Why Two Runners, One From The U.S., One from New Zealand, Deserve A Gold Medal For Their Humanity

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“In the Olympic preoccupation with winners and losers, in the mania for counting medals, it is easy to forget what really constitutes triumph.”

I wrote that in 1992, as the first sentence in my story about British runner Derek Redmond’s “excruciating and exhilarating” demonstration of the human spirit as he staggered to a last-place finish with a torn hamstring in the Olympic 400-meter final.

Those words came back to me immediately as I saw and heard and read about what befell U.S. runner Abbey D’Agostino and New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin – and, more importantly, how they reacted to it – in a Tuesday morning heat of the 5,000-meter in Rio.

D’Agostino, like Redmond, will win no medal. USA Track & Field announced Wednesday that the serious knee injuries she sustained after a tangle with Hamblin will keep D’Agostino from running Friday’s final.

What D’Agostino has won is more important. She has gained the respect of the whole world because, at likely the saddest moment of her athletic career, she looked beyond herself.

And so did Hamblin.

Each deserves a gold medal for her humanity – and selfnessness that put a golden glow on humanity at large.

FOR MY WHOLE STORY ON TEAMUSA.ORG, CLICK HERE

For African-American Water Polo Goalie Ashleigh Johnson, The Medium Is The Message: Everyone Into The Pool

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Swimming gold medalist Simone Manuel is not the only African-American woman with a landmark achievement in a Rio Olympic pool.

Water polo goalie Ashleigh Johnson also has made history for black women in the water, whether she wins a medal or not – and her team has a perfect (4-0) record going into Wednesday afternoon’s Olympic semifinal against Hungary.

Manuel, 20, of suburban Houston, became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming gold medal. In her reaction to that moment of triumph in the 100-meter freestyle, she also won worldwide acclaim with an emotional and eloquent acknowledgement of those black swimmers who had inspired her and her desire to inspire others.

Johnson, 21, of far exurban Miami, is the first black woman to represent the United States in Olympic water polo.

She also hopes her presence will have an “if-you-can-see-it, you-can-be-it” effect in motivating other African-American kids to learn to swim, whether or not it leads them to compete in one of the sports.

FOR MY COMPLETE STORY ON TEAMUSA.ORG, CLICK HERE

For U.S. Swimmers, Team Effort Brought Stunning Success In An Individual Sport

Maya DiRado after her upset win over Hungary's Katinka Hosszu in the 200 backstroke.  DiRado had a full set of medal colors in individual events and a second gold in 4 x 200 free relay.

Maybe it came from the team’s group music video, “Carpool Karaoke,” which has drawn 4.6 million YouTube views in the first 12 days since going online.

Maybe it came from the cowbell ringing in the warm-up pool to salute each U.S. swimmer as he or she went to the ready room before a race.

Maybe it came from assistant coach Greg Meehan’s history-lesson-cum-motivational-ploy of having each of the women swimmers plant an American flag on grass near their building in the Olympic village, claiming the land for their own the way the 1862 Homestead Act had encouraged settlers to move West.

Maybe it came from the “ice-breaker games” Meehan, the Stanford women’s head coach, had the team play at their pre-Olympic training camps in the U.S. Those games were designed to last five minutes but sometimes turned into 45 minutes of belly-laugh bonding.

Maybe it came from the positive vibes created as swimmer after swimmer had stunning performances in practice at those camps in San Antonio and Atlanta.

Or maybe it was all those reasons, both intangible and real, that explain how 47 athletes in an individual sport created a team that utterly – and a bit surprisingly – dominated the eight days of Olympic swimming that ended Saturday.

FOR MY WHOLE STORY ON TEAMUSA.ORG, CLICK HERE

Why it is time for me to say, "Adeus, Rio"

With my friend and long-time colleague Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated at the Rio Aquatics Center.  The 2016 Olympics began and ended for me at that venue.

Life sometimes delivers important lessons at unexpected moments.

Mine came when I nearly fainted twice from heat and exhaustion while covering the swimming preliminaries on the first full day of the Rio Olympics.

It was a clear sign that the intense effort necessary to do this job the way I always have at a Summer Games would be too much for a body turning 70 years old next month.

Late nights (actually early mornings).  Minimal sleep.  Meals catch as catch can.  (Often coming up empty handed.)  Standing to wait for buses running on a once-an-hour schedule after midnight.  It took me only a couple more days to realize I no longer had the stamina for such a daily routine, no matter that I am – when properly rested – still able to do long, hard rides on a road bike.

My problem is having just one journalistic speed: all-out.  And despite my best intentions to put a governor on it, that didn’t work.

So my 18th Olympics is going to end after a week, at least as far as being a first-hand witness is concerned.  When I get back to Chicago, I will watch the way nearly everyone else does, via television, something I have not done since 1984, when a career move meant I missed the Los Angeles Summer Games.

Maybe it’s fitting that the last Olympic event I saw here was Michael Phelps’ overwhelming win in the 200-meter individual medley.  He has said this year and four years ago these were his last Olympics.  I said the same thing in 2012 and again this week.

Now there is a feeling Phelps may change his mind, with an eye on Tokyo in 2020.  Why not?  He is still young (31) in the big picture and clearly at the top of his game.

Me?  Much less likely, even though, at the risk of ego indulgence, I can say unabashedly my work remained at the same high standard I have demanded of myself in nearly a half-century as a journalist.

Having left the Chicago Tribune last fall, I jumped at a chance to cover this Olympics for the U.S. Olympic Committee’s web site, TeamUSA.org.  That also provided me the chance to catch up with longtime colleagues from other news organizations around the world.  Their camaraderie was always a primary reason why I loved the Olympics.

I cannot thank enough everyone on the USOC’s communications staff, especially Patrick Sandusky, Mark Jones and indefatigable web site editor Brandon Penny, for allowing me to be part of their team.

I leave Rio with a sense of relief and sadness.  I leave having spent my final day watching Simone Biles, Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps.  There could be no better way to say goodbye.