Over the past few days, I've been musing on age, the passing of the years, Time's wingèd chariot, and all that. But enough about missing deadlines and depressing conversations about years of birth; I'm talking about athletes on their (literal and metaphorical) last legs. In amongst the stellar performances from teenage wunderkinds in the pool, and the sharing of gold and silver men's 400m medals between two competitors with a combined age a year younger than the GB football team captain, there have been several examples of medals won at the other end of athletes' careers: Beth Tweddle (who, according to Louis Smith, is 'getting on a bit' at the age of 27) taking bronze on the asymmetric bars; Vicky Pendleton ending her career with two medals on the track, the last of which -- in the last race of her career -- was a silver behind the Australian 'cow'; and Nick Skelton leading the GB show jumping team to gold at the age of 54. As Skelton admitted, he hadn't been particularly successful in his Olympic career, stretching back 20 years:
'I've waited a long time, been to a lot of Games, made a lot of mistakes, but you couldn't do it in a better place than London. This has to be my greatest moment. [...] I said to the guys we needed to go out there and win it. I've waited 54 years for this, so you can certainly say it was a long time coming. I've had a few misses in my time, but finally we got there.'
This, for me, is what the Olympics is all about: training, and waiting, and sacrificing, for a lifetime -- whether it's 27 years, or double that -- in order to be the absolute best. This is why these athletes keep going: not for the love of the sport, although that has to be a factor; not for the rush of competition, although again that particular shot of adrenaline probably helps; but because they truly believe they have the ability to be the best.
Over at The Golden Latrine, there's a really interesting piece on what silver and bronze medals mean to those who miss out on gold. While I have to agree, however, that silver and bronze are 'a reward for exceptional performance, a reminder that you are among the best in the world at what you do', I can't help but feel that what makes an Olympian is the existence of a real belief in one's ability to remove that 'among' -- this is why Skelton, Tweddle, Pendleton, et al keep going.
In the end, the last word must go to (Sir? surely) Bradley Wiggins:
'Once you have been an Olympic champion, you don’t talk about the other medals. If asked, I will normally say "I won three golds" because that’s the only colour that matters.'
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