The athletes of the ancient Olympic Games fought naked, just as the statues of the gods were naked, which were modeled like the bodies of the athletes. They were admired by everyone for their strength and boldness. Sometimes they died from the blows they received in fistfights. During chariot racing, it could happen that the chariots overturned in the curve and this led to the death of men and horses. The athletes preferred to risk their own lives to avoid the humiliation of defeat. As is still the case today, the dedication to training and the effort of competition have only one goal…Victory.
Kyle Shanahan, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers, walks to the middle of the field and shakes hands with Andy Reid, the coach of the Kansas City Chiefs. Fifty-seven cameras, 65,000 people in the stands, and 100 million people around the world eavesdrop.
Referee: Gentlemen, welcome to the Super Bowl. One thing I want to make clear before we start: The 49ers are going to win.
There’s a pause. Shanahan smiles.
Many of us will watch the opening ceremony of the XXXI Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro tonight. We will sit in front of the TV, and we will cheer for our team. Over the next two weeks, this nation will be truly united.
The last miles are always the hardest. That’s when we feel tired, our feet hurt and every muscle and every bone in our body aches and seems to scream STOP, but the race is not over, and we continue to run on autopilot. We pursue the race without thinking and at the end, right after the finish line, we sit or lay down and feel empty.
I was just a little girl, when I came home from school and heard that we had tickets for the Olympic Games in Munich. The year was 1972 and I was 9 years old. Germany was neighbor state, only a few hours away and all we were excited about the road trip.
My husband turns into Mr. Football every year in fall. Every Sunday he comes down, wearing his team’s football jersey –which I bought him in a moment of weakness- and he sits down at the breakfast table, with a big smile on his face. “Let’s look who they are playing today,” and he rubs his hands like a little boy in a candy store.