Grenada's Kirani James Moment in Time

The 2012 Summer Olympics, which officially is the Games of XXX Olympiad, that started on 27 July 2012, was not only entertaining but inspiring all around the tracks.
I  watched women from countries, which traditionally do not allow females to compete, become converts.

There were of course the highs and lows.  I would, however, focus on the positives (just after the next line)
I watched with my heart in my mouth, as my home team was beaten miserably in the men's basketball setting a  new record.
Each hoop that was shot by the rival team, the USA, clogged my coronary artery an inch. In the end, I gave kudos to my home team. 

For you see,  the Olympic games are not just about winning, but the spirit of participating and brotherhood.
Like many, my favorite part is the track events. I watched the women's 10,000m race and decided, although I might never compete at the Olympics, I would spend more time at the gym.

As always the East Africans dominated the long-distance races, Ethiopia and Kenya, unbeatable in this category. Even British Mohammed 'Mo" Farah who clinched the Gold medals in the 10,000m and 5000m Men is of East African ethnicity.
Tirunesh Dibaba won the Women's 10, 000m, and Tiki Gelana, the Women's marathon.

The swimming events which rarely see a black person or African country compete, (although South Africa did have a rep.)  are also a favorite for me,  I watched   Michael Phelps and  Ryan Lochte and wondered if they were real humans or fishes disguising as men.  Excellent swimmers both of them. 

I also wondered when we will see a West African swimmer at the Olympics. We do have the Atlantic Ocean surrounding our southern borders, somehow West Africans are not so Hydrophilic.
To Gaby Douglass, well done, you were a delight to watch.

My adopted country Trinidad and Tobago also recorded a gold medal won by 19-year-old Keshorn Walcott, (javelin thrower) in Javelin, the first Olympic gold medal for this twin-island Republic, we fondly call tropical Paradise.

Walcott became the first non-European to win the men's javelin since 1952.

Not forgetting Jamaica's Usain Bolt the fastest man alive, and how Jamaica cleaned the medals table in the 100m  and 200m men and Women and Bolt made a record by clinching the gold in both the 100m and 200m.

I will confess, unlike other Olympic games, I missed much of this one. Aside from the fact that my location is  GMT-4, this was a busy summer for me.  So from all, I was able to see, the moment that was imprinted in my heart and will stay with me forever was watching the Blade runner double amputee Oscar Pistorius in the 400m Men semifinals

As I watched the semifinals of the 400m Men at the London Olympics, I was touched when Kirani James instead of celebrating his victory, chose to exchange bib numbers with double amputee Oscar Pistorius. "My hat off to him, just coming out here and competing," James told reporters in London on Saturday after Pistorius qualified for the semifinals. "I just see him as another athlete, another competitor. What's more important is I see him as another person. He's someone I admire and respect." 

Pistorius had come in at 46.54 seconds, .95 of a second behind James, the winner. Pistorius called James a “phenomenal competitor” and said that trading the name bibs was “what the Olympic spirit is all about.”

Kiriani James went on to win the Gold for the 400m Men at the finals, giving Grenada a small island nation in the Caribbean her first-ever Gold medal at the Olympics.

So here is to Kiriani James, you are a great athlete, the stuff great men are made. 

Congratulations on making your nation proud, and showing the young ones, what competing at the Olympics is all about.

To Oscar Pistorius, you are a great inspiration, you have taught  us all that "Impossible is Nothing"