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Football, Fatima, and Fado - The FIFA - Olympic Connection

Chapter 30 from Where is America in Bible Prophecy"

Football, Fatima and Fado – the FIFA-Olympic Connection

The story goes that the last dictator of Portugal, J.A. Salazar, who was Prime Minister from 1932 to 1968, when asked what was necessary to rule the country, responded with the three ‘Fs:’ football, Fatima and Fado. He was saying that all that he needed to control the country was sports, religion and music.

Fatima, of course, stood for the religious element. The town of Fatima was where the famous three Catholic children were supposed to have seen a vision and to have received a message from the Virgin Mary. The apparition event took place just prior to WWI. Portuguese tradition has it that Mary’s appearance at Fatima and the public’s embracing response was the reason that Portugal was able to remain neutral during the war.

The ‘F’ for Fado stood for the typical sad folk music popular in Portugal at the time, while the ‘F’ for football, obviously, stood for sports. During those years Benfica was Portugal’s greatest football team, and Eusebio, a famous striker, was the star. When a famous Italian team offered Eusebio a large contract to come play in Italy, Salazar prohibited it, saying that Eusebio was a national treasure. Salazar knew the value of football over the masses and so kept their champion at home.

We all remember the words of Karl Marx, who said that religion was the opiate of the masses. Salazar amplified the opiate to include the music and sports industries, which at the time of Salazar were still in their infancy in comparison with today. But of course the Romans and Greeks had used sports in the same way. In the time of Rome’s decline it is said that the people demanded more circus and bread even while Rome was being surrounded by its enemies.

Today we could amplify the list of opiates further and include the giant commercial centers where thousands rush every weekend to shop for all the things that money can buy. These are the new temples of mammon, where the faithful go to worships the new idols. We buy gadgets that give us more time on the Internet where we can watch more sports, music or religious events, or even have Internet sex or watch movies that promote all the values we don’t want our children or grandchildren to have. And yet, with all our things and momentary pleasure, we still do not satisfy the deepest yearning of our soul for truth, love and eternal happiness. Like the Apostle John has said,

Love not the world neither the things of the world for all that is of the world, the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life, is not of the father but of the world. And the world passes away and the lust thereof, but whosoever doeth the will of God abides forever.[1]

Jesus said something similar,

A man’s life consists not in the abundance of things which he possesses.[2]

Apostle James put it a different way. He said,

Ye adulterers and adulteresses know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God? Whosoever therefore will be a friend of the world is the enemy of God.[3]

The apostle is saying here that if we are lusting after the things of the world, or living for them only, we are committing spiritual adultery with the world. That is why we will never be ultimately happy. Man is not just a physical being. He is spiritual being, and he must seek first his spiritual needs. As Jesus said,

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you.[4] Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceed out of the mouth of God.[5]

In the Old Testament the Lord said through Isaiah,

Why do ye spend money for that which is not bread? And you labour for that which satisfies not? Hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness. Incline you ear, and come unto me: hear and your soul shall live.[6]

Man is constantly trying to find happiness in the things that are not eternal and therefore in the end do not bring ultimate happiness. His amusements help him escape from the predicament he finds himself in. They help him escape from his life without meaning and purpose. They help him escape the daily grind of making a living to acquire more things. In the end, he winds up empty, wondering if this is all there is to life. He ends up concluding he should “Eat drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die.”[7] He spends his time trying to take care of and satisfy his body and its needs and desires, while neglecting his spirit, his eternal soul which will last for eternity. Like the old poem He Fed His Body But Starved His Soul.

There was a man that some folks called great,

said he’d done good, had grappled with fate.

He’d won some fame and some riches, too.

But in the crowd there were those that knew;

the soul of him so miserably small,

that real greatness he knew not at all.

For all through life he had missed the real goal,

he fed his body but starved his soul.

He had no time for the little things,

that so much peace and contentment brings;

a faithful friend or a child’s tender look,

a promise sweet from the dear Old Book,

a little talk with a Friend Divine,

a little walk where the wildflowers twine.

He was just half a man, not well rounded, whole;

who fed his body but starved his soul.

And when that day of accounting came

in God’s own time, death called his name;

then the poor, frail, worthless, empty shell,

he groomed and fed and tended so well,

was left behind just an earthbound clod,

while his shriveled soul went to face his God.

All unprepared and paid the full toll,

for he had fed his body and starved his soul.

