Makes and Misses

MAKES &

MISSES

By Adelina San Miguel

After a year of uncertainty, the Olympic Trials are beginning.

In the next two weeks, track and field athletes will travel from all corners of the country to Eugene, Oregon, to prove themselves worthy of representing the United States of America on the greatest stage in world athletics. They have trained, sacrificed, fallen, risen, persisted for years, five at least, to compete for the privilege. In the pole vault, forty-eight men and women will compete for six spots on the team. No matter the outcome, they will have achieved personal victory.

There are those who do not understand sport, who think the mind can only be developed through academic endeavor. Yet the elite athlete has stretched their consciousness into believing and their body into achieving its greatest capacity. All things are created twice. We first imagine what we want, then we bring it into physical reality. The vaulter conceives of the possibility of being an Olympian, envisions it, then puts in the weight lifting, sprint work, drills, and jumps to challenge what is personally attainable.

Athletes set themselves up to not back down. In competition, adrenaline courses through them and they tremble with nerves and anticipation. Some get sick on the sidelines. Confidence falters. They run and jump anyway because they are in pursuit of the answer to this question:

What is my potential?

In a quest for excellence, they have the courage to seek the answer. By harnessing energy and focusing it over time, they overcome self-doubt, and quell the ego who likes to tell us we are not enough.

They decide to be mentally and physically coachable to become more than they are in the moment.

Along the way, pole vaulters learn to cheer for their rivals, understanding that competition is not about crushing another, but about rising to the next level yourself. In the absence of rivalry and contest, we can grow indifferent, complacent.

Vaulters have trained for roughly the last 1,825 days to perform a bar-clearing jump that takes six seconds to execute. The Olympics are on the line as are potential sponsorships; but these take second place to the athlete’s inner knowing that they showed up every day for themselves to defy the limits of their abilities.

To every athlete who just missed out on the opportunity to compete at the Trials, we acknowledge you. Your valiant undertaking inspired others to seek personal bests in their individual journeys.

For those who will take the runway in Eugene this week and next, may the winds be in your favor; may you appreciate your own accomplishment; may you feel rewarded by the satisfaction that make or miss, giving your all is enough.

We will be thrilled for every person who gains an Olympic perch and awed by everyone who came up against themselves and put life on hold to pursue the thing that many of us avoid: our fullest potential.

Wherever you are right now, whatever your obligations and occupations are, be an Olympic hopeful. Come face-to-face with your weaknesses and do what you must to convert them to strengths. Try. This is your invitation to live the Olympic motto in everything you do: Citius, altius, fortius: swifter, higher, stronger.

Just, do it.