This is my personal reflection on what i have learnt from this project. Through this project, i learnt that olympians and athletes worked really hard to pursue their dreams. I feel that they are awesome as they teach people never to give up even though you have failed in doing something. I feel that their execllence and hard work that they put in can touch people. There are many other Olympians and athletes that are respected by people. These are the few we chosen that we think can represent the values of excellence, friendship and respected by all. I feel that every athlete shown excellence as they tried doing their best to win a gold, sliver and bronze medal for the glory of their country. Even if they lose to their opponent, they will still go up to them and congrats them as they are much better then him or her. Thus, I think that we should all learn from these athletes as they shown friendship through this. Therefore, i hope everyone learnt something through this CME project. [ 177 words ]Labels: Lin Shan's Reflection [ Individual ]
{{ 3/31/2009 03:28:00 PM -
This is my overall reflection for this project and I learnt a lot from this project. Olympics is a important day to all the people who love sports and it affect each and every country. Every country will send their athletics to a particular country to take part in the sports. In this project, I get to know more about some of the athletics and who people should learn from them, it could be because of their excellence or about their teamwork. I hope that the rest of you who view this blog will learn from this blog. Even though this is the only post I have wrriten for this blog, I still thank my team members for doing a good job in maintaining this blog.
Labels: Evelyn's reflection
{{ 3/30/2009 06:02:00 PM -
Amy Van Dyken is one amazing olympian who got 4 gold medals in an olympian match which is very difficult for one to score and achieving these many medals. Proving all her efforts worthwhile, by getting gold medals causing us to respect her in her excellence sportsmanship. These amazing records sure made one be awe with her.
Labels: Sharon's relection Amy Van Dyken
{{ 3/27/2009 09:42:00 PM -
Thursday, March 26, 2009;
Carly Patterson is an amazing gymnaist who is sure well deserving of our respect earning 2 gold olympic medals which is a difficult attainable task unless ones put in all their effort as it is a worldwide challenge for all sports taker which have been held for the peoples who are strong and good in sports proving themselves and not only them but also the disabled people. Labels: Benita's reflection Carly Patterson
{{ 3/26/2009 10:54:00 PM -
Wednesday, March 25, 2009;
Labels: Velvina's reflection Michael Phelps
{{ 3/25/2009 10:06:00 PM -
Vonetta Flowers was an execllent car racer. She is very determined to work towards her goal and even though she was injured she still never gave up. Thus, she is a respected figure and everyone should learn from her. She also won many medals during the Olympics games. Besides being a racer, she was also a bobsledder. She also showed perservance through her hard works to pursue her dreams.Labels: Lin Shan's reflection Vonetta Flowers
{{ 3/24/2009 03:38:00 PM -
Scott Hamilton is a well known figure skater who has won many countless Olympic medals not forgetting those medals are gold which represents his high status in the Olympian field. His ice skating has won him four consecutive U.S. championships (1981-1984), four consecutive World Championships (1981-1984) and the 1984 Olympics which is considerably impressive in consecutive years. An excellence and respectable ice skater.
Labels: Evelyn's reflection Scott Hamilton
{{ 3/23/2009 10:42:00 PM -
Twenty-eight Vonetta Flowers year old grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Birmingham and through Track, went on to become a seven-time All-American at the University of Alabama in Birmingham.
Her future was expected to be as a medallist in the Summer Olympics, but in the Olympic trials of both 1996 and 2000, injuries limited her effectiveness and she failed to make the team either year. So, as a lark, Vonetta Flowers answered an ad placed from the U.S. Olympic Committee to try out for women's bobsled -- and she blew away the field! It didn't take long for Vonetta to have an impact on the U.S. bobsleigh program. She started racing in the fall of 2000 as the pusher for veteran Bonny Warner after a standout collegiate track career at the University of Alabama. The Warner-Flowers pair finished in the top 10 in all seven World Cup races in 2000-2001 and closed the season with four straight top-three finishes. The pair placed second at the World Cup races on the Olympic track in Park City in February and earned a third-place finish in the overall standings. Flowers finished eighth with Warner at the 2001 World Championships in Calgary, Alberta. "I always thought God had planned for me to win a medal, but I never dreamed it would be the winter games," said Vonetta Flowers, a committed Christian who is very open about her faith and how it has sustained her. "It shows you never know what God has in mind. This is beyond anything I could have ever imagined."
An excellence and respectable car racer.
Labels: Vonetta Flowers
{{ 3/23/2009 10:31:00 PM -
In one of the greatest Olympic performances by an American woman, Amy Van Dyken won four gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Van Dyken, whose victories came in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, 4x100 free relay and 4x100 medley relay, is the only American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics.
