Seeing as the Olympics are pretty much the ultimate global contest, it'd be really weird if the subject of competition never came up in thirteen different books about the Games. It'd be like a Beauty Pageant anthology never mentioning the ubiquitous flippers and spray tans.
But one thing we noticed was that there are a zillion different types of competitions that our Olympic athletes endure: against their rivals, against their circumstances, against the official races and the unofficial meets. And they're often competing against themselves.
But above all, most athletes would agree that competition—in all its forms—is what makes the Olympics so special.
Questions About Competition
- Who would you vote Most Competitive out of our bunch of athletes? Why?
- A lot has been said about "the competitive spirit." How might our athletes' definition of that phrase differ?
- Why do athletes like to pick out one or two other athletes to peg as "the competition?"