Olympic legends share their favorite Beijing moments
Posted: Tuesday, August 12, 2008 11:49 PM by Jen Brown
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Beijing
Since Julie Foudy, Bela Karolyi and Michael Johnson stopped by the set to chat about “Let It Out,” a new documentary featuring Olympic legends sharing life-altering personal and athletic moments, I took the opportunity to ask them about the greatest moment they’ve seen at these Games so far:
Julie Foudy, Olympic soccer gold medalist in 1996 and 2004, silver medalist in 2000
When I go home every night I turned on CNN International in my hotel room, and all I here is the war going on between Georgia and Russia. And then the second day, the Russian and the Georgian are on the medal stand together, and they reach in and embraced on the medal stand. I thought, 'That is what the Olympics are all about.'
Michael Johnson, four-time Olympic gold medalist in track and world record holder in the 200m, 400m and 4x400 m relay
Opening ceremonies were phenomenal, best I’ve ever seen. I can’t pick a favorite part, that was the great thing about it. You go back to Atlanta and you could say the best moment was when Muhammad Ali appeared to light the torch, and you could go back to 1992 and say the archer who shot the bow to light the torch and the flame came up was the best. But with this one, there were just so many moments that were really just awesome. It was incredible.
Bela Karolyi, coach of the 1984, 1988, 1992, and 1996 USA Olympic Teams
The men’s gymnastics’ team winning the bronze medal was really a great moment. It was an amazing outcome of human personality and all those situations you don’t expect to happen. I have to commend the whole team. It was a united group of people with great feelings for each other. You could see the hunger in their heart to overcome all the set backs, with all the controversy they suffered over this period of time. I strongly feel the controversies and all the set backs made them stronger.