Amy van Dyken doesn't exactly bring to mind the grace of past swimming champions like Summer Sanders or Janet Evans. Before her races, she spits, growls, stares, and splashes. She freely admits that she's out to scare her opponents, to beat them mentally before leaving them to flounder in her wake. Ask her to describe herself and she'll use words like mean and stubborn. She's had to be, to overcome childhood asthma and early struggles in the sport. "People told me when I was growing up, 'Oh Amy, you can't do that.' So I went out there and showed them I can." This despite breathing difficulties that limit her to about 65% of normal lung capacity.Among U.S. female Olympians, speed skater Bonnie Blair has the most gold medals ever with five. Only Janet Evans, Pat McCormick and Evelyn Ashford have as many gold medals as van Dyken -four- in a career. But Evans and McCormick needed to games each to reach that total, and Ashford did it over three. Before van Dyken, no American woman had ever won four golds in a single games.After she won her fourth and final gold in Friday's 50 meter freestyle, van Dyken said that her victory was for "all the nerds out there." As a freckle-faced teenager, she had already attained her current height of 5' 11", but was not vet a gold medal caliber swimmer. In fact, several of her high school teammates refused to swim with her on relays, "because I was so bad." She said before the games that one of the highlights of her current success is running into thosed ex-teammates at the local mall and saying "So, I'm swimming in five events at the Olympics. What are you up to?"By the end of her high school career, van Dyken had improved enough to earn attention as a potential star swimmer at the NCAA level. She enjoyed early success at the University of Arizona, but a sever case of Mononucleosis led her to quit the sport for a time in the summer of 1993. "I was sick all the time," she said. "I couldn't swim, and my training was terrible I decided, 'this is too hard.'" After a few months, her health improved, and her desire to compete returned. "I took the summer off and realized I loved the sport. And how much I missed it. Andhow greasy my hair got when I wasn't in the pool twice a day."After a 1994 transfer from Arizona to Colorado State, van Dyken was named female NCAA swimmer of the year. She also joined the U.S. National Resident Team in Colorado Springs, trained under celebrated coach Jonty Skinner. Teammates included Mark Henderson and Tripp Schwenk, both medalists in Atlanta. During 1995, she enjoyed major tournament victories in the 50 M freestyle and the 100 M butterfly, her two gold medal events in Atlanta.Somerwhere along the way, she also began to look for ways to psyche out her opponents; hence, the claps, the growls, spitting, and stares that have become a key part in the van Dyken pre-race ritual. "I stare down every competitor that I have who I know is a threat. In Atlanta, that included Le Jingyi, the 50 M world record holder who was van Dyken's chief rival in that race. "She was a threat because she was seeded ahead of me, and she was tough in the 100." But it was van Dyken's speed, not her stares, that gave her the victory in the American record time of 24.87, a hair thin .03 faster than Le.Van Dyken also helped power the U.S. relay teams to victory in the 4x100 M freestyle and the 4x100 meter medley relay. "It is always better to win with a relay than it probably is by yourself," she said after swimming the fastest split in the freestyle relay as 53.9 seconds. For her teammates, van Dyken provides a lot more than fast swims; she's one of the loudest voices cheering on the other swimmers, and at age 23 is one of the veterans on a team that includes teenagers like Amanda Beard, Beth Botsford, and Brooke Bennett.Few pointed to van Dyken as the U.S. swimmer to watch before the opening of the games. Evans was seeking her record tying fifthe gold medal, and fresh faces Beard and Bennett were considered strong medal contenders as well. The Englewood, Colorado native was expected to challenge in the freestyle events, but was not favored in against the strong Chinese sprinters lead by Le Jingyi. In her first race of the games, the 100 M freestyle, van Dyken finished just off the medal stand in fourth place, then collapsed with leg cramps and breathing difficulties on the pool deck. "I was kind of embarrassed about it," she told NBC's Bob Costas six days and four gold medals later. "Your camera was right there."That sort of humor has endeared van Dyken to journalists, one of whom called her "the interview of the year" following her last post victory press conference. After her string of Olympic wins, she'll get to meet more media types; when asked about how her life would change, Amy replied, "I do know that I get to go on a couple of TV shows, which is awesome. I'll have to learn how to do my hair and my makeup."Following the games, van Dyken hopes to join Evans as an ambassador for swimming, "to get people to watch it more than once a week every four years." Eventually, she might start a career in teaching; it's not hard to see awkward high schoolers welcoming her as one of their own who made good. "For all the kids out there who are struggling, and to their peers who say they're terrible, I hope I am an inspiration to them. If they love it and just keep plugging away at it, something good will come out of it."
She has shown her excellence by excelling.
Labels: Amy Van Dyken
{{ 3/23/2009 10:17:00 PM -
Carly Patterson was at a birthday party at a gymnastics club in 1994 when a coach noticed her doing cartwheels and roundoffs and told her mother that she should start taking lessons, which she joinedc soon after.
Her Pre-Olympic career started in 2000, Patterson participated in the Top Gym Tournament in Belgium; she won the silver medal in all-around and the bronze medal for balance beam, which she has said is her favorite event. At the 2001 American Team Cup, she first performed her signature beam dismount, an Arabian double front.At the 2001 Goodwill Games in Brisbane, Australia, she was ranked second in the all-around before the final rotation. She was suffering from a stomach illness, however, and she missed three landings on the floor exercise and finished seventh overall.Patterson was named the U.S. Junior National All-Around champion in 2002. She had previously received fourth place in 2000 and third place in 2001. At the 2003 World Gymnastics Championships in Anaheim, California, she earned the all-around silver medal—the first time an American woman had won an all-around medal at that contest since 1994. She also helped her team to earn the team gold medal.In 2004, she tied with Courtney Kupets to become a co-champion in the all-around event at the U.S. Gymnastics Championships.2004 Summer Olympics:During the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Patterson won a gold medal in the Women's Individual All-Around, an achievement that had only been attained by one other American gymnast, Mary Lou Retton, during the Soviet Union-boycotted 1984 Summer Olympics. In addition, she won a silver medal in the Women's Team competition.On August 23, she competed in the finals for the beam event where she received a score of 9.775 and won the silver medal.To 2004 Olympic Games she was prepared by her two Russian coaches: the famous Soviet acrobat Evgeny Marchenko, who immigrated to the United States from Latvia after the Collapse of the Soviet Union, and Natalya Boyarskaya.After Athens:Carly Patterson has made numerous guest appearances and has done the talk show circuit since winning gold. For the time being, she's returned to an almost-normal life in Allen, TX. It is not yet known whether she plans to participate in the 2008 Olympic Games; as her coach said in a recent TV interview, "It's hard to top an All-Around Gold." Carly has stayed busy showing up at certain events, Gymnastics related and otherwise. She has also been busy dealing with her sponsors: Wheaties, Tyson Chicken, Visa, and the American Dental Association. She also has finished her authorized biography which will be released on November 30, 2005.She proved her worth and respect.
