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The
road
to gold
Costco members go for the glory
THERE ARE MANY routes to the Olympics. For some Costco members, the path involves carrying the banner of the USA as one of the dominant athletes in their sport. Others participate in
supporting roles that may receive less attention, but are no less important, as coaches, physicians,
trainers and more. For the next few issues, leading up to the August 2008 Olympics in Beijing,
The Connection would like to share the stories of Costco members who are on the road to gold.
Sync or swim
KATE HOOVEN looks like the
quintessential California beach girl:
23 years old, blonde and beautiful.
Her interests lie far beyond sun,
surf and sand—she’s determined
to win a gold medal at the Beijing
Olympics as a co-captain of the
2008 USA Women’s Synchronized
Swimming Team.
Hooven’s passion for the sport
began in 1996, at age 11, when she
took a recreational class at her local
aquatic center in Walnut Creek,
California. That passion gained
added inspiration when the team
event made its debut in medal competition at the Summer Olympics in
Atlanta and the U.S. women took
home the gold.
Even at that early age, Hooven was committed
enough to devote two to three hours a day, five days
a week, in training.
“As you get older, the hours gradually get longer,”
Hooven explains. With Beijing looming, she is (lite rally) submerged in the discipline, usually training
from 8 a.m. to 3 or 4 p.m. She reports, “Today, we were
in the pool from 8 to 2 and then I went running for an
hour.” That’s six days a week. On Sunday they rest.
Admits Hooven, “Whatever energy I have left, I
try to let loose and have fun with my friends.”
She also proves a passionate advocate for the
sport. “A lot of people think synchro is not hard or
a sport at all. It’s very difficult to lift someone when
you have nothing really to push off of. I encourage
people to get in the water and actually try. Really try
it. It’s harder than you think.”—Steve Fisher
MICHAEL MULLER
Different
strokes
KEN BROMAN
COSTCO MEMBER Dara
Torres first starting thinking
about competing in the
Olympics when she was
13 years old. She’s had a
lot of time to think about it.
The 41-year-old, who
swam in her first competitive
race at the age of 14, has
competed in four Olympics
(1984, 1988, 1992 and 2000)
and is preparing for her fifth,
which would make her the
first swimmer to make five
Olympic teams and the oldest female Olympic swimmer
ever. She has won nine medals, four of them gold, and in
1994 became the first female
athlete to appear beside
supermodels in a Sports
Illustrated swimsuit issue.
Has all of this gone to
her head? Says Torres, “I
think the fact that I’m as
old as a lot of my competitors’ parents” helps to keep
things in perspective.—TFJ
Kate Hooven (front, left) and the 2008 USA Women’s
Synchronized Swimming Team.
From Russia with love
UNABLE TO AFFORD a babysitter during their
early years in the United States, Valeri and Anna
Liukin, recent émigrés from Moscow, Russia, were
SPEEDO USA/MICHAEL MULLER
forced to bring their daughter, Anastasia (Nastia) to
the gym while they worked. The two gymnastics
coaches, both of whom had earned world and/or
Olympic championships earlier in their careers,
soon found it impossible to ignore their young
daughter’s talent and her desire to be involved. “I
was always running around and on the bars, and
that’s kind of how I started,” Nastia Liukin
remembers. “It became like a huge playground for me.” By the time she was
12, Nastia was an elite gymnast, at 16
she was nominated for the World
Top 10 Athletes Award and now, at
19, she is one of the most decorated
American gymnasts in world championship history.
She was lucky, says the Costco
member, in that “I fell in love with the
sport at an early age. Knowing how
much my parents have accomplished
has really inspired me to achieve.”
JOHN CHENG
—T. Foster Jones
Dara Torres (above) will
swim laps, and Anastasia
Liukin (left) will make
leaps for gold.