AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Byline: Amy Alexander
2To get ready for the 1976 Olympic decathlon, Bruce Jenner sprinted, jumped, jogged and vaulted to prepare his body. When it came to getting his head in the game, though, he came up with a visualization tool that he couldn't ignore, even if he tried.
Though his San Jose, Calif., apartment was tiny, Jenner put a hurdle smack-dab in the middle of the living room. Jenner couldn't even take a breather without being reminded of his goal.
"Late at night, I'd spend hours pitting myself against that hurdle," he wrote in "Finding the Champion Within." "In the alley of my mind, I jumped it a thousand times."
Jenner ended up winning the gold, scoring more points than anyone had ever scored in the event.
In the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia, track cyclist Marty Nothstein took gold in the match sprint.
That wasn't quite the story four years earlier in Atlanta, when Nothstein missed first place by a fraction of an inch.