August 9

Today is August 9, 2011 and it's my 16th birthday. Presently I am spending my last summer as a camper in Maine, and today was the culmination of our Olympic games. Senior camp is divided into two teams, the greens and the greys. I was chosen to be the green team captain, which is a great honor. There are many kinds of sporting events and activities that occur during the four days, with the last event being the wacked-up-relay. The final event in the relay, that usually decides the entire Olympics, is the pie-eating contest. Today was the closest Olympics in my eight years at camp, and fortunately, MY TEAM WON!

Exactly 75 years ago today, August 9, 1936, Jesse Owens won his fourth gold medal in track and field at the Games of the XI Olympiad in Berlin, Germany. He became the first American to win four gold medals in one Olympiad. Owens was the most successful athlete at the games, and the victory was noteworthy as Adolf Hitler had intended the 1936 games to showcase “Aryan racial superiority.” Hitler was very upset with the success of Jesse Owens, and wanted to ban Africans from partaking in future games.

On the world stage, the Olympics bring people together from all different backgrounds and unite them in competition. At camp, Olympics create a bond amongst us. Tomorrow, it won’t matter if you were on the green team or the grey team, there will just be lots of great memories.