Labels: Carly Patterson
{{ 3/23/2009 10:14:00 PM -
Thursday, March 19, 2009;
He led the Lakers to five NBA championships (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988), as well as four other NBA Finals appearances. He also led Michigan State University to the NCAA title in 1979 against arch-rival Larry Bird's Indiana State University. Johnson is also the only NBA rookie to win the NBA Finals MVP Award. He is one of only four players to win NCAA and NBA championships in consecutive years.Johnson earned the nickname "Magic" at Everett High School in Lansing from a local sports writer, both for his flamboyant passing style and winning ways. In different periods of his career, he led the league in assists and steals. He led the Lakers in scoring three times (1987, 1989, 1990) and in rebounding twice (1982, 1983). Although he and Bird eventually became the best of friends off the court, they revived the heated Lakers-Celtics Rivalry and drew millions of new fans to the NBA.The greatest game of Johnson's career arguably came in his rookie season: May 16, 1980, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals at Philadelphia. Filling in for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic started the game at center and eventually played every position on the floor in a dominating performance. Scoring a game-high 42 points and grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds, he led the Lakers to the NBA crown, stunning Julius Erving, the Philadelphia 76ers, and a national television audience who came to understand the moniker "Magic". Johnson went on to lead the Lakers to championships in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988.Johnson possessed stellar point guard talent. His unselfish playmaking and dazzling no-look passes on the fast break ushered in the "Showtime" era of Laker basketball, which dominated the eighties. He is widely considered to be one of the most exciting playmakers in the history of the NBA, maybe the best of all time. At 6' 9", a size normally reserved for power forwards, Johnson was easily one of the largest point guards ever to play at the NBA level. He revolutionized the concept of the "oversized point guard", able to post up and outmuscle his much smaller opposition. His stature, paired with his talent, let him play virtually every position from center to point guard.Statistically, Johnson was probably the greatest offensive producer ever. Assuming every assist creates 2 points, he created 54.85 points per 48 minutes, compared to Michael Jordan's 50.98 or Wilt Chamberlain's 40.82.Outside of basketball, Johnson is probably most well known for his announcement on November 7, 1991, that he had HIV and he would retire immediately from the game of basketball after twelve years with the Lakers. Johnson's announcement shocked the nation and increased awareness of AIDS.Johnson produced another book called What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS. Money from the book was donated to the Magic Johnson Foundation for the prevention, education,and research to fight AIDS.His post-basketball business ventures include Magic Johnson Theatres, a nationwide chain of movie theaters whose complexes are primarily in urban locations. The chain is now a part of Loews Theatres, but is operated as a separate entity. More recently, his interests have expanded from a shortlived 1998 talk show "The Magic Hour", to ownership of several Starbucks franchises, again primarily in urban locations. Johnson is believed to have earned significantly more money from post-basketball ventures than from his playing days and endorsement deals.An ExCELLENT sportsman....Labels: Magic Johnson
{{ 3/19/2009 09:49:00 PM -
The Olympic gold medalist we know as Stacy Dragila was born Stacy Mikaelson on March 25, 1971. Her parents, Bill and Irma, already had a 20-month-old named Eric. The Mikaelsens were a hard-working, middle-class family. They lived in Auburn, California, a rural town northwest of Sacramento. Bill worked as a meat cutter, while Irma stayed at home to look after their children. Stacy’s parents raised their kids to appreciate the simpler things in life. Spare time was never spent indoors watching TV or playing video games. The kids were adventurous and focused just like their mom and dad. The Mikaelsens took family vacations on a small Idaho ranch owned by Stacy’s grandfather. The kids pulled their weight by feeding, exercising and washing the horses, pigs, goats and chickens. The freedom of ranching life helped make Stacy a fearless child. She thought she was invincible, and challenged her brother to everything from mud fights to races on horseback. When Eric began entering rodeos, Stacy naturally followed. She would do anything to prove she was his equal. Stacy’s first love was actually gymnastics. She had great body control and a keen sense of balance. When she developed childhood asthma, however, she had to give up the sport. Looking for a replacement, she began focusing more on rodeo. Stacy’s best events were goat tying, breakaway roping and team roping. She was also known to take a turn or two on the mechanical bull at the county fair. As she got older, Stacy was drawn to other sports. A good all-around athlete, she mopped up on field day in elementary school. When Stacy entered Placer High School in Auburn, she joined the volleyball and track teams. She was a solid sprinter, hurdler and long jumper. Placer’s wrestling coach doubled as the school’s track coach, so Stacy did not get much insight into technique. This frustrated her, for she knew much of her potential was going untapped. That changed when she met John Orognen, the track coach at nearby Yuba Community College. Orognen was impressed by the 16-year-old’s strength and stamina. He volunteered to teach her proper technique, and turned her into a winning hurdler. She reached the state finals in the 300 meters in her junior and senior years, and placed second in the 400 meters at the Golden West Invitational as a senior. Stacy got it in her head that she was a choke artist. Rather than reaching down and finding something extra in pressure situations, she seemed to lose a step. This really bugged her. Her only ticket to a good college would be a track scholarship, because her parents couldn’t afford tuition to a four-year institution. Stacy knew college track coaches looked for W’s when they scanned a runner’s results, and in this department she was lacking. When Stacy graduated