So come my friend and take time today,

to read God’s Word and walk in His ways.

We’ll follow the trail that higher goes,

to regions where the soul larger grows.

You’ll never hear them say of you then,

just one of the common herd of men.

So if you would be well-rounded and whole,

read God’s Word to nourish your soul.[8]

Are we feeding our physical body with food and drink and entertainments of the flesh to the full, while our spirits are empty and longing for satisfaction? Do we feel like the Rolling Stones’ famous song, I Can’t Get No Satisfaction.[9] We can’t get no satisfaction because all we’re trying to do is satisfy the flesh. But the trouble is that the flesh is never satisfied. It always wants more and more and never has enough. Like the Proverb says,

The eyes of man are never satisfied.[10]

No matter how many beautiful woman a man has seen, he will always look at another one. Like the rich Romans in the time of Rome’s great wealth and abundance who would attend banquets full of food and sex and alcohol. They would eat to the filling of their stomachs, only to vomit it all up, so they could fill themselves up once again. Like some of the scandals of recent times of rich politicians or wealthy businessmen well in years seeking sex with young girls hardly eighteen years of age. The flesh is never satisfied, it always wants more. But as Jesus said,

The flesh profits nothing.[11]

But in this article I wanted to look at the World Cup and Olympics and see what kind of affect they have on the economies of the countries that host the games. I also wanted to see if these sports events are part of the spiritual web woven to catch men within its borders and prohibit them from finding the way, the truth and the life. John Perkin’s Economic Hitman[12] which we have talked about earlier, explains of the infrastructure contracts that Third World countries are forced to accept from the World Bank and International Monetary Fund. These contracts ultimately leave the country poorer than when they started. Are FIFA and the Olympics part of the great financial sorcery to bind heavier burdens on the poor economies of the world in order to keep those economies and those peoples submissive to the international bankers?

Some time ago I did a study about the countries who had hosted World Cup and Olympic events. Some articles on the subject and a YouTube link can be found at the following footnote.[13] I had seen the affects of these games in Portugal, Greece, and Spain, where the governments invested large amounts of euros loaned from Europe. These loans went to improve infrastructure and to build the needed stadiums in the hope of reaping the financial benefits of the games. In the end we found out that the financial benefits hardly warranted such a financial investment, and the government and people were left with a big financial loan to pay back.

That’s why we saw the manifestations in Brazil before the World Cup soccer games, as some have come to realize that the games bring no relief to the poor and needy. They only serve to increase the wealth of the wealthy through construction contracts. Some cities are left with stadiums they do not know how they will pay off or maintain. But since football is part of the web to keep men caught, as Salazar so confessed, the Internationals keep sports as a high priority on their agenda. They want a pacific populace. They want a population which will not rise up against their masters, the financial elite. They want a population that will submit and adhere to the financial injustices perpetrated against them.

They bind heavy burdens grievous to be born and they themselves touch not the burdens with one finger.[14]

The bankers and politicians create big national debts and then expect the population to pay it back to them. Something is wrong with this picture, but the silent majority blindly go like sheep to the slaughter. Sports is one of today’s opiates that keep them walking in submission to their corrupt leaders.

But one of the problems today is the Muslim youth, many of whom have not integrated into the Western society. They remain aloof and therefore out of control through the normal methods of manipulation. The religious element usually helps governments control their populations. They’ll gain financial or influential favors because of their cooperation with the government. But radical Islamic movements from the Middle East embittered by the events that have occurred there are in this case feeding rebellion and violent acts of aggression as we have recently seen in France. But that’s a whole other topic. Let’s keep to FIFA and sports.

Of course FIFA always justifies the extra expense for the host country, saying it is good for the country's pride and national identity. Local government politicians will also parrot FIFA’s mantra knowing that big money coming into the country will mean contracts for their friends and supporters and something more in their own pockets. In the end, FIFA always manages to walk away richer than before, while the host country almost always has a great burden to pay and often some “white elephant” stadiums that are a burden on the local economy. In recent years, only Germany and the USA have had World Cup or Olympic events in which they have managed to break even. Many countries are waking up to the fact that the World Cup and Olympics are bad business.

