About thirty of my friends and family members had traveled to London to support me. In an amazing feat, considering how tight security was, everyone I knew made it down to the front row in the wake of my victory. As I ran my victory lap, I reached over to give them all hugs. Unlike the race I’d just run where nothing could have stopped me, I stopped about a hundred times!
My favorite stop was at my husband. Because of his own rigorous schedule, Ross had never been able to make it to the Olympics before. For the first time, I was able to run over and kiss him! Even today I cherish the picture of that moment I got to share with him.
Take a Lap
It’s important to take a victory lap.
When you’ve worked hard for something, whether it’s building an award-winning robot, getting into the college of your dreams, completing your first marathon, or taking gold in a speech competition, it’s okay to relish the victory. In fact, it’s important to do it.
Too often, we move too fast. We finish a volleyball season and start basketball training the next day. We rock the ACT, and the moment it’s over we’re looking up dates to take the SAT. We finish high school and start registering for college courses. Those of us who are motivated to reach our dreams can often be in a constant state of moving forward to the next thing.
I confess, I’ve been guilty.
Dating? I’d love to be engaged. Engaged? I’m ready to be married. Married? Ready to get back to competition. Competition? Twenty-nine months until the next Olympics! Retirement from running? I’m ready to be a mom.
There’s nothing wrong with having goals, but once we reach them, they’re worth celebrating! They’re worth savoring. They’re worth cherishing.
Olympic tradition requires a victory lap from the winner. But, honestly, if they didn’t require it, we wouldn’t do it. And we’d probably think those who did do it were a little conceited. But there’s something about it that’s so right. The race was over in fifty seconds, but that victory lap took me fifteen minutes! It was worth taking fifteen minutes to celebrate the fulfillment of that lifetime dream.
It’s worth celebrating your wins too. Did you build a bedframe with your own two hands? Take a lap around your house! Did you work your tail off to finally earn a B in a math class? Take a lap around the school! Raise enough money babysitting over the year to go on a mission trip with your youth group? Run around your block! If it’s not running, figure out what your victory lap looks like. Maybe it means making a special dinner for your family. Or eating out at a restaurant. Maybe you and a sibling take a special road trip. I encourage you to celebrate your victories.
And as you do, always give thanks to the Giver of all good gifts (James 1:17).
RIGHT ON TRACK CHALLENGE
When you’ve reached a goal, it’s tempting to move on to the next one. But I encourage you to pause and celebrate your successes as an expression of gratitude.
•Have you made a practice of celebrating your successes?
•How have you celebrated in the past? Dinner with family? Movie with friends?
•Is there a milestone—a recital, a competition, an exhibit—that you can celebrate during this season of your life?
•How do you invite God into your celebration?
Don’t miss out on savoring the sweetness of victory now because you’re gunning for the next win. What is one accomplishment you can celebrate today?
CHAPTER 16
ONWARD AND UPWARD
Though I’d announced that I’d be retiring after the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, my end came a bit sooner than I would have chosen.
Before the Olympic trials at the end of June, I’d already been suffering with toe pain for three years. That daily affliction started to drain the love of running from my heart. I never believed I could say those words, but every day had begun to feel like a battle with my toe. To protect that broken-down digit, I’d unintentionally begun running on the outside of my foot. That, of course, caused other issues. I showed up for the trials in Eugene because I thought it was the right thing to do. But even in advance of that meet, I’d been weighing when was the true time to stop. A lot went into that decision.
I’d accomplished most of my dreams and goals. I didn’t want to do further damage to my toe that would lead to a life in which I wasn’t able to walk. Ross and I were ready to think about expanding our family.
The trick was to balance each one of those thoughts with the factors that were pulling me to compete in Rio: my love of running and the drive to always be reaching for the next goal. I’d nurtured that drive for three decades, and it wasn’t easy to just turn it off!
Just a few weeks before traveling to Eugene for the Olympic trials, I pulled my hamstring. In the days leading right up to the trials I hadn’t run much, let alone sprinted. I wanted to give my body every opportunity to heal.
My leg was taped for support, causing spectators and commentators to wonder how I’d perform. Before racing, I followed the timeline for our warm-up routine that Coach Hart had set up. Each drill was scripted to the minute. When I struggled to get through my 30–60–90 progressions, we both recognized that I had the power to burst, but lacked the strength to shift. It wasn’t clear to either of us if my leg could hold up in a race around the track.
With gentleness in his voice, Coach Hart offered, “Sanya, you don’t have to do this.”
It was like he was giving me permission to be less than superhuman. I felt loved by the kindness.
“Coach,” I countered, “I didn’t come all this way not to try.”
As I stepped toward the blocks, I couldn’t anticipate what was about to happen. I knew my hamstring hadn’t had the six weeks of recovery it required. I knew I might humiliate myself out there. But after years of keeping my head up, looking forward, and chasing excellence, I struggled to ignore that drive in the face of adversity.
