Tigerbelle by Wyomia Tyus

Author:Wyomia Tyus
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2018-08-08T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 8.

After the Deluge

Usually, as soon as you finish a race, the officials shoo you off the track so that the next race can start, but after the 100 in ’68, Howard Cosell, the sportscaster, was running a live feed, and he grabbed my arm. “Wyomia,” he said, “we want to talk to you about the 100 meters,” and then he turned to the camera and said, “We have right here Wyomia Tyus, who just won her second—” But at that point one of the officials started practically pushing me, trying to get me off the track, and Howard shouted, “Leave her alone!”

“She has to get off the track so the next event can start!”

“Get your hands off of her! She’s talking to her country!” Howard kept yelling at the officials until he finally got them away from me. At that point, I was shaking because it was cold, and I was soaking wet. “You’re cold?” he asked.

“A little bit,” I said.

He put his ABC coat around me, turned back to the camera, and said, “I just gave this fast young lady my jacket. She’s shivering!” That was his lead-in. He was just too funny: “She’s talking to her country—get away from her!” Go Howard! But he was a nice person, and I appreciated him giving me his jacket. When I got back from Mexico City, I bought a Paddington jacket—you know, for the bear, the little yellow one?—and I drew ABC on it. It was tiny, and I wanted to present it to him and say, “Look, here’s your jacket back—after the rain in Mexico City.” I never got to do it because the day I knew I was going to see him, I forgot it at home. It would have been a cute thing, but it didn’t happen.

While I was talking to Howard—and my country—the officials confirmed who had won by going over all the tapes, checking to see that nobody had run out of the lanes, that I really had crossed the line first, things like that. (I don’t think they were doing drug testing then; I don’t remember having to pee in a cup, so if they were doing testing, they weren’t testing the sprinters, or at least they didn’t test me.) A very short time later—I assume it was a short time, because it was still pouring—I was out on the victory stand.

The rain was soaking us, and I was wiping it away from my eyes, and everybody who looks at the video thinks I was crying, but I wasn’t; I’m not a crier, and I wasn’t crying. The main thing I was feeling was relief—because I had accomplished all my goals. I had my degree. I had won my medal. I am ready for the world! I told myself. I was also thinking about how much my mother and brothers had sacrificed for me to get there and how proud they must have been at that moment. Being up on that stand was just

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.