But the truth is that for generations governments have used sports as a way to distract the population, keep them content, and foment national pride. Sports are an amusement. They keep men from thinking about their own problems. A man may have a poor and miserable job and life, but he can find self-esteem in his favorite champion who helps his team to victory over their rivals. The spectator gains euphoria through the victory his team wins on the playing field. His mind is distracted from his own wretched condition and he finds a sense of meaning in his favorite player and team.

Interestingly enough, the word amusement means “away from thinking.” During the time of the spectacle the fan is not thinking about his problems, but is absorbed in the game, as if he himself were playing. He forgets his problems and worries and dissatisfactions with life and his government, and for those moments he is amused. The word “muse” comes from the Greek for “to think” or “to ponder.” As in the word “atheist” the “a” before a word is used as a negative. A theist is a person who believes in God. An atheist is a person who does not believe in God. “Muse” means to think or ponder. “Amuse” means to not think or ponder or to be away from thinking or pondering. We seek out amusements for that very reason. They help us get away from thinking about our problems, whatever they may be.

Karl Marx predicted that the poor man would eventually turn against the rich and over throw their unjust rule over the poor. Why has not this prediction come to pass, when the poor far outnumber the rich? As the Caesars of Rome and as Salazar of Portugal confessed and the elite of the world know, amusements - whether they be music, sports or religious events - are important to control the masses and govern a nation. The rich have learned they need to share a tiny bit of their wealth with the poor to keep them passively submissive. Today we have the middle class, though many claim it’s a diminishing sector. We also have politicians who are suppose to be attentive to the needs and wants of their constituents, but are actually controlled by big money and its interests. It’s a sad day for the poor man. But never mind - let’s go have a beer and watch the game! Shall we? [To go to the next chapters click here]

Notes:

[1] 1John 2:15-17

[2] Luke 12:15

[3] James 4: 4

[4] Matthew 6:33

[5] Matthew 4: 4

[6] Isaiah 55:2-3

[7] 1Corinthians15:32 If after the manner of men I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, What advantages it me, if the dead rise not? Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we die.

[8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciSAMY9c--A (accessed 03/2016)

[9] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nrIPxlFzDi0 (accessed 03/2016)

[10] Proverbs 27:20 Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of man are never satisfied.

[11] John 6:63

[12] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-a6jzU0YgQ (accessed 03/2016)

[13] http://www.triplepundit.com/2011/11/ugly-side-beautiful-game/# (03/16)http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/07/3-reasons-why-hosting-the-olympics-is-a-losers-game/260111/ (accessed 03/2016) http://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/book/hosting-olympics-and-world-cup (03/16) http://rozvojovky.vse.cz/2SM412/presentations/Bjornstad_Aleksander-Hiltunen%20Tommi-SA_economy_and_FIFA_WC2010-paper.pdf (03/2016)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi9gTj_i3Nw (accessed 03/2016)

[14] Luke 11:46

All Bible verses are from the King James Bible, although I have changed some of the old English. Any similarity to any modern version is only by coincidence. Bible verses other than the King James have been foot-noted properly.

Copyright @ Dennis M. Edwards (photos used from Google Images for educational purposes only)

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U.S. gold medalist Gabby Douglas: 'glory goes' to God

By Tim Ellsworth & Diana Chandler, Baptist Press, Aug 7, 2012

LONDON (BP)—Gabby Douglas will soon have more money than she ever dreamed.

With a vibrant smile and two gold medals to her credit at the Olympics, the 16-year-old gymnast undoubtedly will cash in with endorsement and marketing deals worth millions of dollars. At the top of her wish list? An Acura NSX.

“I want the one like Iron Man’s off ‘The Avengers,’” Douglas said. “That was a nice car.”

The fame and fortune that Douglas instantly captured may make some things easier, but they won’t remove the difficulties from her life. When she faces such struggles, she turns to Scripture.

“God has given me this awesome talent to represent Him. Glory goes up to Him, and the blessings fall down on us,” Douglas said Aug. 5 in a press conference at the North Greenwich Arena.

When she’s learning something new that may seem intimidating, she tells herself, “God has not given us a spirit of fear, but a spirit of peace, love and a sound mind,” she said. When she’s having trouble perfecting a skill, she quotes, “All things are possible through Him.”

“You just mentally quote that, and it builds your faith up so much,” Douglas said. “God will never fail you. He’s always on your side.”

Her first Tweet after winning the individual all-around read simply, “Let all that I am praise the LORD; may I never forget the good things he does for me.”

