My old high school football coach, Don Verduin, used to say, "You make your own luck by blocking and tackling!" And Thomas Edison once said, "Success is 10% inspiration, and 90% perspiration." Imagine the margin of your success or failure - after a lifetime of training and preparation - is only 1/100th of one second.
I found this piece at NYTimes.com, an audio representation of the margins of victory in the Alpine Skiing, Sliding (Skeleton, Bobsled and Luge) and Speedskating events in Vancouver, fascinating. Television broadcasts desensitized me to the infinitesimally slight differences in finishing times between competitors.
The cadence of the beeps had me thinking that luck and fate must play a large part in defining who stands atop the podium to received the gold and all associated rewards. Then again, as Coach Verduin and Edison might remind me, isn't it funny how often "luck" and "fate" seem to bestow triumph on those who invest the most perspiration into insuring that they finish all the blocks and make all the tackles when it matters most.
Genetic predisposition can allow certain levels of success in life and sport, but at the Olympics, everyone is at tail of the talent distribution. I love to watch athletes who remind us that even at the most vaunted levels of competition, inspiration, effort and execution will make the difference between winning and losing, especially when that difference is impossibly small.
I hope you enjoy the piece as much as I did.
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