The Olympics are coming

Later this month the Olympic Games will begin.

We have been treated the last few weeks with the preliminary track and field events and swimming events. It is the beginning of the end for a lot of very skilled athletes who after years of effort will fail to make it onto the United States team.

The preliminary trials for track and field events are being held at the University of Oregon in Eugene, no stranger to these events.

While living in Boise some years ago on South Orchard our closest neighbor had a 17-year-old boy who ran the mile for Boise High.

His goal was to run a four-minute mile. His best time then was 4:12.

To my knowledge he never made it. I always liked the boy because he would talk about this dream. Oh, he won a lot of races, just not the big one he was training for.

He would get up at 5 a.m. each and every day, no matter the weather or how he felt, and run several miles before going to school. His coach was often out there with him with a new plan for the run each day. Whenever I saw the boy, I would try to engage him in a conversation about how he was doing. I often ran into him on the high school track.

Boise had one of the best tracks in the conference at the time. Still, there were a couple of places that would puddle after a rain or watering. Not anymore. Big schools now have the best tracks money can buy.

The newspaper had a couple of the best photographers, and I remember on one occasion one captured a photo showing the reflection of one of the runners in a puddle of water. We would have to order the time and place where we wanted a photographer.

The opening of the Olympic Games is now upon us. When you see the athletes contending, picture in your mind’s eye the thousands of hours of practice and the success that got them to Paris.

It’s difficult to imagine how much a hundredth of a second can mean in an event.

I personally favor the distance events. My favorite is the 10,000-meter run. That’s 25 times around the track.

Have a good time watching.