There's an excellent story series on Espn.com that I wanted to share. It chronicles the efforts of Kathryn Bertine, a former ice skater and professional triathlete, as she tries to make it to the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. The catch is that she's not an an Olympic caliber athlete in any official Olympic sport (not yet, anyway), so she's trying out in just about any sport that will let her. She seems quite determined to make it too. Here's more from the intro -
Quote:
Maybe you can identify with this. Some ESPN.com editors were sitting around watching the two-man luge event during the 2006 Winter Olympics. "Hey, I could do that," one of us said. "Anybody halfway athletic could do that." At that moment, an idea was born: What would happen if a better-than-average-but-not-great athlete, who also happened to be able to write, tried to make the U.S. Olympic team in the Summer Games' equivalent of the two-man luge?
So, we posed the idea to Kathryn Bertine, a former ice skater, professional triathlete and accomplished author. Bertine, who was struggling along on a four-figure annual income from her triathlon competitions, happily agreed to donate the next two years of her life to pursuing a longtime dream, a dream shared by tens of thousands of Americans trapped in the everyday demands of their lives. You know, little obstacles like jobs, kids, lack of talent.
|
The first article is
here and the latest article is
here. Enjoy!