“It’s gold, Australia, gold!”
HOW MANY people, like me, have sat up much later than they should have recently watching the Olympic Games from one of the world’s greatest cities – Paris?
What about the mix of traditional Olympic sports such as swimming, badminton, diving, fencing and boxing, mixed in with new sports including skateboarding, surfing and breakdancing? That’s right, breakdancing is now an Olympic sport!
In so many instances, Olympic athletes also excelled at their academic pursuits in the classroom. It’s because excellence doesn’t exist in a bubble, and people driven to excellence tend to be driven to excellence in all things. How about Jana Pittman, former Olympic hurdler and mother of six, who is now a medical doctor? What an incredible life of achievement. What an inspiration!
And what about Mackenzie Little, qualifying for and competing in javelin at the Paris Olympics, while also working as a first-year doctor? How do these people manage to fit so much into their lives?
There is so much that we can learn from these athletes. Things like if you want to achieve something great, you have to work for it. There are no shortcuts. You have to be determined, committed and focused. In those moments, during an Olympic Games, you are brilliant – achieving something we would all (deep down) like to do but having the determination and the drive to actually do it in real life. Jana Pittman and Mackenzie Little show that the lessons learned as an Olympian striving and training with every inch of themselves can be translated into the academic arena, and you can, literally, achieve anything.
There is a lot to learn for our Coolum High students from our Olympic athletes. The lessons of determination, focus and sacrifice to achieve your dreams are ones every Olympic athlete knows. From them, we can see that academic success and sporting success spring from the same place – hard work! Let’s hope our athletes have a few more gold medals left in them yet!!!