Fun & Famous

A LITTLE MORE ABOUT RANOMI…

At 04:12 my alarm went off. Last night, right, we’re not talking about an afternoon nap in the hammock here. I even slept with my glasses on because I thought that way, I would fall less deeply asleep. As if my body would feel that I had glasses on and would therefore have to be ready at any moment. Or something like that. Sometimes I can’t quite follow my own thoughts either. Anyway, last night at 04:16 Ranomi Kromowidjojo would swim the final in the 100 meters and I thought the least I could do to support her was to set my alarm and watch live.

I haven’t trained like Ranomi six days a week, three times a day. If I manage to work out three times a week, I immediately pop open a bottle. Wrong of course, Ranomi would never do that.

Last night I could support a bit, so I dove in early and sat up straight in bed. The match ran a bit late, so first an interview with her coach was shown. “We are very calm, we are not necessarily focusing on a medal. We want her to swim the best race of her life, but if that doesn’t yield a medal, then so be it. We are already very happy to be here. Ranomi will focus entirely on herself and not on her competitors.” Something like that.

Now I was really awake. We’ll see?? We’re already happy to be here? We’re not necessarily focusing on a medal? Did I set my alarm for this? It went on. “Gold probably wasn’t in the cards anyway.” There may be people who call that realistic, but with such an attitude, it’s not going to happen anyway.

Shouldn’t a top athlete be motivated to the core to win that medal? Agitated, offended, overflowing with their I-will-show-them-all-a-thing-or-two mentality? Top athletes aren’t part of the we’ll-see club? Or we’ll-do-what-we-can? Well, do you know about Ranomi and that medal? It didn’t happen. Honestly, she swam a fantastic race, she remains a top athlete and I will always be grateful to her for that moment of happiness she gave us when she won gold so fantastically four years ago. Really. Honestly. All praise and honor. But this just seemed a bit too easy to me.

A tip for Ranomi's coach, watch the interview with Noël van ’t End seventeen times after he was eliminated in his first match. No shrugging it off and better luck next time, but crying very hard and intensely because he didn’t show what he could do. Just watch this for a moment, but spoiler: it’s intensely sad. This is sorrow. Deep sorrow. And that’s what makes the Games so beautiful. Tonight I’ll set the alarm again (with these tips from Jet). For Dafne Schippers and honestly also once more for Ranomi. But I really hope she parks the angel in her and brings out the angry bitch. Just for fifty meters. After that, she can be her nice, tidy, sunny self again.