«Do not worry about anything. On the contrary: in every prayer and supplication, present your requests to God with thanksgiving. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your thoughts in Jesus ». The echoes of this prayer, pronounced four years ago in the final of the Rio Games, resonated again yesterday at the 86 World Pool, where David Boudia and Steele Johnson started their Olympic year at the Grand Prix in Madrid. The fervor of St. Paul's letter to the Philippians was updated on the lips of the American couple, a major attraction of a contest without Chinese jumpers because of the coronavirus.
The absence of the great dominators of the specialty was palliated yesterday by Boudia and Johnson, Olympic runners-up in 2016 and firm medal candidates on July 27 at the Tokyo Aquatic Center. However, despite appearances, these old friends do not feel the call of glory as a priority. "My main objective is to be authentic with my life," said Boudia yesterday, hedonist of the past, today a fervent Catholic, whom even gold in a 10-meter platform in London has not been able to divert from the path of faith. Johnson knows it well, with whom he has shared countless hours of training and with whom he goes to the Faith Church in West Lafayette (Indiana) every Sunday.
On Sunday, at ten o'clock in the morning, the idol pirouettes on the three-meter trampoline could only be savored by a handful of unconditional ones. From some corner, between class and swimming class, a mob of kids poked their noses. However, this humble scenario, far from the Olympic fanfare, seemed to fit perfectly into the Boudia and Johnson schemes.
"Suffering with temptations"
"At his age I felt an atrocious fear when he climbed up there," Boudia comments to this newspaper while pointing to the 10-meter platform. To tolerate those disciplines of his early adolescence in Noblesville, he began smoking pot and drinking alcohol compulsively. At Purdue University, he lagged at all parties with the idea of becoming the most popular boy.
Boudia, 29, has shaped these experiences in Greater than gold , a direct autobiography to the jaw published in 2016. “Although I desperately pursued other things, God loved me despite everything. Now he has given my life a new meaning for me to follow his path and to know him more deeply, ”he reveals in the prologue about his fall from the horse, in the manner of St. Paul, in the fall of 2009.
«I am not perfect in any way. I still suffer with temptations. Some of them are like everyone else's. Other more specific sportsmen »warns with ascetic rigor. Giving up tobacco, a habit traditionally admitted among jumpers, was quite an ordeal. Eliminate any premarital activity with Sonnie, who became his wife in 2012, the prelude to his full enjoyment as a father.
Waivers of pleasures are also indispensable today for Johnson, 23, under whose blond hair snakes a scar as a memory of an accident that almost cost him his life. That blow against the platform, in January 2009, left 33 stitches and sequels in his memory, although it was also a huge breath of religiosity.
Error in the fifth jump
"I've learned a lot from David and not only in the pool," he acknowledges. "He has taught me very important things about faith and life," he develops, not forgetting that last leap from the Maria Lenk Aquatic Center platform, which earned an Olympic silver in 2016. The third Olympic medal for his mentor and the first for the.
On Sunday, in a contest against only three opponents, Boudia and Johnson showed that their peak shape is still far from what they will wear in Tokyo. After a great fourth jump, with three and a half mortals backwards, they erred in the next, of a greater difficulty, with four and a half mortals forward. The last attempt was insufficient to trace Australians Shixin Li and Matthew Carter. In July, copper must be beaten with Chen Aisen, the great platform divo, double Olympic champion and triple world champion.
Only the threat of the coronavirus, which is clouding the preparation of the Chinese, could placate the voracity of the great favorite. Awaiting the great date, oblivious to these vanities, Boudia prefers to hold on to another of his favorite passages from the book of Psalms. «Glory, Lord, is not for us; It is not for us, but for your name, because of your love and your truth.
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