People watch sports events because they are thrilling and competitive, but they also watch sports in order to be inspired. Well, if you would like to be inspired by a wonderfully talented girl who tumbles with her glasses and braces on, look no further than the latest American star.
Morgan Hurd has just won the all around women's title in artistic gymnastics, an achievement hundreds of thousands of girls around the world dream about. Many fans like rooting for the underdog, but who everyone likes to root for is an athlete who is talented, focused, humble and sweet. This is exactly what Megan Hurd is. She has all the qualities of the kind of unexpected superhero that can inspire everyone.
16-year old Morgan was adopted from Wuzhou, China as a toddler. She lives in Middletown, Delaware with her mom. Her coach is from a beautiful town called Nizhny Novgorod in Russia.
All three places are not exactly the kind of locations that most people can spot on a map.
But winning is not about where you started or about where you stopped at the end. It is about the distance in between. Morgan's journey is tremendous. She had some good marks before winning this title, but not really big wins. She truly started from zero and ended up right at the top.
To be fair to her and her competitors, Morgan's victory was somewhat unexpected, though it was completely deserved. Her name now stands next to those of Kim Zmeskal, Shannon Miller, Shawn Johnson, Chelsie Memmel, Bridget Sloan, Jordyn Wieber, Simone Biles.
Above all the skills and the hours of training, and above the natural talent or even all the pain involved in learning new moves, Morgan stands where she is because, during the most challenging time in her career, unlike many of her competitors, she stayed calm and confident and did not make mistakes. Being a hero is not always about spectacular moments, drama and competitive thirst. Being a hero can be mostly about quiet, unwavering resistance. Morgan may have surprised some fans. But she really just went out there, and did the very best of her best. That's something that many people, who are otherwise extremely killed, frequently fail to do under pressure.
Morgan has won and she's smiling with her braces in order to remind us about the great range of things in life that are possible. She "dwells in possibility" as a poet wrote. I think it's no accident that her coach's first name means "glory."
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