It’s. Finally. Here....almost. On the eighth day, of the eighth month, of this eighth year of the 2000s, the Summer Olympics begin in Bejing, China. One the goals of the Olympics is to show how people from all different parts of the world can come together to create something really exciting, like competition in sports. Here in the United States, we are lucky enough to actually have 33 examples of this on its own team; these nearly three dozen athletes were born somewhere other than America. I think they hold a special place on Team USA.
I myself have had a teammate who immigrated to this country. She came to my high school from Zimbabwe, a country in southern Africa. I had never met someone from Zimbabwe and wondered if she was as serious an athlete as I am. It turns out that she worked just as hard at running and enjoyed it as much as I did. She was a great teammate and one of my best friends. I found that the desire to win is something everyone around the world feels—not just Americans.
That eighth day will be the start of hearts pounding and muscles flexing and sweat dripping, but it should also be the start of something else: minds thinking. When I think of the games and of that teammate from Zimbabwe who ran with me, I think about how lucky we are to be able to come together every four years and make something good with many different types of people. This summer, I say that we should honor these foreign-born athletes as an example of what the Games are all about.
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