Читать книгу Indiana University Olympians. From Leroy Samse to Lilly King онлайн

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Nathan’s score would have placed seventh and made her top American at the Atlanta Olympics. The thirty-four-year-old JJK dropped out, and perhaps should have dropped out before the Olympics, allowing Nathan on the team. Nathan said it was her own “epic fail,” that she was in the best shape of her life and had no excuses.

“Nobody really knows this because I never talk about it. But it all had to do with spirituality and being obedient to God,” she said. “Every single time that I failed— and I failed big, and I always failed big because I succeeded big—it was a spiritual thing. God just had to get me in a certain spot. He let me know in ‘96 when I didn’t make that team, He let me know, ‘If you’re not going to be obedient and do what I want you to do, I will never let you go to the Olympics. You don’t go.’ And that’s the only thing I hadn’t done yet.”

In 1999, Nathan had her best year. At thirty, she became a world champion, winning the pentathlon in the World Indoor Championships at Maebashi, Japan. She set an American record of 4,753 points, smashing Carter’s record of 4,632 from 1995.Through 2019, Nathan’s record had been raised only fifty-two points.