Getting to the Heart of the Games

The Olympic motto, “Citius! Altius! Fortius!” is usually translated as “Swifter! Higher! Stronger!”

It ought to be translated as, “Ya gotta have heart!”

Time and again, at these Games and others before them, we have seen athletes rise to deliver amazing performances with astonishing results.

Chris Witty is such an athlete.

One of America’s finest speedskaters, she is the winner of three Olympic medals, two at Nagano, one at Salt Lake City.

One medal at these Games? Sure, it was a gold one, won in record time. But still, she missed on her two other shots, right?

Well, a case could be made that Witty beat her only true opponent every time out. In an athletic performance that ranks among the most memorable the Olympics have produced, she beat a debilitating illness.

A month before the Games began, Witty, whose training and results had been off all season, learned that she had mononucleosis, a viral infection that leaves its victims feeling as limp as cooked spaghetti.

Witty had to seriously curtail her skating regimen.

“Some days I only did a little,” she said. “Some days I didn’t skate at all.”

Only days before the Games began, Witty wasn’t sure if she would skate three races, or one, or none.

First up for her was the 500-meter event, a two-heat race spread over two days. She talked about passing up the second half if she felt too weak after the first, saving her strength for the 1,000, her strongest event.

Then she skated the first heat of the 500, finishing 17th. The next day, rather surprisingly, she was back, tied her personal best in the second heat and jumped up to 14th.

“I figured I could use the speed work,” she said off-handedly.

Three days later, she outskated the world’s best and won her gold medal, setting a world record in the 1,000.

Should have been enough, under the circumstances. No good reason for her to skate her third race, the 1,500. But she did anyway.

She not only skated it, she set an Olympic record. It didn’t hold up, and she wound up fifth, but her single-medal Olympic performance at Salt Lake City far exceeded her two-medal showing at Nagano.

Sure, “Swifter! Higher! Stronger!” But Witty reminded us, once again, “Ya gotta have heart!”