Sochi Olympics Day 4 - The heart of a champion

I was watching the women's luge and enjoying that I got to see all of the runs for each of the competitors when I saw something unusual. Sandwiched between 18 year old American Summer Britcher in 19th place and 21 year old Ekaterina Baturina from the Russian Federation in 21st place was 29 year old Austrian Nina Reithmayer. While Summer and Ekaterina both had the "just glad to be here" smiles on their faces after kind of shaky runs, Nina was visibly ticked off at herself after a run of 51.225 seconds (compared to 49.891 for leader, and later Gold medal winner Natalie Geisenberger of Germany). In the second run, both Summer and Ekaterina were noticeably faster, but Nina improved by only 0.082 seconds and was still firmly in 20th place and still upset. 

I googled Nina and found that she won the Silver medal in Vancouver! Okay, that could have been the peak of her career and she was just disappointed that she could not get back to the level she was at in 2010. Then I looked a little further and found that she tore her medial collateral ligament in a crash in Koenigssee, Germany on January 4th! Now I don't pretend to be a medical expert, but I believe that the normal treatment for a torn MCL is 6 weeks of rest followed by gradually building the strength back up - and she had 38 days.

With that in mind, I watched her final two runs closely. She finished 22nd in the 3rd run and 17th in the 4th to remain in 20th place overall. You could tell from the mistakes that she made that her mind knew what to do, but her leg was not strong enough to make the fine corrections needed while pulling five times normal gravity - and it was really frustrating her. Most people would have just said there is no way that I can be ready to do this. But most people are not Olympic medalists. In order to succeed at the highest level, you have to be absolutely focused on the goal - winning an Olympic medal. And that is what Nina had done - blocking out the pain of trying to rehab a knee in less time than needed as well as the doubts that she would be ready in time. She made it to the starting line against all odds, but she could not block out the fact that her knee was just not ready for the demands of driving a luge at 80mph.

It is a given that 90+% of Olympic athletes never win a medal. It may be hard for Nina, who has won a medal, to understand right now, but I really believe that the important thing about the Olympics is the journey and not the destination. She may find that what she learned about herself in terms of courage and perseverance during the last six weeks is worth far more than the Silver medal in her trophy case.