Two athletes that I would love to see compete in person are
Lance Armstrong and Dara Torres. Lance
Armstrong has been through so much in his life time. Winning seven consecutive Tour de Frances is
just unheard of! I’d love to have
witnessed him competing in one. Not only
is he a great athlete but he has brought so much awareness to cancer and raised
millions and millions of dollars for cancer research. A cancer survivor himself of testicular
cancer diagnosed in 1996, and three short years later he won his first of seven
Tour de Frances, amazing! This shows so
much determination and dedication on his part.
When being diagnosed with cancer he could’ve easily given up on his
dream and simply felt bad for himself, but he pushed himself even harder and
did what no other had done before. The
female athlete I’d love to watch compete is Dara Torres a twelve-time Olympic
medalist in swimming. She is not that
popular of an athlete, in fact I’m sure over 75% of the class had no idea who I
was talking about, but within the last couple year she has really gotten my
attention as an individual. As I have
become more and more interested in swimming I’ve realized what a great exercise
it is for ones entire body. The swimming
level up at the world level is unimaginable.
I would have really loved to see her compete in the 08’ Summer Olympics. At age 41, she was the oldest to ever earn a
place on the U.S. Olympic team (won three silver metals). She is now training for the 2012 Olympic Team
which I’m looking forward to hopefully watching her. And quite possibly she could have the nicest
body I’ve ever seen on a female, not to mention at that age (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAnjHdIAnDM).
Overall my favorite sport is basketball, to watch, to play,
you name it. I guess it could be kind of
weird cause neither of my athletes above are basketball players. In high school I ran Cross Country,
Basketball, and Track. Excelled in all
three, state level in Cross and Track. Went
to the next level and competed in Basketball for two years and Track for
one. And last year I decided it was time
to move on and start to figure out what to do with my life. I’m still competing and currently training
for an Ironman, which might be the main reasons why I chose Lance Armstrong
(cycling) and Dara Torres (Swimming). I also
play basketball every second that I can.
I know in the future I want to coach high school girls’ basketball and I
want to move to Colorado and work in an Olympic training center.
I think I will really enjoy class this spring it’s really
been a big interest of mine; Gender and Sports.
I don’t really have too much expectation. I’m just glad to finally be learning about
something I enjoy and finishing up on the required gen education classes.
Hi Alyssa,
ReplyDeleteI can definitely relate to the two athletes you mentioned, for many of the same reasons that you cited. I became a big fan of Lance Armstrong when he won his first Tour de France in 1999, because I was in the hospital at the time, and wondered if/when I would be able to ride a bike again. Two years earlier I had taken a cross country bike ride from San Francisco to New Hampshire and fell in love with biking. Lance's 1999 victory really motivated me. Dara Torres has done amazing things for an athlete of her age so that is inspiring as well. I can think of a tennis player who is in incredible shape for her age - i.e., Martina Navratilova. To see her competing at age 50 was pretty amazing.
I'm glad you are interested in the things we will be discussing in class and look forward to reading more of your entries.
Dr. Spencer
I’m glad to hear that you also enjoy my two athletes as well. I’m sorry to say that I’m not much of a tennis fan. I always ran cross country during tennis season, but occasionally I’d go to the local tennis courts and hit the ball back and forth with one of my brothers. It’s interesting learning more about tennis in class, a sport I don’t know much about. A bike ride from San Francisco to New Hampshire!?! I’m so jealous!! How do I go about looking into doing that? I guess I should probably finish school first though… Over the summer I spent a big chunk of money on a nice road bike that I’ve been missing here at school. I can’t wait till the weather gets nice again to get back on the roads; stationary bikes just don’t do it for me! I looked up Martina Navratilova, what a fascinating athlete, there are more athletes like Dara Torres than I even realized!
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