The best Olympics story
- Sep 8, 2008
Thousands upon thousands of articles containing hundreds of millions of words in every major language of the world have been written and spoken during the just-completed 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, China. None of those articles and words surpass the story of Tasha Danvers.
Danvers, a track star from Great Britain, won the bronze medal in the 400-meter hurdles during the Olympics, with a personal best time of 53.84 seconds. While many Olympians are disappointed with anything less than a gold medal—Swede Ara Abrahamian threw away the bronze medal he won in the Greco-Roman Wrestling category at the games—Danvers delighted in her award.
In light of what she had been through to finally reach the medal stand, she had every right to celebrate.
Danvers was on her way to certain glory at the 2004 Summer Olympics Games in Athens, Greece. Her dedication to her training regimen and her singular focus on making it to the Olympics had made her a true force in track and field. She was ranked sixth in the world in hurdles.
Then she found out she was pregnant.
With the Olympics at hand and international athletic stardom within reach, she had to make a decision. She was pressured to abort the baby and continue her training. After all, who would know? The ends—prospective Olympic gold and the riches that went with being a champion—surely justified the means.
Danvers and her American husband (and coach) Darrell Smith decided the baby’s life was more important, much more important, than the trappings of fame.
“[T]he thought did cross our minds as an option,” Baptist Press quoted Danvers as telling the Telegraph, a London newspaper, in May 2004 before citing Mark 8:36, “but this line from the Scriptures kept coming into my head: ‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’
“For me, the whole world was the Olympics. At the same time, I felt I would be losing my soul.”
What an incredible witness to today’s young women facing such crises in their own lives!
With that momentous decision, however, her Olympics dreams were dashed—but only temporarily. Son Jaden was born in December 2004 just a few months after the Athens games. She immediately set a goal for the 2008 Olympics, and once again began training in earnest.
In the Olympics orbit, however, age matters like nowhere else in sports. Danvers had postponed her Olympic quest by four years, and it showed. She suffered through several painful injuries and wasn’t seen as having much potential for a medal in Beijing.
She did get her medal, though, and a son, too.
“Don’t ever give up,” Danvers told the Times of London, after winning the bronze medal. “That’s what I want the next generation to understand. Everything doesn’t come up all roses all the time. That is the nature of this athletics game.”
That’s the nature of life, too, Tasha. Thanks for reminding us of that in such a splendid way.
This article is reprinted from the August 28, 2008, issue of The Baptist Record, the newspaper of the Mississippi Baptist Convention.