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| Fina Diving championship |
When I was covering for FINA diving championship at Olympic Aquatic centre, I had a pleasure of meeting the great Dr. Richard Budgett (CMO of LOCOG). He is very chilled and relaxed person and has ability to make people around him comfortable, yet respect him at the same time.
While we were chatting today, I stupidly asked him what sport he does. He smiled at me and answered "Oh a bit of rowing". I replied "Awww" But later I found out he was an Olympic gold medalist in rowing, competed 4 times in Olympics during his career. Such a genuine and humble personality he has!!!
Today at diving championship, one of our friends turned up late and joined our random conversation. He then interrupted us and asked "Excuse me, if there is a person drowned, do we go into the water to rescue him?" Its 5m depth pool, and we are not jumping into water, but only lifeguards will. We had our briefing and practice on how we will rescue an injured person out of the competition area if accident happens. Life guards will get the injured person out of the pool and we will take over his care at pool site. Our friend, being late, just missed all the early morning training.
While I was about to explain, Dr. Budgett replied without a second delay "Yes you do, You will dive in, but we don't" All of us bursted out laughing. It led us to a bit of more jokes on how we should come to work with swimsuits and googles etc. Some of our very serious colleagues, if they heard it, would not think it was funny, but might criticise us for being unprofessional. Well, lucky that none of us were that serious at that time, and we do need a bit of humor in our lives.That is how the day had started, amusing and exciting. We also chatted about amazing characters of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. He is well known for Sherlock Holmes detective stories. Apart from that, I learnt today about his other talents and amazing personalities. He also excelled at many sports; he played football as a goalkeeper; he was a keen cricketer and played for Marylebone Cricket Club and was a captain for Crowborough beacon golf club. He was also very well known for his involvement in "Haynes and Dorando dramatic finish" in the great Olympic marathon in London in 1908. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tried to kill Sherlock Holmes in "The Final problem - The great fall with professor Moriarty" because he wanted to use his precious time more on some other things. He mentioned this in his letter to his mother. He also believed in Faries and regarded himself as spiritualism. The list could go on when we talked about him, one of world greatest persons, but as I am not trying to write his biography, I am going to move on.I also had a chance to meet very talented young athletes from all over the world, including Tom Daley. One thing really impressed me was; they looked very focused and serious when competing and once they came off the pool, they greeted and treated other athletes with genuine smiles like true friends. That made them look very professional. I truly congratulate chinese divers for taking all available gold medals on offer home. They looked very calm, confident and note-perfect every time they dived. To see the way they bowed after getting out of water was also amazing, showing the world how polite and humble they were.The day had now finished for me but my thinking goes on. Our attitudes and personalities can make a big impact on ourselves as well as the people around us. People can decide what kind of person they want to be, they have their choices, I, for myself, know what type of person I want to be and will try my best to become that one.