At the sound of the starting gun, I took off with the pack. But I immediately knew that something was off. Commentators narrating the race recognized, from the first step, that I’d been tentative out of the blocks. In the first fifty meters, I knew I wouldn’t be able to finish the race. I tried to hold my position but was slowly losing ground. At the second turn, I had to pull up. As my legs slowed, there was no question in anyone’s mind that my race was ending.
My career was ending.
Brimming with disappointment, I continued to jog around the track. After the other athletes had crossed the finish line, I continued around the track raising my arms and waving my thanks to the amazing crowd at Hayward Field.
Echoing my earliest races in Jamaica, a woman yelled, “We love you, Sanya!”
She wasn’t alone. Many in the crowd rose to their feet, clapping and cheering for me. The lap that should have been painfully disappointing was instead bittersweet. I was sad my career was ending before the 2016 Olympics, but I also felt a flood of gratitude for the amazing support my fans had offered me over the years.
Before I was even able to catch my breath, a reporter was engaging me with questions.
“Man, this is tough for me,” I shared honestly, chest still heaving for oxygen. “You know, when the season started I saw myself potentially defending my title, and just obstacle after obstacle. I thank God that I was able to come out here today, but when I tried to hit my next gear, my hamstring just locked up on me. I’m grateful for an amazing career and amazing fan support, and I’m excited for the next chapter of my life.”
I went on to say, “I do want to go into broadcasting. That’s one of the things I’m passionate about. I’m working on a book, wanting to inspire other people to be their best. And then, a mom. I want to start a family. So I’m excited about that.”
Though one dream had ended, the seeds of the next had already been planted in my heart.
What Was Next
That final race had been on Saturday, July 2. It was a clear and sudden end to the career I’d been building for more than two decades. What I didn’t know during that emotion
al finish was that the next chapter of my journey was going to start a lot sooner than I’d expected.
The following day, NBC called one of my managers, Lis Moss, to invite me to work with them as a commentator. Lis then called my mom, who was with me in Oregon. Both of them knew how crushed I was to release the dream of defending my title in my fourth Olympics. My mom assured Lis that she’d speak with me about it when the time was right.
After going out to dinner as a family, I was talking to Ross outside under some beautiful oak trees. Eugene was gorgeous in the summer.
Stepping outside of the home we’d rented, my mom gently asked if she could speak with me.
When she told me about the opportunity, I was blown away. The door to Rio had barely closed, and God had already opened a new door. Feelings of disappointment and joy and sadness and gratitude collided in my heart, and I began to cry. The opportunity felt like such a gift. Because it’s in my nature to always be strategizing my next move, it felt like a kindness from the Lord to be handed that good gift on a gold platter. I didn’t have to chase it down. In that amazing opportunity, I heard God saying, “I got you, San. I got you.”
I told my mom, “Let me talk to Ross. Give me a day and we’ll get back to them.”
As I expected, Ross was incredibly supportive. We called NBC on Monday morning and were having brunch with them the same day. They said they’d been watching me and felt like I had all the attributes they were looking for. They hadn’t had a woman in the booth for over ten years, and had been looking for the right one.
Although it sounds crazy to say now, I was in the booth at Hayward Field by Wednesday! I got to commentate for the last three days of the trials, and it was amazing. Track has been the greatest blessing in my life, and I’ll always love it. With this opportunity, I’d be able to contribute to the sport in a new way that really excited me.
For just a few short days, I thought I wasn’t going to Rio.
I was wrong.
Heading to Brazil
When NBC asked me that week to work as a commentator in Rio, I was thrilled.
That said, the decision of whether or not I would go wasn’t one Ross and I took lightly. The outbreak of the Zika virus, which caused brain abnormalities in fetuses, had scared a lot of fans away from Rio. The virus was being transmitted through infected mosquitoes. Ross and I were eager to start a family. Did we want to risk it? A doctor working with NBC assured me that, because it was “winter” in Rio, there wouldn’t be many mosquitoes. Her expertise and insights were helpful. Ross would have loved to have traveled with me, but because the virus lives longer in the bloodstreams of men than in women, we chose against doubling our chances and eventually decided I’d travel alone.
I have to tell you that any fans and athletes who chose not to go to Rio missed out. It was a beautiful country with amazing people. And I didn’t see one mosquito my entire visit!
Just before the Games, the producer I expected to work with was injured and wasn’t able to make the trip to Rio. The producer who took over the assignment for him had quite the sense of humor.
Seconds before I went live on air, he said, “Thirty seconds to thirty million! Be great!”
No pressure.
I was so nervous, and the reminder that thirty million people would be listening didn’t help! I just kept reminding myself that talking on air about the athletes wasn’t any different than dishing with my parents in our living room. And I’d been couch-commentating for years.
Thankfully, I held up under the pressure, getting more and more comfortable every day. My parents could hear it too when they listened to the broadcasts. It was an incredibly fun experience with a great group of people, and I enjoyed the challenge of improving.
