The trip is almost complete. I feel almost sad because this has been the most stressful and wonderful time ever.

I don’t mean that it was stressful in a life-or-death way but having the “slight” pressure of the U.S. on me whether real or perceived was definitely something I could feel the whole time.

The wonderful part hit me a few days after the competition, when the slight disappointment had faded away and I realized that I had competed in the Olympic Games. There are definitely things that could have been better, but I feel as though I did everything to the best of my abilities that day and couldn’t ask myself for more.

The winner, Andrey Moiseev from Russia, was far and above the best competitor in the field that day, and I applaud him for doing what is considered almost impossible, defending his crown as Olympic champion.

Some quick highlights from the competition itself:

I had a rough go of it in the shooting, for sure. I told one of the Brits who was next to me during the competition that I felt like throwing up while walking to my position and this feeling never went away.

It was very difficult to fight against this and try to execute each shot, but I really was OK with the results because there was no way of recreating the incredible nerves that are created in this situation in practice, so it was a trial by fire and I got burned. All said and done, I ended up on the low end of the group with my final score.

We then went back downstairs to the warmup area to prepare for fencing. I fenced as well as I could when the short amount of time training in this event. I made some errors that were costly, but also had some moments that I am quite happy with. I also scored a hit on the eventual winner of both the fence and the overall competition, so I would chalk that up as a positive for sure.

The only event that I was truly disappointed in was the swimming. There isn’t more to say, really, because this is one of those clear-cut things – the time is what it is and it is only my responsibility that it ended up slower than I expected or wanted.

The bright side of being in the basement is there is no pressure on the rest of the day, so I really had only to get through the ride without getting killed – which on this day was not a gimme situation by any stretch of the imagination.

It had been raining all day and the ring was a sea of mud. The jumps were all within four inches of the maximum 4-foot height (and width in some cases) so the lineup for the draw had a lot of nervous people in it.

I drew the same horse as the 2007 world champion from Hungary, and our horse almost kicked two people on its demonstration jog out of the ring. So we looked at each other and weren’t sure whether this was the last time or not.

He got to go first, and as I watched from the stands I was not thrilled. He knocked a bunch of rails down and had a vicious stop that removed him from the saddle and got his nice white pants all muddy. All told, he ended up with so many penalty points that it effectively removed him from contention and moved my heartbeat up near 200 beats per minute as my mount time approached.

Fortunately, the competition was running behind schedule and I had an opportunity to walk around the warmup ring on the horse and it calmed us both down immensely. As warmup proceeded, I got happier and happier because it went really well. So, I thought this might actually work.

Meanwhile, there was mayhem going on in the main stadium. It was collectively one of the worst rides ever for the men, so if the crowd wanted to see a demolition derby they got it. My last image before going into the holding ring inside the stadium as next to go was the French rider coming out with a broken nose and I think broken orbital bone and there was blood everywhere. Last bit of encouragement received, I went into the ring.

Those 81 seconds will be forever in my mind. Aside from a stop that came out of nowhere and one dropped rail, we went around just fine and when all 32,000-plus people who braved the rain started cheering at the end I had my “this is the Olympics” moment, I stayed in the ring as long as I could, savoring every minute because everything was perfect at that point in time.

From that moment on, I enjoyed every second of the competition, even though I was heavily handicapped by the extreme number of 180 degree turns in the running course (24 total), I was able to finish 18th in the Olympic Games.

The women’s competition was the next day and under a brilliant blue sky it was a great competition to watch. I got to see history made as Sheila Taormina officially became the first woman to compete in three different Olympic sports.

She is truly an amazing athlete and even more so an amazing person. She struggled through an incredibly difficult day, and observing how she handled the changing situation was an outstanding educational experience. Someday she will be known as the greatest women athlete in U.S. history, and I had the distinct honor to be part of her team. She ended up setting an Olympic pentathlon record in the swim and winning the ride with a perfect score (one of only four total among the men and women).

In an effort to reduce the carnage of the men’s ride from the day before, the organizers reduced the size of the fences somewhat and took the lowest scoring horses out of the draw and the results were much improved. It was a good move on their part, and I was glad to see it done because the president of the IOC was present to observe and it would not have been good for the future of the sport to have people hauled out on stretchers. The women are great riders and would have handled the course in its original state easily, but it made more sense to put the changes into effect and clean things up a bit. They kept the run course the same and I was happy to see our women improve their standings with some very good running.

In the U.S. team overall (men and women) we finished 18th (me), 22nd for my teammate, 19th for Sheila and 21st for Margaux Isaksen.

The two women and myself have only been training for this sport for three years and it is unheard of for one person to make it to this level in that amount of time, not to mention three. It is a testament to my coach, Janusz, that he was able to accomplish this. I feel that it is primarily through his guidance and pushing that we got this far.

Coaches do not get nearly enough credit, especially in smaller sports for where they struggle constantly to keep their small groups of athletes around and in a mental and physical condition to perform, because there is not much support money to be had and a lot of things have to be done with little more than faith and dedication plus a love for their sport. I have watched Janusz be abused and disrespected by everyone, including myself over the years, and through it all, he never stopped just doing his job. As a gold medalist, he never got the respect he deserved from his superiors. I hope that at some point in time his feat will be recognized by somebody and he will get the recognition and respect he deserves.

On the plane home tomorrow, I will write about the closing ceremonies and final days here.



Sam Sacksen of Somerset competed in the modern pentathlon at the Olympics in Beijing. He is writing a regular column/blog for The Tribune-Democrat and www.tribdem.com.