Stories that help you get up at 4 am
3337
Member
1326 days
RV posted 3 years ago.
Wowzers...
RV
It takes a long time to get good. - Scott Molina
Slow is smooth; smooth is fast. - Rich Strauss
1040
Member
1310 days
Tikal Dog posted 3 years ago.
...... "That same year, Lakewood high standout Steve Genter emerged as one of the best freestyle swimmers in the world, and at Munich he broke the 200-meter free world record by 1 seconds and the 400 free by seven seconds. But he finished the 200 behind Mark Spitz, who was en route to his record haul of seven gold medals, and was third in the most controversial 400 freestyle in Olympic history.
What made Genter's performance even more remarkable is that he suffered a collapsed lung a week before the games began, and spent six days in a Munich hospital.
In the hospital, doctors inserted an arrow-like hollow needle into Genter's chest, so that air trapped outside the lungs could be excised. Typically, that process takes nearly a week, but Genter was nearly manic in his physical therapy and the cavity was cleared in less than a day. Doctors waited three days, however, to remove the needle, which they did without anesthesia, because Genter did not want anything in his body that might cause him to fail a drug test.
"They had four guys hold me down,' Genter recalls. The incision required 13 stitches. Genter stayed in the hospital for three more days and was actually scratched from his first event, the 4 x 100 freestyle relay.
The day he was released from the hospital, Genter went directly to the Olympic Pool, followed by four doctors, and went through a painful workout.
The next morning he qualified second in the 200 freestyle and found himself in the finals, in the lane next to Spitz. Spitz expressed concern about Genter swimming, but Steve wasn't listening.
"I told him there was one gold medal in the race, and I wanted it,' Genter relates. So did Spitz.
"I had beaten Mark in the U.S. championships by going into a sprint 90 meters into the race,' Genter said. "This time I started the sprint at 75 meters, but I couldn't sustain it. I saw that I couldn't beat Mark, so I concentrated on getting second.'
Genter's next race was the 2 x 200 freestyle relay, and the Americans trailed when Genter dove into the water on the third leg. Genter swam a spectacular leg and gave Spitz a big lead on the last leg. "We broke the world record by about 10 seconds,' Genter said. And now the Lakewood star had a gold and silver medal, prompting a friend to predict that he would collect a bronze in the 400 freestyle. "He knew more about me than I did,' Genter says.
Genter did get his bronze in the 400 freestyle, in a race won by American Rick Demont, who was later stripped of the medal when traces of ephedrine, a banned substance, were found in a urine test. Demont, who had asthma, had been given a banned medication by team doctors.
When Demont was disqualified, Australia's Brad Cooper was given the gold, and the silver medal, with Cooper's name scratched out, was given to Genter. Genter was outraged at Demont's disqualification and refused to accept the silver.
"They mailed it to my father's address,' Genter says, "But I told him I never wanted to see the medal.'
After the Olympics, Genter traveled and then completed his education at UCLA. In 1974, he moved to Switzerland, where he has lived since.
Professionally, he works in an information technology group at a company outside Zurich. He is married and has five children and the entire family is now involved in the sport of water polo."
Information taken from:
http://www.noww.nl/lofiversion/index.php?t415.html
Hyperactive Trifueler!!!! (I refuse to let the status go :p)
I am looking for any inspirational stories to use in training and racing triathlons.
This story below makes that pre-dawn wake up much easier to take - its an excerpt from the book Friday Night Lights. The coach of the high school football team tells the team a story about Steve Genter. . .
"The night before the game at the private team meeting behind locked doors, Gaines told the story of a swimmer named Steve Genter, who had been set to go to the Munich Olympics in 1972 in the two hundred meter freestyle when his lung collapsed. He was cut open to repair the lung and then sewn back up. Doctors said there was no way Genter could swim unless he took painkillers, the use of which was illegal under Olympic rules. But Genter, who had dreamed of going to the Olympics since the age of nine, decided to swim anyway – without medication.
His face was ashen-white because the pain was so excruciating. He hits the water, he makes the first lap, does a spin turn at the other end and pushes off, and comes up for air and lets out a blood-curdling scream. Because the pain is so intense, the sound just echoes off the walls of the swimming arena. He makes a split turn at the end of the second lap, pushes off, and he breaks his stitches, his stitches split apart and he starts bleeding. They said he lost a pint and a half of blood over the course of the next two laps.
Genter ended up losing the gold medal to Mark Spitz by the length of a finger. "