Newspaper review 4

Title: An athlete who redefined the idea of human limits
Date: 27-12-2008
The Straits Times Page D8

This article talks about how a particular swimmer has defied logic and redefined human limits. Michael Phelps and his target of 8 gold medals during the Beijing olympics this year made me stay glued to the television screen and become interested in a sport that never appealed to me. Swimming has always been a boring sport where swimmers wearing the swimmers' cap and goggles move in the water. I was more interested in Michael Jordan, Cristiano Ronaldo, Tiger Woods and Lewis Hamilton than for any particular swimmer. In previous years of olympics, my family would automatically switch channels upon seeing that the sport on the screen was swimming.

However, this year was completely different. After all the publicity done to inform us that there was a swimmer who aimed to overhaul previous records and win 8 gold medals, I just have to watch it. I felt like it would be cool if I were to witness such an amazing feat. No one else has accomplished that before, and no one else had dared to dream of accomplishing that either. When watching Michael Phelps swim, I was so excited and even held my breath when that particular swim was quite hard. He was under so much pressure, and yet he never cracked under the pressure! When he swam, he took my breath away because I never knew someone could have lungs this powerful.
After the prize ceremony of his 8th and last medal, I went off to research about him on the internet. He made me want to know more about him and the sport, swimming.

This shows how in human our limits are never to be defined. You cannot say for sure where our limits are. That's why new records are made every year. To surpass expectations and redefine human limits, i think it's important to have some kind of arrogance. We must be arrogant enough to make a statement as to what we want to achieve. Michael Phelps said right from the start of the beijing olympics that he wanted to win 8 gold medals. It sounded impossible, and maybe seen as underestimating the other opponents, but with that statement he dared to dream.
What we deem as possible would be within our human limits, or our definition of human limits. To redefine human limits, it is important to have a goal that sounds impossible.

Before August, eight goals in one Games was considered somewhat beyond human reach. Now he has made us consider the possibility of nine.

There are just no sure way to determine human limits!

ShiYa