If you’re like me, you had the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics on the TV almost constantly for the last week of July first half of August.

My favorite sports to watch are the swimming and the gymnastics events with accomplished athletes Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles being my favorites in each of those categories.

A couple of things came to mind as I watched these events…

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Serious Dedication

First, Olympic athletes like Ledecky and Biles put in so much time and effort to become as good as they are. The time that they spend actually competing in the Olympics and other competitions is only a fraction of the time they spend preparing and training.

In fact, after the Games are over, they must train four whole years before they get the chance to compete for another Olympic medal.

This could seem pointless or monotonous to some, but athletes of their caliber embrace the grind just as much as they do the competition.

One of the spotlights that the Olympic announcers gave on Ledecky showed that, in her career, she has swum almost enough miles to make it all the way around the world. It takes some serious dedication to swim that many times back and forth in a pool!

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Adrenaline Rush

The second thing that I thought about is how it must feel to compete in front of such a big crowd with the adrenaline pumping and people cheering so loud you can barely hear yourself think.

These athletes have practiced pretty much their whole lives for the moment they get to be in that atmosphere alongside the greatest in the world, and for Ledecky and Biles, who are in a league of their own in their respective sports, they know the whole world has its eyes on them, ready to applaud their successes.

I’m sure it can be hard to drown out the noise and stay within yourself in those moments, yet they do it with grace and humility, proving time and again why they are the best.

I think the reason that I am always in awe when I watch the gymnastics and swimming in the Olympics is that they are sports I am not good at.

The last time I took a gymnastics class was when I was about six or seven years old, and since then, I’ve grown about a foot and become a lot less flexible, which isn’t saying much considering I couldn’t actually do a backbend even when I was doing gymnastics consistently.

As far as swimming goes, if you’ve seen my most recent reel on my Grace Under Fire account on Instagram, then I don’t even really have to explain why I won’t be winning a Gold medal in Los Angeles in 2028.

*** Click HERE to see Grace in the pool!

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Close to Home Softball Inspiration

However, there is one sport I do know, and that’s softball. Sometimes, I think being around it so much has maybe made me forget how hard it truly is and how impressive it is when girls go to D1 schools or get drafted to play professionally or get picked to represent the United States on the national team.

It takes just as much work to compete at a high level in softball as it does to do other sports, such as swimming and gymnastics.

My sister Esther White may not have swum thousands upon thousands of miles to go play softball at the Univ. of Georgia, but I bet she hit and fielded hundreds of thousands of softballs and spent hours and hours at the field with only the hope of her dream coming true.

Now, like Ledecky and Biles, who won gold medals as a result of their hard work, Esther gets to see the fruit of her labor as she takes the field as a Bulldog for the very first time this week.

Not all of us are going to be top tier athletes like those competing in the Olympics or at D1 schools, but we all have different things we’re good at… and it’s up to us to use those gifts to the best of our abilities to make a difference in the world we live in because you never know how you might be able to influence the people around you.

I’ve never met Ledecky or Biles, yet they inspire me with their work ethics and skills.

And of course, Esther is an inspiration to me daily as she competes in her sport and uses her platform to show the love of God. It’s this type of effect that we should seek to have, and when we do, it could be life-changing.

— Grace White/Line Drive Correspondent

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Grace White is a contributing writer to Line Driver Softball and has written for Editor Brentt Eads since her time playing first base for the Union University softball team. She received her Bachelor of Arts in Journalism in May 2023 and today uses her experiences on the fields and in the classroom to be passionate storyteller, especially for athletes since she was one herself. Currently, she serves as a sports communication graduate assistant at Union and works on her personal blog Grace Under Fire and its social media platforms.