hundred kilometers away. Kerri moved to Houston. At Bela's gym she trained all day, almost every day.

    It was very hard work, and she had to live without many of the normal things that other teenagers enjoyed. Kerri couldn't even eat a pizza, because she had to keep to a strict diet. However, she didn't mind. "A gymnast's career is pretty short," she said when she was 14. "When I get through with this, I have the rest of my life to do all those other things."

    Kerri was selected for the Barcelona Olympics in 1992. She was the youngest US athlete at the Games. She performed well, and the women' s team won a bronze medal.

    After Barcelona, her life became more uncertain when Bela Karolyi said that he was leaving gymnastics. For the next three years, she moved from one gym to another, working under a series of coaches. But none of them could push her to the limits the way Bela could.

    Every time she moved, it meant a new family to stay with, and a new school. However, she kept working hard at both her studies and her gymnastics, and finished high school a full year early. This gave her time to prepare for the 1996 Olympics. Also, Bela Karolyi had decided to come back to the sport and she started working with him again. She practiced exercise after exercise, going through her routines on the bars, beam, floor, and vault until she knew them backwards. At the Olympic trials in Boston, in June 1996, she earned her place in the US team.

    "In a few days," Kerri said to herself, "it will be time to show the world what we can do"

    There was a huge roar of support from the home crowd when Kerri and the team walked out into the Georgia Dome for the first day's competition. The gymnastics began with the bars, before moving on to the beam event.

    "We're third, behind Russia and Romania," Bela said, as Kerri stepped out to perform her floor routine. The crowd loved Kerri's floor moves and she scored 9.825 ― enough to move America up into second place.

    The Americans had never beaten the Russians to an Olympics team gold medal. That night, Kerri wrote in her diary, "The team's all ready. Tomorrow we are going for the gold!" On the next and final day, after more bar and floor exercises, American was in the lead. The team was very excited. Only the vault ― Kerri's best event ― stood between them and a gold medal.

    The first two American girls were given only average marks for the vault. The floor exercises were going on at the same time and the Russians were producing their best performances so far. The crowd moved their eyes from one area to the other, trying to work out which team was going to win.

    Kerri watched as teammate Dominique Moceanu ran up for her first vault. Dominique was younger than Kerri, and was partly the reason why Bela had come back to coaching. He wanted to work with her. She took off and twisted through the air beautifully. As she landed, however, she suddenly fell.

    "Forget it, forget it!" ordered Bela. Nobody knew her abilities as a gymnast better than he did. But everyone could see the shocked look on Dominique's face. She ran in again for her second vault. Kerri could hardly bear to watch as Dominique fell again. This was a disaster. The crowd in the Dome held their breath as they realized that the Russians, who were still doing wonderful floor routines, were catching up.

    Now it was all up to Kerri. She was the last one to vault ― and this was due to a change of plan in the American camp. The reason was that in gymnastics, the later performers usually get higher score than the earlier ones. Judges keep their early scores low in case somebody comes on and does a wonderful performance. Because of this, coaches usually put their best gymnasts in the last positions. Now Kerri had to give her best performance.

    Kerri's position in the table of top gymnasts, based on many previous performances, would mean that she was one of the first in the team to perform. However, at the Atlanta Olympics, the US coaches changed this. They decided it would be fairer to base the positions only on the girls' performance at the recent Olympic Trials. This meant that Kerri went on last in both the floor exercises and the vault. She had done her floor exercises, and now the vault was ahead of her.

    She was going to perform the difficult "Yurchenko" vault.

    "You know you can do it," Kerri told herself as she began the run-in. Her teammates were depending on her. Kerri somersaulted on to the horse, pushed off, and twisted beautifully in mid-air. She began to open her arms for the landing position. But she had misjudged the distance to the floor mat.

    She hit the ground sooner than expected, and fell backward. Another fall! One fall in a vault event was almost unheard of for a team. Three in a row was unbelievable.