Before Douglas left for London, Quintin Stieff, pastor of the Valley Church where she attends in West Des Moines, Iowa, likened her to a light that should shine to draw attention to God. Douglas shared her testimony with the congregation.

“The glory goes all to Him. He’s waking me up every morning and He’s keeping me in the gym every day. That’s very important,” she said, asking her church family to pray for her to “bring home the gold.”

Douglas made history, winning two golds in the first week of the Olympics—one in the women’s individual all-around and one in the women’s team competition. She’s the first African American woman to win gold in the Olympic individual all-around, and the first American woman to win gold in both the individual all-around and team competitions at the same Olympic Games.

While she couldn’t replicate that success in the second week, finishing eighth in the uneven bars and seventh in the beam, her performances will be remembered as one of the London Olympics’ biggest stories. Her face is already on a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes box.

At age 14, Douglas left her family home in Virginia Beach, Va., to stay with a host family, Travis and Missy Parton, in West Des Moines, Iowa, allowing her to train with coach Liang Chow. Douglas’ mother Natalie Hawkins sends Douglas Scripture passages twice daily to keep her on track to victory, Douglas said.

“When it was time for me to go to bed I would just put my earphones in and just fall asleep listening to the Bible,” she told the congregation. “It’s been a daily thing. I love reading about the Word. We have to put on the full armor of God, so when Satan tries to come against us, we are ready and prepared.”

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How did a blind archer set a world record at the Olympics?

The Week, July 27, 2012

On Friday, South Korea’s Im Dong Hyun, who is legally blind, set the first world record of the London Olympics, notching a score of 699 out of a possible 720 in the first round of the men’s archery contest. It’s no fluke—the record he broke was his own and, at previous Olympics in Beijing and Athens, Im helped South Korea’s archery team capture gold medals. He’s now the favorite to win the individual gold in London, as he progresses to one-on-one knockout rounds. Here, a guide to Im’s seemingly impossible feat:

How bad is his sight? Pretty bad. The 26-year-old has 20/200 vision in his left eye, which means “he needs to be 10 times closer to see an object than someone with perfect 20/20 vision,” says Nick Reeves at Agence France Presse. “His right eye, with 20/100 vision, is not a whole lot better.”

Does he wear glasses? No. Im claims glasses only make him uncomfortable, says The Associated Press. Instead, he “relies on distinguishing between the bright colors on the target,” with its rings of yellow, red, blue, and black. “With my vision, when I look at the target, it looks as if different color paints have been dropped in water,” Im says. “When I look down the range at the target all I can do is try to distinguish between the different colors. If I couldn’t see the colors, now that would be a problem.”

I’m having trouble believing this. Believe it. “Im would be hard pushed to read a newspaper at arm’s length,” says Reeves, “yet has no problem in hitting a target the size of a supermarket grapefruit from a distance of 70 meters.” That’s about three-quarters the length of a football field.

“In a sport that demands incredible focus and sight more than anything else, Im has overcome the strongest of obstacles to throw down archery’s finest Olympic effort,” says Patrick Clarke at Bleacher Report. Before the opening ceremonies even unfolded, what will surely be one of the games’ most “memorable” moments is history.

Sources: Agence France Presse, The Associated Press, Bleacher Report, The Guardian, Newser

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London 2012 Olympics: The Staging Ground for the Coming Police State?

By John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute, July 27, 2012

“As London prepares to throw the world a $14 billion party, it seems fair to ask the question: What does it get out of the bargain?” asks the Christian Science Monitor in a recent story on the 2012 Summer Olympics. “Salt Lake got to show that its Mormon community was open to the world,” observes journalist Mark Sappenfield. “Turin got to show that it was not the Detroit of Europe. China got to give the world a glimpse of the superpower-to-be. And Vancouver got to show the world that Canadians are not, in fact, Americans.”

And what is London showing the world? Sappenfield suggests that London is showing off its new ultramodern and efficient infrastructure, but if the security for the 2012 Olympics is anything to go by, it would seem that London is really showing the world how easy it is to make the move to a police state without much opposition from the populace.

It’s what the Romans used to refer to as “bread and circuses”—the idea that the key to controlling the masses is by satiating their carnal appetites and entertaining them with mindless distraction. Thus, while the world loses itself in the pomp and circumstance of a thoroughly British Olympics, complete with Sir Paul McCartney rocking the opening ceremony, celebrity sightings galore and a fair share of athletic feats and inspirational victories to keep us glued to our TV sets, a more sinister drama will be unfolding.

