The Olympic arena is the best summer class. Here are three real Olympic stories reported by the media —
(Photo from Xinhua News Agency)
In 2000, in the men's 100m freestyle preliminaries, one of the group qualifiers consisted of only three participants, two of whom were eliminated for getting up early and the last player left was Erik Musambani from Equatorial Guinea. In Equatorial Guinea, the entire country has only one relatively standard swimming pool. In such a difficult environment, he learned to swim. During the race, when he finished the 100-meter freestyle in more than one minute and twenty seconds, all the spectators in the arena stood up and applauded him. It turned out that Musambani was invited to participate in the competition by an Olympic program whose original sponsor, Samaranch, intended to sow the seeds of the sport to the world.
At the 2004 Athens Olympics, 21-year-old Oscar Figueroa was full of spirits, and although he only finished fifth, people are still full of imagination about his future. At the 2008 Beijing Olympics, he failed three times due to an uneven left and right hand due to a cervical spine injury, and after the game, he risked paralysis and underwent surgery; four years later, he stood on the stage of the London Olympic Games again, but fate stopped him in front of the gold medal; he threw himself into the Rio 2016 Olympic Games without stopping, and fate played tricks on him again - he had to have surgery again due to a back injury... Surgery, recovery, preparation, and tremendous pressure, the "veteran" finally stood on the Olympic gold medal podium. He once said himself: "No matter how much suffering I have experienced, I have never thought of giving up." "His persistence has triumphed over years, triumphed over injuries, and even triumphed over talent.
In the women's gymnastics qualifiers that just ended on July 25, there was a 46-year-old competitor, who was a gymnast from Uzbekistan, Khusovykina. In order to raise medical expenses for her son, but also for the love of gymnastics, this is already her eight-time Olympic campaign, known as the "gymnastics living fossil". Although she did not make it to the final this time, when she completed the final jump, there was a warm applause from the audience, and many other countries also greeted her. She is a great mom and a great gymnast. This greatness is not in how many gold medals she has, but in the sportsmanship and competitive spirit she represents, which inspires generations of athletes.
In the Olympic arena, victory is very important, and why to fight is also very important: to see the bigger world, to meet a stronger self, to make love live forever... It is this Olympic spirit that leads mankind to faster, higher, stronger and more united!
Text/Guangzhou Daily commentator Liu Ranran
Guangzhou Daily Xinhuacheng All-media editor Hu Jun