| | In addition to that bagful of stuffed koalas, The Mag's Anne Marie Cruz will take home plenty of indelible memories. Today she writes about one.Overheard
| "Sometimes you go to bed at 2 a.m. Sometimes you want a beer after competition. That's a part of my life."
| —Men's all-around gymnastics champ Alexei Nemov, when asked about his all-around lifestyle
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It's now been three nights since I caught Jenny Thompson's eye, and I still can't get the look on her face out of my head. She had just lost the 100-meter fly despite leading at the turn, and sought comfort from her teammates in the stands. Although the press table was right next to the athletes' seats, most writers were following the poolside activity, so Jenny was almost able to slip into the periphery. But I noticed her friends coming over to console her, and as Ashley Tappin—wearing a bright turquoise wig that suddenly looked inappropriate—gave Jenny a hug, our eyes met for a split second. It was just long enough for me to recognize how disconsolate Jenny was. It was a tearless, stunned kind of sad. Staring seemed intrusive, so I winced and looked away. I suppose you could say I get paid to look too long, to examine the wounds and pick at the scabs. You could argue that, relay golds aside, Jenny knows the cost of being an Olympian on a global stage. But sometimes you just want to let people lose in private, even when privacy is painfully impossible.
Check out our six-page Olympic Zoom photo spread in the latest issue of ESPN The Magazine. | |
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