Carl Lewis Hero

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Carl Lewis: American Track and Field Hero Track and field has become an iconic sport of American history in the past century because world records were in freefall, and athletes transcend into legends to inspire a new generation. Athletics has been a respected test of citius, altius, and fortius (faster, higher, and stronger) since the days of the Greeks. The concept most recently revitalized with the revival of the Olympic Games, and has metamorphosed from a schoolboy’s race into a venue for the most prestigious, elite competitors of the world. Figures such as Carl Lewis have immortalized themselves into the history of the competition by achieving immeasurable feats, and inspired many to emulate him. “Coach didn’t put me in” or “He didn’t…show more content…
Millions of viewers tuned in to watch Carl Lewis’s 1984 100m gold medal victory or 1991 World Record Long Jump attempt, but people don’t rush to fill seats to see him run the hundreds of miles between the competition (“Carl Lewis: Track-and-Field Athlete”). Stadiums do not to gaze at the workouts he does on the lonesome track or the hundreds of pounds he lifts daily. What drives a man to do push himself so hard? What exactly was Carl Lewis chasing down on the track? Not money, not glory, but Jesse Owens. Owens was Lewis’s childhood hero whom he desperately wanted to emulate. On one fateful evening a during a replay of the 1936 Olympic Games, Lewis witnessed Jesse Owen’s dominance feats of setting five world records in less than an hour that included the long jump which was so empowering that it would forever change the path of Carl Lewis’s career (“Carl…show more content…
This glory all started when Lewis gazed in amazement at Jesse Owens gold medal Long Jump victory. He was so inspired by the act that moments after the victory, Lewis went into his own house’s junk drawer and pulled out two objects: a tape measure and piece of tape. Then, he proceeded to go into his backyard, measure twenty-five feet, place down the tape marker, and jumped. Lewis simply jumped and jumped every day practicing his form and improving his speed until he could achieve the distance (“Carl Lewis”). His parents had initially encouraged their son to pursue interest in other areas such as cello, acting, art, or piano because they didn’t see the potential in him for track that they did in their other children. Nevertheless, their young pupil would prove them otherwise by setting school records and achieving the twenty-five foot distance his junior year, and become ranked seventh in the world as a high school senior (“Frederick Carlton Lewis”). His future endeavors in world record attempts and world record paces would immortalize him in athletics history. Rick Reilly of Sports Illustrated Magazine best described him as a man who “beat age, gravity, history, logic and the world at a rocking Olympic Stadium in Atlanta to win the Olympic gold medal in the long jump. It was quite possibly his most impossible moment in an

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