Word: vaulting
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Audacius. when Kerri Strug took off down the runway late last Tuesday afternoon (real time), ignoring the intense pain in the left ankle she had badly sprained on her previous vault, she thought she needed to stick it in order to give the U.S. women the gold medal in the gymnastics team competition. She didn't even need to vault, as arithmetic turned out, but no matter. Strug did more than win a gold medal. She added another word to the Olympic credo: Citius, altius, fortius, audacius. Faster, higher, stronger, braver...
...rags-to-riches" tale, but having happily embarked on the riches phase, he politely wishes that everyone else would please just move on too. The decathlete is tired of what has become his 11th event, talking about his previous failings--the way he mysteriously flubbed the pole vault in the 1992 Olympic trials, thereby blowing his star turn in Barcelona; the way his college partying sometimes got the best of him. But O'Brien understands too that the past exerts a pull and the future has not quite arrived...
...catchy 1992 Reebok ad campaign, "Dan and Dave," in which America's two best and most photogenic decathletes, O'Brien and Dave Johnson, were pitted against each other in anticipation of an exciting Barcelona matchup. When, hobbled by poor preparation, O'Brien no-heighted in the pole vault during the Olympic trials, he became, perversely, even more famous. Johnson went on to take the bronze, while O'Brien was left to choke down his embarrassment on the sidelines and serve as a track-and-field commentator for NBC in Barcelona, a task he took on with characteristic good cheer...
This time around, at the June Olympic trials, O'Brien had no problem with the pole vault, soaring to a height of 17 ft. 3/4 in., and despite less-than-par performances in the long jump and the 1,500 m, he finished first on the U.S. team, with 90 points to spare. This, say his coaches, is as it should be. "We don't even talk about losing," says Rick Sloan, who has coached O'Brien in the field events for the past six years. "People want him to get all excited about making the team, about getting that...
Paltrow may not be able to--or care to--parlay the role of this adorable meddler into a multimillion-dollar picture deal, as Clueless's Alicia Silverstone did. Still, Emma could conceivably vault Paltrow from her current status as bright ingenue to the top of the list of serious young actresses who combine Oscar eclat and box-office clout--a little Streep, a little Sandra Bullock. Anyway, Emma is a showcase part, handsomely played...