
The suddenness of it all when you touch the wall. Did I win Gold? Did I win a medal? What was my time? Who won?
You feel this for the Olympic swimmers as they finish their races which are the crescendo moments of their young lives.
It’s all so raw. The emotions, the honest facial expressions, the tears of joy, relief, and sadness and not knowing how to feel. Right there in front of us, race after race. Tears get loose in post-race press conferences. We saw Katie Ledecky and Adam Peaty let go. It’s all so much, emotionally, swimming, and all it entails.
“I’m not going to lie to you, I wish I had won Gold,” said Bobby Finke after winning the Silver in the eight-hundred-meter freestyle after winning Gold in the same event in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
Emotions gush forth. You don’t see this every day at work. You don’t see it much at all, actually. You tend to only see it at seminal events like Olympic swimming and weddings and graduations when massive preparation meets major tests under extreme pressure with stakes sky high.
Swimmers open their mouths after races. They stare at the scoreboard. Exhaustion floods the pool. They grab the lane ropes, sometimes, deep in thought.
I’ll never forget what Michael Phelps said after winning his last 400-meter individual medley. It was the hardest race he had ever been in and would never do it again, he said. Think about that: the greatest swimmer ever opening up about how painful a swimming race felt. So well conditioned beyond belief yet still not immune to the agony of swimming super fast.
I think now about all the fourth-place finishers who came less than one second from winning a medal but will go home without one. We love all of you. We are as proud of you as the medal winners. Believe us because it’s the truth.
Fourth is tantalizingly tough to deal with. And yet there are others who didn’t make the race of the final eight, out-touched in the semi-finals by others. Their Olympic dreams of winning Gold gone before the final race. They went to Paris expecting to swim several races yet weren’t invited to all of them.
So many hopes. So many disappointments. Such a meritocracy. So much wondering what could have been done differently to touch that wall in the top three.
I have more thoughts about Bobby Finke. Hey, Bobby, I know you wanted to win Gold and I’m sure you did all you could in that race last night to get it. Not a scintilla of doubt in my mind about that.
I’ve seen you swim before. You epitomize toughness. If there was ever a remake of the movie “True Grit,” the story would be about your life as a long-distance swimming sensation and you would play yourself.
Trust me, as far as I’m concerned you don’t have to win another Gold for me to always think of you as an inspirational American hero worthy of the utmost respect. You swim the long races that require the most pain tolerance. You know what grueling feels like and spend inordinate amounts of time in that state.
You know what it feels like to hurt so much you can’t stand it – yet you still keep going.
Go for Gold in the 1500 freestyle in Paris. You no doubt will. Watching you swim is what all Americans need to do – yes all of them. You show us what doing something that hurts is all about, to prepare yourself to achieve greatness.
In life, nothing worth attaining comes without sacrifice and suffering.
You showed us that, Bobby.
And we will always be grateful and tougher because of it.
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