Word: nabers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Early in the Olympics, high up in the temporary bleachers flanking the swimming pool, I found myself sitting beside John Naber, the winner of four gold medals in Montreal in 1976. Across the way on the superstructure of the diving platforms, the women divers were collected on the various levels, chatting among themselves, elegant and lovely, like egrets in a rookery...
...those little blue towels they're drying themselves off with?" Naber asked. "They're made of chamois. Very absorbent stuff. Divers go through hundreds of towels because they have to be dry for the dry-to-dry contact with hands clasping legs, for example, in certain kinds of spins. Dr. Sammy Lee, who was a two-time gold-medal diver, markets these little towels. Guess what they're called: 'Sammy's Shammies.' " I had my note book out. "Has anyone else asked you about Sammy's Shammies?" Naber looked puzzled...
...Very gregarious bunch, divers," Naber was saying. "Far more social breed than swimmers...
Short for a backstroker, slightly under 6 ft., he is as strong as, but less stringy than, John Naber, whose gold-medal records from 1976 lasted seven years, until Carey broke them. Naber says, "Rick is driven more by internal motivation than by external competition," which is a good thing. Carey's archrival, East German Dirk Richter, will not be in Los Angeles to push him, one of the keenest losses of the boycott...
...from New Zealand, who reasons, "They will be the only Olympics I might ever "know. Would you cancel your birthday party because a few relatives won't show?" American Gymnast Mitch Gaylord believes, "They will still be the Olympic Games. There's nothing bigger than that." As Naber says, "There are still five rings and gods on clouds throwing lightning bolts." When Alberto Salazar and others ask, "Will children grow up dreaming of the Olympics any more?" Naber answers, "I'm afraid they will...