from Placer in the spring of 1990, she believed the future was pretty much mapped out for her. A good student and member of the 4-H Club and Future Farmers of America, she assumed she would take courses at a community college, find a job, get married and raise a family. Stacy started on this path by enrolling at Yuba. The school’s campus in Marysville was an easy drive from her parents’ home. There the freshman was re-united with Orognen. Initially, Orognen assumed Stacy would concentrate on the 400-meter hurdles. But after noticing her tremendous versatility, he prodded her into trying the heptathlon. She quickly took to the event. The two spent long hours together training. Stacy developed great trust in Orognen’s judgment, and they became close friends. She intensified her workouts as she entered her second year at Yuba, but was derailed when Orognen’s health began to fail. Doctors first diagnosed him with jaundice. Further tests revealed lung cancer; he had less than a year to live. Stacy visited her coach often in the hospital. On his death bed, he advised her to pursue her dreams without compromise. Orognen died before Stacy finished her sophomore year. His passing sent her reeling. She went about her life with no real direction. Finally, during the spring of 1992, Stacy took Orognen’s words to heart and began to consider her options beyond Yuba. She toyed with the idea of going to UCLA or USC, but feared the L.A. smog would trigger her asthma. Stacy Dragila, 2000 Track & Field News: Enter Dave Nielsen, the track coach at Idaho State University. He offered her a scholarship, and said he agreed with Orognen—Stacy had tremendous potential as a heptathlete. When Stacy visited the school’s campus in Pocatello with her parents, she was immediately reminded of her grandfather’s ranch. That sealed the deal. Stacy started her freshman year at ISU in the fall of 1992. On the track and in the classroom, her first 18 months in Pocatello were uneventful. She double-majored in Physical Education and Health, and logged endless hours honing her skills on the athletic field. Romantically, the picture was much brighter. She married Brent Dragila, a Gulf War veteran with an eye on a career in law enforcement. Stacy’s scores in the heptathlon—usually between 4,700 and 4,800 points—were respectable. She figured she was good enough to contend for titles in the Big Sky Conference, but national championships were out of the picture. It seemed she had hit a ceiling, skill-wise. Again, it was coach Nielsen who helped her see a new direction. He had been keeping an interested eye on a trend in women’s track and field. All over the country, female athletes were clamoring to try the pole vault. They were challenging the long-held belief that women lacked the upper body strength and mental toughness to excel in this sport. Stacy Dragila, SI for Kids Card: Nielsen saw an opportunity. An All-American pole vaulter himself at Iowa during the 1970s, he won a Big Ten championship and once cleared 17-6. He knew if he could find the right woman, he had a chance to grab a leadership role in the sport. Nielsen gathered his troops, walked them over to the men’s vault pit, and told them to have fun. Of all the women who tried it, Stacy seemed to be the most curious. The more he thought about it, the more Nielsen realized that Stacy might be perfect for the sport. Tall and muscular, she was blessed with the type of body that spells success in the pole vault. Her background as a sprinter and love of gymnastics was a plus. To this day, Stacy swears she only agreed to try pole vaulting to indulge her coach. Initially, she showed almost no aptitude for it. But with Nielsen’s pointers—and body-control tutoring from his wife, Joy Umenhofer, a coach for the U.S. Trampoline and Tumbling team—Stacy began to feel increasingly comfortable. Every week she showed marked improvement. It felt great, so she stuck with it. Even when Stacy’s friends on the men’s team told her she was wasting her time, she persevered. Stacy cleared 10 feet for the first time in a 1994 meet during her junior year. She was taken aback when she read in Track & Field News that this vault established an American record. At the time, she was thinking about bagging pole vault so she could concentrate on her senior season in the heptathlon. Her goal was to capture the Big Sky Conference championship. When the 1995 season rolled around, Stacy was topping the 5,000-point mark, but she could not put the pole down. She cleared 11 feet that April at the BYU Cougar Track Invitational, and won the Prefontaine Classic a month later with a vault of 11-2. Stacy bettered that mark by nearly four inches at the U.S. Outdoors in Sacramento—an effort that earned her a spot on a national team traveling to Great Britain for a dual meet. Naive when it came to the world of big-time track, Stacy thought it was up to her to scrape together the money to make the trip. Only when it was explained that her expenses were covered did she agree to go. In her first overseas meet, Stacy extended her personal best by nearly a foot to 12-1 1/2 and took second place. She finished the 1995 season as America’s #2 pole vaulter. With her college track career over, Stacy assumed the same was true for her days as a pole vaulter. But as Nielsen had anticipated, the vault was becoming a cult phenomenon at meets all over the world. It was easy for fans to watch and understand, made for great television, and had all the can-you-top-this drama of the high jump, except it was twice as high off the ground. The sport’s first international star was Emma George, an Australian woman who had once been a child circus acrobat. Every time out, George was going for a new record, and the crowds were eating it up. Stacy decided this was a sport worth sticking with, and she began competing on the European Grand Prix circuit. Nielsen hired her as an assistant coach to put some cash in her pocket and continue coaching her. Stacy augmented her income with a side job as a waitress. She also started on her master’s in Athletic Administration. Meanwhile, her husband enrolled at Idaho State as a Criminology and Sociology major. Over the next few months, Stacy’s progress was astounding. In January of 1996, she established a new American record at 12-11 3/4. A week later she surpassed 13 feet. At an outdoor meet in Kansas that spring Stacy upped her U.S. mark to 13-6 1/2. In June, she cleared 13-9 1/4. An excellence Sportsmanship.