Welcome to the 2012 Summer Olympics, the staging ground for the coming police state.

Under cover of the glitz and glamour of these time-honored Games, a chilling military operation is underway, masterminded by a merger of the corporate, military and security industrial complexes and staffed by more than 40,000 civilian police, British military and security personnel, as well as FBI, CIA, and TSA agents, and private security contractors. Appropriately enough, this year’s Olympic mascot, Wenlock—a strange, futuristic blob with an all-seeing eye to “record everything” in the games—is being sold in Olympic stores dressed in a policeman’s uniform. “As a metaphor for the London Olympics, it could hardly be more stark,” writes Stephen Graham for the Guardian. “For £10.25 you, too, can own the ultimate symbol of the Games: a member of by far the biggest and most expensive security operation in recent British history packaged as tourist commodity.”

In addition to the usual tourist sights such as Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London and Big Ben, visitors to London may find themselves goggling at the military aircraft carrier floating in the Thames, the Typhoon fighter jets taking to the skies, ready to shoot down unauthorized aircraft, aerial drones hovering overhead to track residents and tourists, snipers perched in helicopters, an 18-km high, 11-mile long, 5,000-volt electric stun fence surrounding Olympic Park, and 55 dog teams patrolling the perimeter. Several locations throughout London will also feature surface-to-air missiles, including some residential areas in East London that will have them perched on top of apartment buildings. All these and more are supposedly part of the new security apparatus required to maintain security in an age of terror.

Roughly 13,000 private security guards provided by G4S, the world’s second largest private employer, will be patrolling the streets of London, under a $439 million contract with the British government. Due to some last minute trouble recruiting and training guards, 3,500 additional British military troops will be called in, making a total of 17,000 troops scheduled to police the Olympics.

More than 500 American federal agents will be on hand to assist Britain’s security forces. In fact, the CIA, State Department, and FBI have all been working closely with British authorities for well over a year in preparation for the Olympic games. TSA agents—infamous for stealing money from passengers’ luggage, patting down children and the elderly and handicapped, and, among other things, breaking diabetic passengers’ insulin pumps—will also be on loan to the British to assist with airport passenger screening during the Games, which will include fast-track fingerprinting for Olympic athletes.

There’s even a security patrol tasked with making sure that local businesses observe the government ban on symbols and words relating to the Olympics lest they cause economic harm to the “official” corporate sponsors, including Adidas, McDonald’s, Coca-Cola, and BP. These purple-capped government officials are authorized to enter businesses to look for violations, and can impose fines up to 20,000 pounds ($31,000). Included on the banned list are such words as games, 2012, gold, silver, bronze, summer, sponsors, and London. As Slate reports, “So far a London café has been forced to remove five offending bagels from its windows, as has a butcher who had the temerity to do the same with sausage links. Spectators have been warned that to risk wearing a garment adorned with the Pepsi logo may result in being banished from game venues and that nobody but McDonald’s can sell French fries at any Olympic concession stand. An old lady got tagged for sewing the five rings onto a mini doll sweater.”

Unwilling to risk anything taking the shine off London’s Olympic games, government officials have also clamped down on protesters and journalists, two groups whose existence largely depends on their ability to exercise their free speech rights, as well as anyone voicing an opinion about the games publicly. The British police have even gone so far as to ban certain graffiti artists from “creating any graffiti (even sanctioned work) affiliated with the Olympics, traveling within a mile of any Olympic venue, associate with any individual also on bail or using any train, subway or other rail service for leisure purposes.”

And then there’s the surveillance. With one government-operated outdoor surveillance camera for every 14 citizens in the UK, Great Britain is already widely recognized as a surveillance society. However, in preparation for the Olympics, London has also been “wired up with a new range of scanners, biometric ID cards, number-plate and facial-recognition CCTV systems, disease tracking systems, new police control centres and checkpoints. These will intensify the sense of lockdown in a city which is already a byword across the world for remarkably intensive surveillance,” reports journalist Stephen Graham. Even neighborhoods beyond Olympic park have been embedded with biometric scanners and surveillance cameras with automatic facial and behavior recognition technologies.

