31 July 2024

We have had quite a feast of sport this summer with Euros Football, Wimbledon and now the Paris Olympics with its spectacular opening ceremony on the river Seine. For me, it was the Eiffel Tower which created the greatest buzz with its magical mathematical lighting show and the recovering Celine Dion topping it all.

She showed great perseverance following a debilitating illness. It took courage to return to the stage – and what a first night! She didn’t let her fans down and neither did Tom Pidcock, the English mountain biker, who took an amazing gold on the Cross Country Olympic Course at Elancourt Hill.

There were thirty six cyclists in the race from twenty-seven nations, The Frenchman, Victor Koretzky, was the firm favourite and was cheered enthusiastically by the crowd. There were eight laps altogether. Each one was 4.4km. By the third lap, Pidcock was in the lead.

On the fourth lap, tragedy struck. He got a puncture and had to come off his bike whilst his mechanic changed the wheel. He lost a crucial 36 seconds. There were five laps to go. ‘That’s fifty minutes.’ thought Pidcock.’Any thing can happen.’

Amazingly, he caught up with the lead cyclists and soon he was trailing Koretzky.  Not long before the end of the race, Pidcock took a different route through the woods and found a gap which brought him almost into a collision with Koretzky. It was enough to give him the nine second lead and gold!

‘The Olympics is so special, you never give up. You give everything and that is what I had to do.’ said Pidcock later. ‘I knew Victor was going to be fast in the last lap even if I couldn’t get rid of him. I knew it was going to be a big fight and he left a gap and I had to take it. That’s racing …  sport is about not giving up.’

And that’s the spirit of Christianity. It is all about not giving up when defeat looks certain. We live in difficult times. This is our Olympic trial. Like Pidcock, things go wrong but we don’t give up. This is the secret. As the writer to the Hebrews says, ‘Run with perseverance the race that is set before you, looking to Jesus …’

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