Categories: just-life
Date: 27 July 2012 20:12:19
In case you haven't noticed, the circus has come to town. And you know what?? I'm looking forward to it, helped by the fact that I have some tickets to events and that I just love getting to watch the sports I like rather than the boring football that's normally being shown.
One of my earliest Olympic memories was in the 1992 Barcelona when Chris Boardman won the individual pursuit, not just by being faster than the other guy, but by being so much faster that he actually caught up and overtook the other guy!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3VVVHk5_xM
However, the moment that really sticks in my mind comes four years later in the women's team gymnastics with the US team trying to win gold on home soil and beat the Russians. With two gymnasts left they only need one of them to land on their final apparatus, the vault. Their penultimate vaulter, Dominique Moceanu, fell on both landings leaving it to Kerri Strug. On her first vault she too fell. Fell and injured her ankle. Fell, injured and with the US team still requiring one more vault, and a good vault, to win gold. What must of been going through her mind as she lined up at the end of the run-up...?? Knowing that to win gold she was going to have to do something injured that she had failed to do moments ago whilst not.
And you know what... she landed it. Hurt herself worse and had to be carried off, but when it mattered, when all was against her, she landed the toughest vault of her life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFn47a_Ny0Y
What moments will there be from 2012...??