Labels: Stacy Dragilia
{{ 3/17/2009 01:15:00 PM -
One of the most popular figure skating stars in the world today, Scott Hamilton is also a role model, a humanitarian, and a cancer survivor. As a figure skater, he is forever bridging the gap between sport and entertainment. As a role model, he contradicts the saying that "good guys finish last". As a humanitarian, he avails himself to any plight that will improve mankind. But, more important, as a cancer survivor he is a constant reminder that with fortitude and determination, anything is possible. Scott's much publicized bout with testicular cancer in 1997, and his November, 2004 diagnosis of a benign, non-cancerous pituitary brain tumor (from which he is successfully recovering), was not the first time he had faced such adversity. Six weeks after his birth on August 28, 1958, Scott was adopted by Ernest and Dorothy Hamilton, both professors at Bowling Green State University. When Scott was about two, he contracted a mysterious illness that caused him to stop growing. For the next six years, doctors prescribed a variety of unsuccessful treatments. After his illness was mistakenly diagnosed as cystic fibrosis and he was given six months to live, the Hamiltons took their son to Boston's Children's Hospital where his ailment began to correct itself by special diet and moderate exercise.In July of 1990, to add to a remarkable list of achievements which now includes over 70 titles, awards and honors, Scott was inducted into the United States Olympic Hall of Fame. He was distinguished in this induction by being the only Olympic athlete from any Winter Olympic games held since 1924 to become a 1990 Olympic Hall of Fame class member and one of under a 100 Olympic athletes ever to be honored as of that date. In that same year, he also became a privileged member of the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame and his career was selected to be permanently published in Marquis’ Who’s Who In America. In 1992, Marquis began publishing his biography in Who’s Who In Entertainment and in 1994 he was added to their Who’s Who In The West edition.In 1997, Scott was the recipient of yet one more distinguished honor when on March 14th in front of a soldout crowd of 17,000 at New York’s Madison Square Garden; he became the first figure skater ever to be inducted into the Madison Square Garden Walk of Fame. Until that night, the Garden had not added a member to their illustrious “club” of 46 legends in five and a half years. Humbly accepting the accolade, which professionally represented over 50 appearances by Hamilton at Madison Square Garden during the last 21 years, Scott is now in the permanent company of such luminaries as Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, the Rolling Stones, and Frank Sinatra.Scott received notable critical praise for the writing of his autobiography Landing (Kensington Books, October 1999), an intimate, candid and insightful look at his professional and personal life on and off the ice. During the summer of 1999, he made his feature motion picture acting debut in On Edge (2001) starring Jason Alexander, Kathy Griffin and Wendie Malick, a hilarious mocumentary of figure skating in which Scott portrays Ricky Metford, a frenzied, offbeat former coach and judge. He created a character voice for a segment of the popular animated television series King of The Hill, and appeared as a special guest star in a 2003 television pilot Hench at Home written and produced by popular actor Michael J. Fox. Scott continues to appear regularly on various television talk shows, national news shows and variety shows.During a fourteen-year tenure with the CBS Television Network as one of their most articulate sports analysts, Scott’s coverage of the figure skating competition at the 1998 Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, the 1994 Olympic Games in Lillehammer, Norway and the 1992 Games in Albertville, France, were heralded as an incisive, exuberant and refreshing. Similar accolades were bestowed upon Scott for his NBC Television Network commentating and coverage of figure skating at the Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah during February 2002.Scott has also become a much sought after motivational speaker at various events throughout the country, speaking to a wide variety of groups and organizations about his life, and his overcoming cancer. When he is not performing or participating in a wide variety of charitable events, or acting as an official spokesperson for Target House at St. Jude Children’s Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, as well as his own Scott Hamilton C.A.R.E.S. Initiative (Cancer Alliance for Research, Education and Survivorship) at the Cleveland Clinic Taussig Center in Cleveland, Ohio, or promoting his newest web site Chemocare.com (in conjunction with the Cleveland Clinic and CARES), or serving on the Board of Directors for Special Olympics, Scott can be found on the golf-course and enjoys spending time with his wife Tracie and their son Aidan at their home in Los Angeles, California.An Olympic Gold Medalist. A cancer survivor. One who perseveres through the hardship with gold olympic medals. An excellent humanitarian, olympian Labels: Scott Hamilton
{{ 3/15/2009 09:52:00 PM -
Saturday, March 14, 2009;
Janet Elizabeth Evans (born August 28, 1971) is a American competitive swimmer.
Born in Placentia, California, Evans started swimming competitively as a child age 2. She known backstroke by then. By the age of 11 she was setting National Age Group records in the longer events. She attended El Dorado High School and the University of Southern California. In 1987, she broke the world records in the 400-, 800-, and 1,500-meter freestyle events. At the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, she won three gold medals and earned the nickname "Miss Perpetual Motion". In the games, she set a new world record in the 400-meter freestyle event; this record would hold for 18 years until Laure Manaudou broke it in May 2006. Until June 2007, Evans held the 1,500-meter freestyle record (set in March 1988) when it was broken by Kate Ziegler with a time of 15:42.54. Evans' world record of 8:16.22 in the 800-meter freestyle, set in August 1989, was broken in August 2008 at the Beijing Olympics by Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain with a time of 8:14.10. The 800-meter freestyle record was one of the longest standing ever in the sport of swimming, lasting through four Olympic Games. Only the 100-meter freestyle record of the Dutch swimmer Willy den Ouden stood longer (1936 - 1956).
Janet Evans was the 1989 recipient of the James E. Sullivan Award as the top amateur athlete in the United States.
Following her 1988 performance, Evans continued to dominate the American and world distance scene. She became the first woman ever to win back-to-back Olympic and World Championship titles in any event, taking the 1988 and 1992 Olympic titles and the 1991 and 1994 World titles in the 800-meter freestyle.
