UNIT –7
The Olympic Champion and the Ducks
The Greeks started the Olympic Games on the plains of Olympia. Their last
Olympic Games were held in 261 A.D. These games were started again in 1896
and are being held once in every four years.
At the Olympic Games of 1928 in Amsterdam, Bobby Pearce won a gold medal
for rowing race. He also won the hearts of all who saw him win.
Bobby Pearce was born in Sidney in Australia. His father was a great sculling
champion. (Sculling means ‘one man rowing with two oars’, one in each hand). When
Bobby was five, he was rowing around Sidney harbour in a small boat. A Little later,
he won his first race, competing against the olds. One of the judges asked him, “ How
old are you, Bobby?” And he replied proudly, “Six”.
By the time he was twenty, Bobby was the sculling champion of Australia. The
following year he went to Amsterdam to compete in the Olympic Games. In the finals
he competed against Ken Myers of America. From the start of the race, Bobby was in
the lead. At the half-way stage, he was still leading and very much ahead of Myers. It
seemed that Bobby would easily win.
Then, suddenly, something happened. Bobby heard a shout from the bank and he
looked over his shoulder. He saw a duck and her brood of ducklings swimming across
the canal. They were swimming into the course of his boat and the boat was going to
run into them. The poor birds had no idea that they were in the middle of an Olympic
race!
Immediately Bobby slowed his boat down. Myers was catching up very fast. The
people on the shore were shouting as if they were mad. But, Bobby waited patiently
until all the ducklings were out of danger. Then he picked up speed again and went on
to win the race easily.
Of all the Olympic heroes, it was he who won everybody’s heart. A Dutch
newspaper wrote, “He won the goodwill of the children of Amsterdam”. His friends
in the Australian Olympic team were not surprised by the incident of the ducks. “Bobby
is that kind of man,” they said.
From the age of six, Bobby Pearce competed in races for thirty three years and
retired from sports in 1945. How many of these races do you think he lost? Not a
single race!
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