KIMIKO
HIRAI SOLDATI
OFFICIAL SITE
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For God, not just for gold
Laura Wilkinson was standing at a height of 33 feet when she experienced one of life's lows. It was during her series of dives at the 1998 Goodwill Games platform competition, and she was losing control. In the first dives of the meet, she was disoriented in the air. She couldn't see the water as she dropped toward it. She was afraid. Wilkinson remembers thinking, "I'm not going to live through this contest," she said. "It's not exactly a good feeling on a 33-foot tower." As she waited for her turn to continue the competition, Wilkinson -- for the first time in her life -- asked a teammate to pray for her. And she decided to rely on faith. "I was having a complete life-altering experience in the middle of the meet and realizing what was wrong with my life and what I was missing," she said. "And I was missing Jesus." That day in New York, Wilkinson won a competition she "really had no business living through," she said. "That was just a total turning point in my life," she said. This week, she hoped to climb with her faith to the top of a 10-meter platform at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece, and attempt to repeat her gold-medal winning performance at the 2000 Games in Sydney. She was scheduled to compete yesterday in the diving preliminaries and possibly go to finals Sunday. Like athletes from a world of faiths gathered in Athens for the Games, Wilkinson was relying on inspiration greater than gold. For some, faith will help them drown out the hoopla. For others, it will help them focus on their task. Still others will allow faith to remind them of their life purpose -- win or lose. "Faith helps them (with) perspective," said Wade Hopkins, Houston-area director of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes. "Football, sports in general or the Olympics (are) a unique opportunity. But it is not who you are. It is what you do." The Rev. Yvonne Harrison's faith will help her concentrate during one of the biggest 400-meter hurdle races of her career. She is scheduled to compete in preliminaries today. The finals are Wednesday. "When you go to the big major meets, it (is) between myself and the Lord," said Harrison, a Houston Graduate School of Theology student who competes for the Puerto Rican team. "There is a tremendous amount of pressure where I have to focus and be in tune with God." But it is not just athletes who pray, said Jean Lopez, who coaches the U.S. tae kwon do athletes, including his brother Steven Lopez, who competes in preliminaries Friday. The finals are also Friday. "Some people call it meditation; other people call it visualization; but for us, it is prayer," he said, speaking about himself and his brother. "The point when things get so difficult and so overwhelming, prayer is always the answer to calming you down and reassuring you that everything is going to be all right." Wilkinson's teammate Kimiko Hirai Soldati has relied on faith in tough times. In 2002, her Christianity helped her face career-threatening shoulder surgery, she said. "I've had two surgeries without God and two with God, and the difference has been 180 degrees," she said. "I was upset, but I had somebody who I knew was going to take care of it. I gave it to God." Though faith keeps him going even in the toughest of times, Steven Lopez said, he thanks God in victory also. "I feel that any positive thing that comes into my life, it is because of him," said Lopez, who won a gold medal in the Sydney Games and hopes to repeat the feat in Athens. With a career's worth of medals, competition is not just about gold for Wilkinson. It is also a chance to perform as an example of her Christian faith, she said. "What I'm doing is not going to be in vain because I don't win a medal," Wilkinson said. "He will find a way to use me. Even if it is one person I reach in my entire life, it is worth it."
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