    As Kerri got up from the floor mat, a sharp pain shot through her left foot. "You can do it. Once more. You can do it, Kerri," she heard Bela saying. She fought to hold back the tears.

    As Kerri limped back to the run-up area, she knew her ankle was badly injured. She also knew that she should withdraw from the competition. But if she didn't make the second vault, and score well, her team would lose. That was the choice she was offered. It was a hard one, in a life of hard choices.

    Besides those in the stadium, millions of people watching on TV knew this was a special moment. They could see that she was in pain.

    They watched as she walked to the starting position and looked down the approach, and started to run. She was in pain with every step. She hit the board, twisted through the air, and millions held their breath. She launched, held her finishing position for long enough to show a clean vault, then fell to the floor.

    Despite the terrible pain, Kerri had scored a 9.712 ― enough for the US team to keep the lead.

    "You did it!" said Bela, smiling. He carried her in to the medal ceremony. Bela held her as she collected her gold medal and the crowd cheered on and on.

    In Barcelona in 1992, Kerri had narrowly failed to qualify for the All-Around competition, which can lead to an individual gold medal. In Los Angeles, she was through to the All-Around finals, but had to withdraw because of her ankle injury. Now, she realized that the moment when she vaulted with an injured ankle was worth more than any medal. It showed she had courage as well as ability. It was a great moment in the history of sport.

    Aside all the arguments about money, the politics and the small jealousies of competing nations, it showed what the Olympic Games, at their best, can be about. It had many of the qualities that the ancient Greeks were trying to encourage, all those centuries ago.

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Great Deeds in the Ring  

    When sport fans get together, they often talk about sports. If they're baseball fans, they might recall Babe Ruth and his 60 home runs in a season. Or they might talk about Hank Aaron and his huge total of home runs. Boxing fans also have a rich history to draw upon. The stories about boxing are many and interesting. The deeds of some boxers are still cause for wonder. Here are a few of the great records in boxing.

    Was there ever a professional fighter who didn't lose a fight? Rocky Marciano fought 49 times as a professional fighter and never lost! Rocky's record may be the best of all. Rocky often fought against men who weighed over 200 pounds. Yet he weigh only 184 pounds. Of his 49 bouts, he won 43 by knockout.

    Rocky was usually outweighed by 20 to 30 pounds. But there was a fighter who once faced an even greater weight difference. Bob Fitzsimmons weighed only 165 pounds. His opponent, Ed Dunkhorst, weighed 305 pounds, almost twice as much as Bob. Yet in the second round, the much lighter man knocked out the heavier man. During his fighting days, Fitzsimmons won the championship in three weight classes: the middleweight, the light-heavyweight, and the heavyweight. The middleweight class goes from 147 to 160 pounds. The light-heavyweight class covers from 161 to 175 pounds. The heavyweight class has fighters who weigh over 175 pounds. As you can see, Fitzsimmons fought opponents of many different sizes!

    Bob's three championships didn't come in one year. There was one fighter, however, who won three different championships within 12 months. On October 29, 1937, Henry Armstrong won the featherweight championship. He knocked out his opponent in the sixth round. Featherweights weigh between 118 to 127 pounds. Seven months later he won the welterweight title in a 15-pound victory over Barney Ross. Welter weights range from 136 to 147 pounds. Armstrong didn't knock Ross out. But the judges decided he had fought better than Ross. Less than three months later, Armstrong won the lightweight title from Lou Ambers. Lightweights range from 127 to 135 pounds. Armstrong was the first man to hold three world's championships at the same time.

    Besides weight differences, there have been great age differences between fighters. A most unusual fight took place between two former boxers. Walter Edgerton, 63 at the time, got into argument with John Henry Johnson, 45 at that time. Both men had retired from boxing. But they decided to fight it out. Someone offered money as a prize to the winner. It wasn't a great fight, but it had plenty of excitement. In the fourth round, "old" Walter Edgerton knocked out "middle-aged" Jon Henry Johnson.

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