The Olympics, one of the biggest anticipated events in the world, where every sportswoman and sportsman compete while representing their countries showcase their talents. While the audience are in awe of what the athletes are capable of, many question how the athletes dedicate and push through the seemingly super-human physical training. In the topic of “How do Olympians stay so driven?” in the New York Times online, the debaters, comprising of past Olympians in different variations of sports, give their personal experience and opinions on what kept them motivated in their race for the Olympian title. They talked about their life as an athlete, how motivation comes either from internal sources or external sources, and how motivation is not…show more content… This example is found within Sarah and Nastia, where both of them found their source of inspiration from a role model. Nastia is a gymnast who won five medals in gymnastics and also an all-around gold medalist for the 2008 Olympics. Nastia was very young when she won her first Olympic medal, at a nimble age of 18. She expressed that for 18 years of her life, the Olympic gold medal was the only goal in mind. But once the Olympics were over, she was lost over the sudden lack of goal she had with the amount of years ahead of her. That was when she diverted her source of inspiration to not just long term goals but short term ones as well. As quoted by Nastia “But [it is] the daily, weekly and monthly ones, that motivate me. It’s important to strive to achieve something on a day-to day basis” (Nastia, par. 2) She expands her point by mentioning that “finding outside inspiration” (Nastia, par 2) like watching and focusing on a good movie. She gives an example to her point by briefly mentioning how she watched the movie, “Miracle”, the hockey movie the the night prior to the 2008 Olympics finals. (Nastia, par. 2) While Nastia externally finds her motivation through little daily, weekly and monthly things, Daniela Silivas, a three gold, two silver and one bronze medalist in Gymnastics for Romania in the 1988 Olympics (NST) finds her motivation externally through a support system in her coach and teammates and her respect for the sport. Quoting Daniela, “Their encouragement kept me motivated during practice and in competition, and their support buoyed me when I felt defeated.” (Daniela, par.1) Adding on to that, she expatiates her point of her honor for the sport by mentioning how her experience with failure in obtaining the Gold medal. She then bounced back with three Gold medals in the subsequent
