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Spirit of gold
The runners sped up, heading for the top bend of the track and the home straight. What followed was one of my favourite memories.
It was the 2011 IPC World Athletics Championships and the world’s best Paralympic track and field athletes were in Christchurch for a week, competing to qualify for the London 2012 Paralympics. In front of the main stand a South African athlete was receiving a gold medal, while on the track behind one of their athletes was running third in a 1500 metres final.
Behind me a crowd of South African athletes and supporters broke into spontaneous song. They began for the medal ceremony, but as the racers hit the final straight in front of them it turned into a roar of support that carried on and on, so loud it could be heard outside the stadium on the opposite side.
It was one of those spine-tingling moments sport creates on rare occasions—a moment of pure, uncontainable joy and excitement. It also captured the feeling of those championships. Far from some pity party, pandering to the weak, the competition was an incredible procession of elite athletes performing elite feats. Along with a joy in simply competing that I haven’t seen anywhere else, they caught the best bit of sport—that moment when people overcome the odds to achieve.
In this case, competitors were competing for a spot on the biggest stage at the parallel Olympics. As a bit of a sports tragic, I love the Olympics (and the Paralympics even more). They’re an extravagant circus, complete with those stories of people overcoming.
At Rio, we could see a Kiwi version of that story, with swimmer Sophie Pascoe arguably set to cement her place as one of our greatest athletes. Pascoe was two when she was in a lawnmower accident that badly injured her right leg and meant her left leg had to be amputated below the knee. At 23 she already has 10 Paralympic swimming medals—double that of our best able-bodied athletes. If she races as expected in her five events she should match or pass our most decorated Paralympian, the pioneering Eve Rimmer.
Despite missing half a leg and a foot, Pascoe puts out race times just seconds behind New Zealand’s top able-bodied swimmers and around 10 seconds behind the able-bodied world record holders. I for one will be hooked to Duke TV’s Paralympics coverage to see her progress.
In the end, though, it will all be over in three weeks (or in Pascoe’s case less than 10 minutes of swimming). The founder of the modern games Baron Pierre de Coubertin, called the Olympics, ‘humanity’s superior religion’, and said, ‘have faith in it; pour out your strength for it, make its hope your own.’ But despite his lofty vision, what the games offer in return for athletes dedicating their life is a few seconds of fleeting glory.
There is much to be admired in and learnt from the dedicated training and focus of athletes like Pascoe, but we have the opportunity to dedicate ourselves to something much bigger.
The Salvation Army in this region is also known as the Army that brings life, something Jesus said he came to do—to bring life in all its fullness. As Christians we have been set free to the pure enjoyment of trying to live life in all its fullness and to bring life to others. And our training and focus has a permanent reward, bringing that life now and into the future.
by Robin Raymond (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 6 August 2016, pp 3
You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.