She won the 400-meter and 800-meter freestyle at the U.S. National Championships 12 times each, the most national titles in one event by any swimmer in the 100-year history of the event.
Her career ended with the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She did not win a medal, but she added one more highlight to her career, when she was given the honor of carrying the Olympic Torch at the Opening Ceremony, handing the torch to U.S. Olympic boxing legend Muhammad Ali to light the cauldron. In the pool, she finished ninth in the prelims of the 400-meter freestyle. She didn't qualify for the finals (nor the B finals), as only the top eight times advance. In the final swim of her career, Evans finished sixth in the 800-meter freestyle.
At the Atlanta Games, Evans outspokenly criticized Ireland's Michelle Smith on the latter's unexpected gold medals, suggesting that she might have been using performance enhancing drugs in the Olympics. Smith was not considered a favorite entering the Games, and her husband and coach Erik de Bruin had failed a drug test in 1993. Indeed, from 1996-97, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) raised concerns about Smith's repeated unavailability for random out-of-competition testing, and Smith received a four-year suspension in 1998 after being found guilty of tampering with a urine sample. However, Smith's medals and records from Atlanta were allowed to stand.
At the end of her career, she held six U.S. records, three world records, five Olympic medals (including four gold), and 45 U.S. national titles — second only to Tracy Caulkins.
Evans was distinctive for her unorthodox "windmill" stroke and her apparently inexhaustible cardiorespiratory reserves. Slight of build and short of stature, she more than once found herself competing and winning against bigger and stronger athletes, some of whom were subsequently found to have been using performance-enhancing drugs.
She was named the Female World Swimmer of the Year by Swimming World magazine in 1987, 1989 and 1990.
Since her retirement from competitive swimming, Evans has been a motivational speaker and corporate spokesperson for companies such as AT&T, Speedo, Campbell's, PowerBar, John Hancock, Cadillac, and Xerox. In 2008, Evans competed on the NBC show Celebrity Circus.
Her awards proved her excellence in sports with the 4 gold olympic medals out of 6 which she won. Labels: Janet Evans
{{ 3/14/2009 09:24:00 PM -
Wednesday, March 11, 2009;
Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer. He has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of 2008, Phelps holds seven world record in swimming.
Phelps holds the record for the most gold medals at a single Olympics, his eight at the 2008 Beijing Games surpassing American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven gold performance at Munich in 1972.
Overall, Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals: six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008. In doing so he has twice equaled the record eight medals of any type at a single Olympics achieved by Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin at the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. His five golds in individual events tied the single Games record set by Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Phelps career Olympic medal total is second only to the 18 Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina won over three Olympics, including nine gold.
Phelps's international titles and record breaking performances have earned him the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008. He has won a total of 48 career medals thus far in major international competition, forty gold, six silver, and two bronze spanning the Olympics, the World, and the Pan Pacific Championships. His unprecedented Olympic success in 2008 earned Phelps Sports Illustrated magazine's Sportsman of the Year award.
RECENT AWARDS
2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games
Date (in Beijing)
Event Results Time August 10
400 m individual medley
Gold Medal, World Record
4:03.84
August 11
4 x 100 m freestyle relay
Gold Medal, World Record
3:08.24
August 12
200 m freestyle
Gold Medal, World Record
1:42.96
August 13
200m Butterfly Gold Medal, World Record
1:52.03 August 13
4 x 200 m freestyle relay
Gold Medal, World Record
6:58.56
August 15
200 m individual medley
Gold Medal, World Record
1:54.23
August 16
100 m butterfly
Gold Medal, Olympic Record
50.58August 17
4 x 100 m medley relay
Gold Medal, World Record
3:29.34
This proves excellence and respectable.
Labels: Michael Fred Phelps
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Cathy Ann Turner (born 10 April 1962, Rochester , New York) is an American short track , speed skater, who won gold medals at the 1992 Winter Olympics and 1994 Winter Olympics . Turner was the American short-track champion in 1979, but failed to make the U.S. team for the 1980 Winter Olympics . She left skating to pursue a career as a singer under the stage name "Nikki Newland." suffering and being hospitalized for clinical depression, she resumed training after an eight-year absence from the sport. She qualified for the Albertville Olympics, where she won the 500-meter short track race was a member of the silver medal-winning 3000-meter relay team.
Turner retired from competitive skating after the 1992 Games to skate with the Ice Capades, but then returned yet again for the 1994 Games. She won another gold in the 500 meters in a controversial race in which silver medalist Zhang Yanmei accused Turner of grabbing her leg as Turner passed her.Turner was disqualified from the 1000-meter race for cutting in front of an opponent in a heat; she took a bronze in the 3000-meter team relay. Turner competed once more in the 3000-meter relay at the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano.
Turner now lives in Parma , New York and works as a singer, motivational speaker, and skating trainer. She has also been a skating commentator for ESPN. Turner holds a bachelor's degree in computer science from Nothern Michigan University, and is the author of the book Awaken The Olympian Within.
With this, I conclude that is an excellence sports player and an honourable one.Labels: Cathy Turner
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Eero Reino Lehtonen (April 21, 1898 – November 9, 1959) was a Finnish pentathlete. He won the Olympic gold at the 1920 and 1924 Summer Olympics. After pentathlon was removed from the Olympic programme for 1928, Lehtonen quit his career. His multi-event legacy still survived as Finnish decathletes, Paavo Yrjölä and Akilles Järvinen, took a double victory at the 1928 Summer Olympics. In 1984, Lehtonen got his own bronze statue at the sports park in Mikkeli, his home town.
