“I hope some athletes have compelling personal stories that can be set to delicate piano music.” That’s what Steven Colbert said on his show before the start of the Olympics last Friday, and it’s funny, because, well, it’s true.
And many viewers, myself included, watch because there is a human element to every event, every race. Humanizing stories of Olympic athletes are so poignant partly because the athletes seem so remarkably different from us.
After watching Michael Phelps break world record after world record, and the ever-buoyant Shawn Johnson spinning and tumbling her way to the top of the leader board, it can become easy to view them as more superhuman than human—as some advanced form of life that was sent to earth to remind me how incredibly out of shape I am.
And that’s why the backstory is important. Just when couch potatoes like me are convinced that we share nothing in common with the athletes we enjoy watching so much, we’re reminded that these people are very much like you and me.
This Olympic season, one story is especially moving—the story of Oksana Chusovitina, a gymnast from Uzbekistan who is now competing for Germany in her 5th Olympics:
No matter how much her legs screamed or back ached, she couldn’t stop. Her son was dying, she had no insurance, so she couldn’t stop. The medical bills were stacked to the sky, and she had no money.
Gymnastics once saved Oksana Chusovitina. Now, she needed it to save her boy, stricken by leukemia.
“If I don’t compete, then my son won’t live,” Chusovitina said shortly after her son Alisher was diagnosed with cancer before his third birthday. “It’s as simple as that. I have no choice.”
It was 2002, and Chusovitina, a product of the former Soviet Union’s sports machine, had carved out a life twisting and flipping through the air for Uzbekistan. When her son fell ill, she moved to Germany, where better medical care saved him . . . .
You can read the whole article here . It’s an amazing story and certainly worth a read. Chusovitina may be an amazing athlete, but her story is about more than backflips and somersaults. It’s about love and sacrifice, things that will last longer than the cheer of the crowd.
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