There’s a lot to learn from an introduction. It’s been one of my favorite parts of the Olympics. The competitors are announced, by name and country, along with their noteworthy accolades. And they step out from behind the curtain - not a literal curtain, more of a tunnel-lite entrance. Some walk out beaming, incapable of having anything happen to them that will ever take away from the joy of that moment. Some play to the crowd, waving and leaping and pleading for more energy that will stir them on in their games. Some do what they think an athlete should do, with a simple wave of acknowledgement but carrying a facade of strength that they hope no one sees through.
But there’s the few who step out of the tunnel, and it’s just different. It’s a mix of determination, confidence, contentment, and aura. Kobe had it, Bolt had it, Phelps had it1. They have this look that’s a peak into the psyche of the great athlete.
The Women’s 400m Hurdles was on Thursday. The race was billed as a showdown, with two clear favorites expected to thrill a captive audience.
It was in the introduction to the race I saw the look. The different one.
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The two favorites were Femke Bol and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Bol is from the Netherlands, a 24 year old who reigned as the 2023 World Champion in the event. She has won plenty of European titles, and is the second fastest woman ever in the 400m hurdles with a time of 50.95s. The fastest woman ever is McLaughlin-Levrone. She turned 25 on Wednesday, and her world record time was 50.65s in the 400m hurdles. Her top end had proved to best Bol, but Bol had come on strong in recent races, with her 50.95s time coming in July of this year. With Bol also racing more often than McLaughlin-Levrone, the door was open for this to be the time Bol ran her down on the world’s biggest stage.
Bol entered the stadium to cheers. A large Dutch contingent had brought themselves to Paris in efforts to provide the last gasp of energy she would need to take her crown. Bol reciprocated their energy, smiling and waving in a way that would have made the Madagascar penguins proud. She’s bubbly, joyful, to the point that her voice has been compared to Mickey Mouse, the epitome of joy himself. Bol was excited to be here, but after ample reciprocation of the crowd, regained focus and jogged down to the starting blocks.
The crowd would roar once more. The track fans from America had filled the stadium this week, and one of their stars was entering the arena.
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They ran stride for stride for most of the race. McLaughlin-Levrone ran on the inside of Bol, always able to keep an eye on her biggest opponent. Yet she never peeked over. You see, the great ones are never focused on their opponents. They aren’t concerned with others, not in that way. They are motivated by them, but they are never one to peek over and lose concentration on what they can control. Excellence happens when distraction is the enemy.
As the hurdle heading into the last turn beckoned, McLaughlin-Levrone began to make her move. You could see her clear her hurdle just before Bol cleared hers, a sign that Bol’s small lead was gone.
By the time they entered the final straightaway, it was clear. In between just two hurdles, Bol’s hope of her Starry Night2 masterpiece had been covered with fog. Further and further away McLaughlin-Levrone ran.
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Bol could tell before it was over. You can always tell before it’s over with the great ones. She had trained and improved and become one of the greatest ever at her sport, all to get dusted in the final straightaway on the greatest stage she’d ever run on, by the greatest to ever do it. None of us know what it’s like to be an Olympian, but we do all know what it’s like to not be the greatest at something. To be good, even, but not good enough. From the time in second grade when we weren’t the first one to finish the test - that first feeling of not being good enough. Or now, when you look up and realize you don’t have what others have and *gulp* they are younger than you. It’s a pit that runs through our mind down to our heart, sinking heavy into our stomach and leaving us shaking in our knees. It’s an all-body feeling of discomfort and disappointment and it can wreck us. It goes by many names - comparison, envy, discontentment - call it whatever you want, but Femke Bol felt it as she looked at the back of Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, as she had many times before, but thought for once she’d get a different view of her. If only she knew the great ones don’t ever look at the others.
Sydney finally looked over after crossing the finish line, but it wasn’t at Femke. It was at the clock, which showed she owned a new world record.
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Femke, probably due to the weight that sunk through her at the realization that she wasn’t good enough, faded to third, good enough for a bronze, but not good enough for greatness. As the camera followed the competitors after the race, Bol made her way to the stands. She was met there by her parents. Bol buried her face in their arms.
Failure is agnostic towards it’s victims, and so are it’s symptoms. Some will acknowledge it, others will deny, but we all want to retreat. Failure is relative, of course, a bronze medal being a worthier prize for failure than many of us receive. But the stinging feeling of falling short of our expectations3 is the illness at the center of the human heart. The failure on our part to live in the way we have been designed to, to fall short of God’s expectations, is why the failures relative to our expectations in earthly endeavors sting so much. The response of the first human’s to their failure of expectations was retreat, just like Bol’s, with one key difference. They retreated into the wilderness, which led to the disastrous consequence of being found by God, leading to their removal from God’s ideal palace for them. Bol, on the other had, did what the first humans should have done after a failure of expectations.
She ran into the arms of her loving parents.
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Despite her greatness, the only thing McLaughlin-Levrone has been outspoken about has been her faith. And not in the over-the-top, Christian Culture Warrior type of way. More in the Scottie Scheffler, “I’m going to be humble and respectful and loving” type of way. She’s constant in the glory she gives to God in her post-race interviews. And by all accounts, in a hyper-competitive track world filled with braggadocio and towers of Babylon, McLaughlin-Levrone stays free of it all. She simply runs her race, not looking to the sides4. She is an example of what the faith of a great athlete can look like, what faithfulness on the world’s biggest stages can be. And as much as we can learn from McLaughlin-Levrone on how to have faith when we achieve the greatness we desire, more often, we will need to learn from Bol. That when failure comes, we don’t retreat to darkness, but we retreat into the arms of our loving Father.
Maybe faith isn’t about whether we win or lose every battle, but how we live in response to either.
Kobe had the ultimate look, at least for the 21st century
all credit to Ms. Blackburn for me remembering that Van Gogh was Dutch so that I could make this reference
let alone the expectations of a crowd of others who came to cheer us on
1 Corinthians 9:24-27
This could be a sermon! So good dude.