Men’s Athletics
Gold
1920 Antwerp
Pentathlon
Gold
1924 Paris
Pentathlon
With 2 olympic pentathlon gold awards we can conclude that he is an excellent athlete.
Through matches such as Long jump, Javelin throw,200 metres, Discus throw, 1500 metres.
Labels: Eero Lehtonen
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Frederick Carlton ("Carl") Lewis (born July 1, 1961) is a retired American track and field who won 10 Olympic medals including 9 golds, and 10 World Championship medal , of which 8 were golds, in a career that spanned from 1979 when he first achieved a world ranking to 1996 when he last won an Olympic title and subsequently retired. Lewis is now an actor and has appeared in a number of films.
Lewis was a dominant sprinter and long jumper who topped the world rankings in the 100 m, 200 m and long jump events frequently from 1981 to the early 1990s, was named Athlete of the Year by track and field news in 1982, 1983 and 1984, and set world record in the 100 m and 4 x 100 m relay. His world record the indoor long jump has stood since 1984 and his 65 consecutive victories in the long jump achieved over a span of 10 years is one of the sport’s longest undefeated streaks.
His lifetime accomplishments have led to numerous accolades, including being voted "Sportsman of the Century" by the International Olympic Committee and being named "Olympian of the Century" by the American sports magazine Sports Illustrated. He also helped transform track and field from its nominal amateur status to its current professional status, thus enabling athletes to have more lucrative and longer-lasting careers. In 2003 revelations of failed drug tests by Lewis before the 1988 Seoul Olympics put the validity of his achievements into question. Awards gotten:Thus having proven by the World's olympic he have been recognised for his excellence and gain our respect as a top athlete.
Labels: Frederick Carlton Lewis
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Wang Lei was born March 20, 1981 in ShanghaiWang won the gold medal at the épée 2006 World Fencing Championships after beating Joaquim Videira 6-5 in the final. He also won the silver medal in the 2004 Summer OlympicsWith this gold medal earned in the olympics he proved himself with determination as a gold olympian withEXCELLENCE.
Labels: Wang Lei
{{ 3/07/2009 09:21:00 PM -
Wednesday, March 4, 2009;
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Abdel-Rahman Hassan, age 10, is one example of a Special Olympics athlete who was transformed by his experience. A swimmer from Saudi Arabia, he is partially paralyzed – but at the 2007 Summer World Games in China, Abdel-Rahman won gold medals in 25- and 50-meter races. His talent did not come naturally or easily; his father says it took him a month to hold his breath underwater for three seconds, and a year to swim a distance of one meter. Today, he is a champion.
Now, he can run, play football, compete in gymnastics and coach other Special Olympics athletes. he can work and play alongside people without intellectual disabilities. Speak out to journalists, schools and civic groups about the remarkable changes Special Olympics helped bring about in their lives. Valued leaders within the Special Olympics movement and valued members of their own communities outside of it. Their lives are fuller and more enriched thanks to Special Olympics.
Abdel-Rahman Hassan has a remarkable gold medal for special olympics and have proved his determination and excellence which lets us honour him in respect.
Labels: Abdel-Rahman Hassan
{{ 3/04/2009 09:46:00 PM -
Andre Kirk Agassi is a former World No. 1 professional American tennis player who won :
Grand Slam —8 titles
Wimbledon —1992
U.S. Open —1994 & 1999
French Open —1999
Australian Open —1995, 2000, 2001 & 2003
Tennis Master Cup — 1 title in 1990
Summer Games —1 title (Gold medal in 1996)
ATP master series—17 titles in 1990, 1992, 1994 (twice), 1995 (thrice), 1996
(twice), 1999, 2001 (twice), 2002 (thrice), 2003 & 2004
ATP tour—33 titles
Miami Masters —1990, 1995, 1996, 2001, 2002 & 2003
Indian Wells Masters —2001
Rome Masters —2002
Canada Masters —1992, 1994 & 1995
Cincinnati Masters —1995, 1996 & 2004
Madrid Masters —2002
Paris Masters —1994 & 1999
1 Olympic Gold Medal
Agassi was born to Assyrian on 29 April 1970. He has now retired due to sciatica caused by two bulging discs in his back, a (vertebral displacement) and a bone spur that interferes with the nerve, Agassi retired from professional tennis on September 3, 2006, after losing in the third round of the US Open.sciatica caused by two bulging discs in his back, a (verterbral displacement) and a bone spur that interferes with the nerve, Agassi retired from professional tennis on September 3, 2006, after losing in the third round of the US Open.
Through these countless medals, we could know that Agassi was a respectable sportsman and not only that but an excellent one...
Labels: Andre Kirk Agassi
{{ 3/03/2009 09:01:00 PM -
Dawn Fraser is regarded as the greatest female swimmer in the world, being the first woman who swam the 100-meter event in less than a minute. When she was 12 years old, in 1952, a Sydney coach at one of the local baths spotted her. Dawn earned acclaim in 1955 when she broke currently held records in the freestyle events right up to 880 yds. She shot into international fame at the Melbourne Olympics held in 1956 when she broke the 100-meter freestyle record, which was set 20 years back by Willy Den Ouden. Just 18 years of age, she won 3 medals from her first Olympic games. . She is one of only two swimmers to win the same Olympic event three times, in her case, the 100 meters freestyle.She was named the "Australian Of the Year" in 1964, was made a member of the order of the British Empire in 1967, and appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) in 1998. Also in 1998, she was voted Australia's greatest female athlete in history. She was named Australian Female Athlete of the Century by the Sport Australian Hall of Fame.In 1999 the International Olmpic Committee named her the World's Greatest Living Female Water Sports Champion.