Keep in mind, these surveillance tools will remain in place long after the Olympic torch moves on. As Graham points out:

Many such systems, deliberately installed to exploit unparalleled security budgets and relatively little scrutiny or protest, have been designed to linger long after the athletes and VIPs have left. Already, the Dorset police are proudly boasting that their new number-plate recognition cameras, built for sailing events, are allowing them to catch criminals more effectively.

Unfortunately for the people of London and beyond, the UK’s willingness to host the 2012 Summer Olympics has turned this exercise in solidarity, teamwork and nationalism into a $17 billion exercise in militarism, corporatism, surveillance and oppression. As Graham concludes:

Looking at these various points together shows one thing: contemporary Olympics are society on steroids. They exaggerate wider trends. Far removed from their notional or founding ideals, these events dramatically embody changes in the wider world: fast-increasing inequality, growing corporate power, the rise of the homeland security complex, and the shift toward much more authoritarian styles of governance utterly obsessed by the global gaze and prestige of media spectacles.

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Once Told He'd Never Walk Again, Irish Gymnast Is Now Olympian

By Juliet Macur, NY Times, July 26, 2012

LONDON—Before life threw more adversity at him than one person ought to bear, Kieran Behan told his mother that he would be an Olympic gymnast someday.

He was just a boy, maybe 6 years old, when he fell in love with gymnastics, drawn to the thrill of it while watching the Summer Games, enamored by the possibility that he too could defy gravity and flip through the air as if he could fly.

But that was before a series of injuries, two so severe that doctors told him he would never walk again: a botched leg operation that caused nerve damage and a brain injury that kept him from doing even the simplest things, like sitting or eating.

Yet Behan, a 5-foot-4-inch plucky phoenix, pushed on.

“Doctors told me, stop thinking about your crazy dreams because you’ll never walk again and you must accept that it’s over for you,” Behan said. “But I just kept saying: ‘No, no, no—this is not the rest of my life. This is not how it’s going to play out.’ And look at me now, an Olympian. They said it was impossible, but I did it.”

Behan, 23, barely clinched an Olympic berth in January, qualifying second to last at the Olympic test event to become the first Irish gymnast to make it to the Games by his own talent, not by wild card. He benefited from a new Olympic rule that limits each team to five gymnasts instead of six, to make more spots available to individuals whose country does not field a full team.

Many of the powerhouse squads, including the United States’, criticized the rule change, saying it watered down the competition and forced some teams to leave a world-class gymnast at home. But the rule has an upside: it allows athletes like Behan to compete on the sport’s highest stage.

“Kieran has gone through so much,” his mother, Bernie Behan, said through tears. “He deserves this.”

Kieran Behan started gymnastics when he was 8, showing a talent for the tumbling. But soon came the first of many obstacles: when he was 10, he found a lump the size of a golf ball on his left leg.

During surgery to remove what turned out to be a benign tumor, doctors kept a tourniquet on him too tight for too long, causing nerve damage that left Behan with limited feeling in his left foot. It also caused such pain that even a slight brush against his leg would cause him to scream. He could not walk, heading to school at one point to the taunts of other youngsters who already had it out for him.

“They’d say, ‘Oh, look at the cripple,’ and that was so hard for me because, already, I was doing gymnastics and I was short, and I was doing a girls’ sport,” he said. “So a lot of times, I would sit at the kitchen window and watch all the kids running around the park and playing football, and I’d get pretty emotional. All I wanted to do was be an ordinary kid again.”

Doctors warned him that the damaged nerves might never regenerate. A psychiatrist told him to prepare him for life in a wheelchair. They were wrong.

Although it took 15 months, Behan did become an ordinary kid again. And he went back to gymnastics.

But about eight months after he returned from his leg injury, disaster hit again. In what he calls a freakish accident, he smacked the back of his head on the metal horizontal bar during a routine and tumbled to the ground in a lump.

The accident caused a traumatic brain injury and severe damage to the vestibular canal of his inner ear, which affected his balance so much that even the slightest movement could cause Behan to black out. And black out he did, hundreds of times, maybe thousands of times, his mother said, as Behan struggled to turn his head, feed himself and walk without stumbling and looking as if he were dead drunk.

Frustrated by his slow progress after two months in the hospital, Bernie Behan went home with her son in her arms because doctors would not discharge him. She quit her job as an aerobics instructor to care for him.

