Olympic has been the table topic in previous toastmaster meeting. But 2 minutes is too short for me to express my feeling for Olympic. Today I want to talk about my memory about 2004 Olympic game, a wonderful and unforgettable memory.
The 2004 Olympic was hold in summer vacation, so I had enough time and ease mood to enjoy it. Every day I turn on the TV and only focused on CCTV5 channel. Then I opened the computer, login in SMTH BBS, and went to Olympic board. There were thousands of Olympic fans like me online in the same time. Before every match, we looked back its’ histroy, discussed its’ rule and related knowledge, and foretold the champion. During the match, we blessed the players we like especially the players from China, and we cheer for every exciting moment. After the match, we celebrated it and recalled the highlight. During the Olympic, about 20 days, I have published about 3000 articles in Olympic board. I have never been the water machine like that. And one of my post which congratulates a gold medal has been the most popular article in whole BBS one day. It was the first time and maybe the last time. Olympic is really a great festival for me.
China had an excellent show in 2004 Olympic, we have got 32 gold medals, only 3 gold medals less than USA. It left us lots of wonderful moments. The perfect performance of PingPang, Badminton, and Diving team; the pity of men fencing team and the three swordsmen; the miracle of woman double table tennis; the powerful sprint of Liu Xiang and Luo XueJuan; the sleepless and champion night of china woman volleyball; and …. Those exciting moments compose the beautiful Olympic. In the following, I want to recall one of the most exciting matches which produced the 100th gold medal in China Olympic history.
The leading actor is Tang Gonghong, a woman weight lifting player. The weight lifting is a sport which people usually pay little attention to. It was my first time watching weight lifting match carefully. It divides into two parts: the first part is snatch in which competitors must lift the barbell from floor to above their heads in one continuous movement, and another is clean and jerk where competitors first clean the barbell from the floor to an intermediate position like shoulder, then standing up and finally jerking the barbell to above their head. In the first part snatch match, many players lift 130 kilograms successfully, but Tang didn’t play well, she only lifted 122.5 kilograms. The TV MC told us didn’t be worry, she is very good at clean and jerk, and the world’s record was created by her. As expected, Tang lifted 172.5 kilograms successfully in the second round. But unexpected, the Korea player was crazy, she lifted the same weight in the last round. All Korea people started to celebrate it including the player, the coaches and the audiences. Because the only choose for Tang Gonghong was 182.5 kilograms, 7.5 kilograms heavier than world’s record. When Tang went to the playground, all audiences stopped breath, heart became fast and waited for the last key moment. All people including me became pessimistic, because we thought Tang was not in her best status, she has lifted this weight successfully before only once and it happened in training, and there was only one chance for her. But unbelievable, she lifted it, she was successfully. The difficult situation inspired her biggest potential. After celebrating it for a while, I sit down for a long time, I was moved by her. It was one of the most impressive moments in my memory.
I like Olympic, because it is the stage of best players. It is full of uncertainty, wisdom, competition, and exciting. From Olympic, we can see every kinds of emotion of players: happy, crazy, pity and pain, we can touch the real charm of every sports, and we can know the real meaning of pursuing.
I want to borrow Mandela’s words to end my speech, that is: For 22 days, they are friends; for 10 seconds, they are competitors; 22 days’ friends, 10 seconds’ competitors, this is the spirit of Olympic.