She was one of the bearers of the Olmpic torch at the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summers Olympics in Sydney. She carried the Olympic Torch at the stadium, as one of the runners for the final segment, before the lighting of the Olympic flame.
The Australian Sports Awards includes an award named in honour of and presented by Fraser.
She was a respectable sportsman for her sportsmanship and proved her excellence as a good sportsman by winning 3 gold medal for swimming in a straight.
Labels: Dawn Fraser
{{ 3/02/2009 08:39:00 PM -
Scott Hamilton is a well known figure skater who has won many countless Olympic medals not forgetting those medals are gold which represents his high status in the Olympian field. His ice skating has won him four consecutive U.S. championships (1981-1984), four consecutive World Championships (1981-1984) and the 1984 Olympics which is considerably impressive in consecutive years.
Twenty-eight Vonetta Flowers year old grew up in one of the worst neighborhoods in Birmingham and through Track, went on to become a seven-time All-American at the University of Alabama in Birmingham. 
In one of the greatest Olympic performances by an American woman, Amy Van Dyken won four gold medals at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Van Dyken, whose victories came in the 50-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, 4x100 free relay and 4x100 medley relay, is the only American woman to win four gold medals at a single Olympics.
Carly Patterson was at a birthday party at a gymnastics club in 1994 when a coach noticed her doing cartwheels and roundoffs and told her mother that she should start taking lessons, which she joinedc soon after.
He led the Lakers to five NBA championships (1980, 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988), as well as four other NBA Finals appearances. He also led Michigan State University to the NCAA title in 1979 against arch-rival Larry Bird's Indiana State University. Johnson is also the only NBA rookie to win the NBA Finals MVP Award. He is one of only four players to win NCAA and NBA championships in consecutive years.Johnson earned the nickname "Magic" at Everett High School in Lansing from a local sports writer, both for his flamboyant passing style and winning ways. In different periods of his career, he led the league in assists and steals. He led the Lakers in scoring three times (1987, 1989, 1990) and in rebounding twice (1982, 1983). Although he and Bird eventually became the best of friends off the court, they revived the heated Lakers-Celtics Rivalry and drew millions of new fans to the NBA.The greatest game of Johnson's career arguably came in his rookie season: May 16, 1980, in Game 6 of the NBA Finals at Philadelphia. Filling in for the injured Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic started the game at center and eventually played every position on the floor in a dominating performance. Scoring a game-high 42 points and grabbing a game-high 15 rebounds, he led the Lakers to the NBA crown, stunning Julius Erving, the Philadelphia 76ers, and a national television audience who came to understand the moniker "Magic". Johnson went on to lead the Lakers to championships in 1982, 1985, 1987 and 1988.Johnson possessed stellar point guard talent. His unselfish playmaking and dazzling no-look passes on the fast break ushered in the "Showtime" era of Laker basketball, which dominated the eighties. He is widely considered to be one of the most exciting playmakers in the history of the NBA, maybe the best of all time. At 6' 9", a size normally reserved for power forwards, Johnson was easily one of the largest point guards ever to play at the NBA level. He revolutionized the concept of the "oversized point guard", able to post up and outmuscle his much smaller opposition. His stature, paired with his talent, let him play virtually every position from center to point guard.Statistically, Johnson was probably the greatest offensive producer ever. Assuming every assist creates 2 points, he created 54.85 points per 48 minutes, compared to Michael Jordan's 50.98 or Wilt Chamberlain's 40.82.Outside of basketball, Johnson is probably most well known for his announcement on November 7, 1991, that he had HIV and he would retire immediately from the game of basketball after twelve years with the Lakers. Johnson's announcement shocked the nation and increased awareness of AIDS.Johnson produced another book called What You Can Do to Avoid AIDS. Money from the book was donated to the Magic Johnson Foundation for the prevention, education,and research to fight AIDS.His post-basketball business ventures include Magic Johnson Theatres, a nationwide chain of movie theaters whose complexes are primarily in urban locations. The chain is now a part of Loews Theatres, but is operated as a separate entity. More recently, his interests have expanded from a shortlived 1998 talk show "The Magic Hour", to ownership of several Starbucks franchises, again primarily in urban locations. Johnson is believed to have earned significantly more money from post-basketball ventures than from his playing days and endorsement deals.
Janet Elizabeth Evans (born August 28, 1971) is a American competitive swimmer.
Michael Fred Phelps (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer. He has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of 2008, Phelps holds seven world record in swimming.
Cathy Ann Turner (born 10 April 1962, Rochester , New York) is an American short track , speed skater, who won gold medals at the 1992 Winter Olympics and 1994 Winter Olympics . 
Wang Lei was born March 20, 1981 in ShanghaiWang won the gold medal at the épée 2006 World Fencing Championships after beating Joaquim Videira 6-5 in the final. He also won the silver medal in the 2004 Summer Olympics.jpg)
Andre Kirk Agassi is a former World No. 1 professional American tennis player who won :
Dawn Fraser is regarded as the greatest female swimmer in the world, being the first woman who swam the 100-meter event in less than a minute. When she was 12 years old, in 1952, a Sydney coach at one of the local baths spotted her. Dawn earned acclaim in 1955 when she broke currently held records in the freestyle events right up to 880 yds. She shot into international fame at the Melbourne Olympics held in 1956 when she broke the 100-meter freestyle record, which was set 20 years back by Willy Den Ouden. Just 18 years of age, she won 3 medals from her first Olympic games. . She is one of only two swimmers to win the same Olympic event three times, in her case, the 100 meters freestyle.