Almost any Olympic athlete can tell you where the spark was lit to push them into sports. For many, it was in front of a TV set as a kid, watching the Summer Games play out in some faraway place — and often, Michael Phelps was the athlete that drew their interest. Others had siblings who played and paved the way.
FILE - Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps poses in the Belmont Plaza Olympic Pool in Long Beach, Calif., Jan. 18, 2008. Almost any Olympic athlete can tell you where the spark was lit to push them into sports. For many, it was in front of a TV set as a kid, watching the Summer Games play out in some faraway place — and often, Michael Phelps was the athlete that drew their interest.
Still, a seed was planted. This month, some three decades after those formative memories at home, Larson is heading to Paris for her fourth Olympics as part of the U.S. volleyball team. She already has a full collection of medals — one gold, one silver, one bronze. “I was 15 at the time, and my dad looked down at me and he was, like, ‘Now it’s your turn.’ And I knew what he meant,” Maggie said. “We had both watched that. We felt so emotionally connected to my sister and to the team, and it was just exactly that little push, that stair-step to say, ’OK, now go out there and do it.’ And I was lucky enough the next year to join my sister and play with her, and we ended up together in 2012.
She remembers telling her dad about one of the rowers: “‘I want that to be me.’ And he’s like, ‘OK, well, if you want to go the Games, you have to start training now.’ And that’s the day that I decided that I wanted to go to the Olympics in kayaking.”Ashleigh Johnson saw an Olympic future for herself in the water, though she dreamed of being on an Olympic relay team with her siblings.
“I would sing myself to sleep with the national anthem. I’d pretend I was at a huge competition, and I could sing the anthem,” she said. “I didn’t realize my parents could hear me in the next room over. But if you ask them, they’d say many, many nights, I’d do that.
Olympic Games CO State Wire Georgia Associated Press Sports Mary Lou Retton
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