“He kept telling the doctors, ‘I can walk—tell them, Mom, that I can walk,’ and my heart was breaking,” she said. “I’d go to the car park and cry my eyes out, then walk back and say: ‘Yes, Kieran, you can do this. We can do this. I believe you, son.’ “

Nearly two years after his accident and after unrelenting physical therapy, Kieran Behan—the miracle boy, doctors said—regained his hand-eye coordination and got back onto his feet again.

And back to gymnastics he went. He swept the floors of his gym to finance his training and jumped subway turnstiles to get to practice because there was no cash to spare. His parents held bake sales, candy sales and carwashes to raise money for him.

But, again, there were rough patches. He broke his arm. He fractured his wrist. He visited the hospital so often as a teenager, officials there suspected he was being abused. In 2009, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee, requiring six months of rehabilitation.

Yet he did not quit the sport.

But in 2010, six weeks before his senior debut at the European championships, he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his other knee. After all he had endured, the injury nearly derailed him.

“He made it back from all of those other setbacks, but that one was the hardest for him because the championships were just around the corner, and he was ready,” said Simon Gale, one of his coaches. “He couldn’t handle it. I wouldn’t say he was suicidal, but I’m just glad that his girlfriend was there to watch him at night.”

Behan, though, did what he innately did best: he picked himself up again. And he returned to gymnastics.

Finally, in 2011, he reaped the benefits of his persistence. He won three World Cup medals, including Ireland’s first World Cup gold medal, in the floor exercise, setting himself up for 2012—his best year yet.

But Behan, who has a slightly torn rotator cuff and was frightened of further injury, could barely make it through his last practice before heading to the Olympics last week. When he reached the end of it, he laughed. Then, he cried.

“I felt like I was in a fairy tale when I got here,” he said of the London Games. “All I could think about was: ‘Is this a dream? Tell me this really happening.’ “

Behan is competing in the vault, the horizontal bar and his specialty, the floor exercise, but is not fooling himself into thinking he could win a medal—or even make the finals. He just hopes his tale might inspire others to overcome hardship, whether it is in sports, at work or at home.

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Chariots of Fire´s Eric Liddell is Chinese "hero"

By Glenn Campbell, BBC Scotland, 21 July 2012

In the corner of a quiet Chinese courtyard, 5,000 miles from Scotland, stands a memorial in Isle of Mull granite.

The stone commemorates Eric Liddell—one of Scotland’s greatest Olympians—who is buried nearby.

The stone was gifted by Edinburgh University after a Scottish engineer, Charles Walker, rediscovered his grave in the Chinese city of Weifang.

Liddell, the son of Christian missionaries, had been born in China in 1902 and lived there until he was five when he returned to Britain to be educated.

While he was at Edinburgh University, Liddell excelled at athletics and also played rugby for the Scottish national team—as well as being a noted evangelist preacher.

At the 1924 Olympics in Paris, he famously refused to run on a Sunday, ruling him out of the 100 metres race to which he was best suited.

Instead, he took part in the 400 metres race and, against the odds, still won a gold medal.

Soon after his Olympic triumph, Liddell finished his studies and returned to China to become a missionary.

As well as religious duties, he worked as a science and sports teacher at the Anglo/Chinese College in Tianjin.

After the Japanese invasion in 1937, Liddell carried on his missionary work even when it became dangerous to do so.

Liddell’s wife and children left China for Canada in 1941 but he stayed to help in any way he could.

In 1943 he was interned at Weifang and he died of a brain tumour just months before the end of World War II, at the age of 43.

The prisoner-of-war camp which held about 2,000 Westerners is now a place of learning for 2,000 Chinese teenagers.

Every new pupil at the school is taught about the camp and Eric Liddell’s achievements on and off the track

“This part of history is a great treasure for our school,” said head teacher, Zhao Guixia.

In the camp, Liddell was affectionately known as “Uncle Eric” because he spent most of his time teaching children, organising sports and helping others.

Because he was born in China, some people regard him as the first Chinese Olympic gold medallist.

“It is not a joke,” said Wang Hao, Weifang’s director of foreign affairs.

“We are very proud of Mr Eric Liddell. He is a hero”.

A small internment camp museum features Liddell’s story but the city has plans to pay a bigger tribute.

The building where he died is to be converted into a new museum with a reconstruction of Liddell’s prison room and a waxwork of him inside.

It will be a remarkable honour for a Christian missionary in a Communist country.

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