Jeremy Holm's blog

Jeremy Holm Blogs about Not On Our Watch

For the past few days I have found myself reading "Not On Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond" a book by actor Don Cheadle and activist John Prendergast. I've had the book now for a few months thanks to my joining Team Darfur, and although I wanted to continue to take an active part in all that Team Darfur and the Save Darfur group are doing to bring an end to the conflict, the book just sat on my shelf. I wear my Team Darfur wristband everyday, especially during training or when I'm at any event as an athlete. But still, the book sat on the shelf. But there was something about the haunting look in the little child's eyes on the cover of the book and I knew that I needed to sit down and read.

And I couldn't stop.

Jeremy Holm Blogs about Olympians

When you grow up surrounded by world class athletes, you come to see that they are a very different type of people. They eat, sleep, and live their dreams. They sacrifice and pay the price with their blood, sweat, toil, and tears. Through hours and hours of monotonous training, despite injuries and setbacks, they push on towards the achievement of their goals. Common men and women who CHOOSE to become uncommon, all because they are willing to place it all on the line for the sake of even once chance, just one chance, to stand before the world, represent their country, and place their dreams on the line. All to see if maybe, just maybe, they can prove they are the best in the world.

What does it mean to be an Olympian, or Olympic hopeful, then?

Perhaps Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States said it best:

Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.
Why do people around the globe love the Olympics so much? Why are Olympians (past, present, and future) held in such high esteem?

Hope. I think it all boils down to hope.
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