Working in Rio was a different beast than broadcasting in Eugene had been. At the trials, I already knew most of the American athletes. But in Rio, I had to study each night, reading up on the athletes and learning how to pronounce some pretty unique names!
Watching
A lot of people have asked me what it was like to be in Rio but not be running. I can honestly say that it was exciting to watch every race.
Except one.
The women’s 400 meter was tough to watch.
Over the years I’d been running it, I’d fallen in love with the race. The strategy. Even the pain. My mind began to play tricks on me. Could I have continued to compete? If I’d given the injury time to heal, would I have come back in a few races? Why couldn’t I have been healthy? But in the end, I knew that I’d done everything possible to make it work. I also believed that God had already been so good to me, and I wanted to live with gratitude for that instead of with regrets and second-guesses.
I was touched with a rush of emotion as I watched American teammates Phyllis Francis, Allyson Felix, and Natasha Hastings line up at the blocks for the finals. The world was wondering whether Bahaman Shaunae Miller would beat Allyson, who’d always been such a strong competitor and had dominated in the 200 for years. During the race, Shaunae seemed to pull ahead quickly, but Allyson powered forward, running her race with a strong, steady advance. In a dramatic finish, too close to call with the naked eye, Shaunae threw herself over the finish line, falling forward into the track. It was a finish few will forget. By the wonder of technology, officials decided that Shaunae’s horizontal torso had crossed the finish line before Allyson’s vertical one.
Watching that race was bittersweet. It felt strange offering my commentary on that photo finish when I would have loved to have been in the race.
At the same time, I was also loving what I was getting to do in the booth.
After I’d taken my final competitive steps at Hayward field, my “next step” had come knocking on my door when NBC invited me to broadcast with them. Today, I am loving the opportunities I’m being given to hone my skills as an on-camera journalist. It’s exactly what I want to be doing.
Stepping Forward with Ross
If sports journalism was part of the natural progression for me as my cleats left the track, Ross and I are now also dipping our toes into other ventures that have developed naturally as a result of who we are and what we value.
I’ll be the first person to admit that the life of an elite athlete is a necessarily self-centered way of living. Honestly, being a little self-focused is required. For me to perform at peak efficiency, I always had to give a lot of thought and attention to the foods I ate, the liquids I drank, the hours I slept, the work my body did. My dad wouldn’t even let me carry my own bags up a flight of stairs! I’m aware that these luxuries aren’t normal. I led a very unique and privileged existence. One that also included a lot of hard work!
But as a Christian, I’ve never lost sight of the fact that this life I’ve been given was never meant to be all about me. I believe we’ve been put on this earth to love others with God’s love. While I built my professional track career, God gave me opportunities to love the people I was with. And now, both Ross and I are excited to pursue new opportunities to love others.
For years, he’s been conducting free football clinics for kids. He does it because he’s seen and experienced the value of athletics. He knows that when kids have access to sports, they begin to dream bigger dreams for their lives. In conjunction with education, those dreams can take them places they’d never reach otherwise. I’ve also been offering sports clinics across the United States to educate and empower young people with tools to excel on and off the track.
We both feel like we’ve received so much from our families and our communities, but we’re very aware that there are so many children who don’t have access to what we did. We’re both passionate about raising money to help communities in need to flourish.
In both of our careers, we’ve known gifted young athletes who didn’t have access to the resources required to train for elite competition. Fans don’t always see the training, equipment, travel, and other expenses that are required to reach the highest levels of competition. Ross and I cr
eated a foundation together, called The Gold Standard Foundation, to support Olympic hopefuls whose dreams are limited by the cost of pursuing that goal.
I’ve also founded the Sanya Richards-Ross Fast Track Program. It is providing hundreds of children in Kingston, Jamaica, with literacy training, physical education, and healthy meals. Seven thousand kids who’ve been through the program are now reading at grade level. And they get to read a lot of books about sports that they love!
Closer to home, I’ve also recently launched a Girl Empowerment program in Central Texas to provide high school girls with leadership training. We do the same kind of vision boards together that I create to help me reach my goals! At the end of each program, our high-achievers receive a full makeover to attend their high school proms in style and confidence. We call it the Prom Glam!
It has been such a joy for both Ross and me to take what we’ve been given—great families, support from our communities, athletic talent, rich resources—and steward those in a way that allows others to flourish. We believe it’s what our lives were meant for.
Sharing with Others
Though your path won’t look just like mine, I do believe that you’ve been designed by God to thrive and also to use what you’ve been given to bless others. And it’s beautiful to see the ways that God uses what we offer him with open hands.
In John’s gospel, we get a peek behind the scenes at Jesus and his disciples before Jesus feeds five thousand people. His disciples are stumped about how they’ll provide food for such a large crowd. Andrew offers, “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” (John 6:9)
The answer, of course, is not far. But when that boy handed his lunch to Jesus, Jesus gave thanks to his Father and then distributed the meager offering, feeding the entire crowd.
When I was thirteen, I stood open-handed like that little boy. I gave God my heart and my body, and he did more than I could ever imagine.
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