OLYMPICS Pursuing the ideal, not just medals

Two of the essences of the Olympics are the participants and their stories.
By MARK SAPPENFIELDandCHRISTA CASE
CHRISTIAN SCIENCE NEWS MONITOR
ATHENS AND CAMBRIDGE, MASS. -- If it were Einstein's theory of relativity or Newton's second law of motion, perhaps he could explain it fully. Indeed, just down the Charles River at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Steven Tucker was trained as a physicist.
But within the confines of force = mass x acceleration, there are no words to describe how it feels to accelerate -- to lean into your oars and nod forward toward the finish line. In the breadth of science, there are no formulas to explain why a physicist in his mid-30s would put aside a promising career to rise with the sun six days a week to participate in an event that will bring him neither fame nor money -- and perhaps not even a medal.
It is the pursuit of the Olympian, and like all things idealistic, it must have a certain illogic when gauged by the workaday world. Yes, there are the swimmers and gymnasts who stand to become national heroes, as well as sprinters who would seemingly inject their bodies with Jell-O if it would make them run faster. But they are not the marrow of these Games.
The true story of the Olympics is in the telling -- told in the letter from a Nebraska grandmother who pushes a wrestler to work harder this day than he did the last. Told in the schedule of a synchronized swimmer who, in hopes of mastering a gold-medal routine, practices 10 hours a day and sees her boyfriend only once a week. And it is told in Tucker's urge to touch the fringes of perfection with every stroke -- a Lycra-suited maestro measuring every beat with metronomic precision.
A grand lab experiment
Tucker's small stature and measured words bespeak a quiet thoughtfulness. His trip to the Olympics in the men's twos event is a work in progress. He has been once before -- in 2000 -- and he won't rule out a bid for Beijing in 2008. Tucker acknowledges that, at one point as he was trying to survive in a sport offering only meager financial incentives, he faced $40,000 in debt. Yet he remains unfazed. "It wasn't really interfering with my life ... but it was tricky," he says.
The path of an Olympian is rarely the path of least resistance. And wrestler Brad Vering, for one, doesn't think he could have made it to Athens if he didn't have the discipline to push back.
"I got that from my hometown," says the Nebraska farmer's son. "What you see is that people work hard to put food on the table. That work ethic carries on to wrestling." His days in Howells, Neb., started at 6:30 with feeding the horses before school.
Yet there is a part of Vering that wonders what he is doing, living in a tiny dorm room at the United States Olympic training facility in Colorado Springs, Colo., for weeks at a time. Competing on the global wrestling circuit makes it virtually impossible to get a job, yet promises only a small stipend. "I'm not asking for big bucks. I'm 26 and I'm just trying to get my life in order," says Vering by phone. "I've got my degree, and I can't use it. I'd like to get something going. I'd like to buy a house."
Then he recounts how some 400 people spontaneously showed up at his local high school for a send-off when they heard he was in town for the last time before the Olympics. He pins to his wall the two or three letters he gets a day -- mostly from complete strangers -- who tell him: "We're proud of you" and "You're in our prayers."
"Little things like that are what inspire me," Vering says.
Support without a 9-to-5 job
Inspiration can came from peculiar places. Gymnast Mohini Bhardwaj, deep in debt, held a raffle for herself. Synchronized swimmer Lauren McFall simply depends on her parents. With training from 6 a.m. to 5 p.m. six days a week, the hope of a job is a myth.
But now on the cusp of Athens, there's no question in her mind whether it has all been worth it. Success is not gold, silver, or bronze, she says. The judging in her sport is too subjective to allow dreams to take shape in metal. Rather, she says, it is companionship with her teammates -- "the most amazing young women you will meet in your life." It is also the challenge: "It's natural to improve and grow, but that's what I'm doing every day," she says. "It's such an education."
And above all, it is the opportunity for that one perfect moment when thrashing legs and aching arms dissolve into the sublime. "If we can all truly believe and have no fear and no doubt," says McFall. "We've already done the work."