Olympic athletes who put their faith first

"I honestly believed that it was my calling to allow Christ to be seen through my performance," says Johnson, and "it was my daily calling to bear the cross for him so that he could be seen through me."

At that moment, the pole vault looming high before him, he ran full-tilt toward it. He not only cleared the bar, but went on to set the world record for the most points in second-day events – a record that still stands. And he won bronze.

"I was bronze, but it was gold," says Johnson. "In the Lord's eyes, there are some amazing golden things that the world just doesn't ever see."

Dodging gang bullets

While Pikus-Pace and Johnson have demonstrated their faith on the Olympic stage, other athletes have shone their light outside the Games.

Take Jesse Beckom, a hulking bobsledder from Chicago's South Side. Caught in a gang crossfire when he returned from college one fall, he put his sprinting ability to a much more important test as bullets whizzed through the leaves on either side of his head. (He later realized there were no leaves; the sound was from the proximity of the bullets.) When he tripped just before jumping a fence, a bullet hit the fence right where his head would have been.

To Beckom, who often talks with middle-schoolers about healthy lifestyles, faith, and his road to bobsledding, the fact that he survived that situation and others – when some friends haven't – is proof to him that the purpose of his life is to set a Christian example.

"God has ... saved my life to try to help kinda get that message out," says Beckom, a member of the US bobsled team who didn't make the Olympic squad. "Because for all practical purposes, maybe I shouldn't be here right now."

A jarring wake-up call

Just as there may not be any atheists in foxholes, there may not be any in bobsledding, either – a sport where speeds can approach 100 m.p.h.

Olympian Brock Kreitzburg won't be there this time to pull five Gs flying perpendicular to the ground around banked turns, huddled so close to his teammate that he can feel him inhale and exhale despite the shuddering racket outside. For years, that was his place – back seat in the USA-1 sled, which was ranked No. 1 in the world in 2007.

Then, in a matter of months last season, he lost his ability to walk, his team stipend, and his job when he underwent two major hip surgeries and The Home Depot cut its Olympic employment program. For the seminary graduate, it was a wake-up call.

"It stripped everything away that was important to me: bobsledding, money, my spot on the national team," says Mr. Kreitzburg. "All I have is Him. So I've learned to completely trust Him, and trust His plan. The most difficult prayer, but the most sincere prayer I pray, is, 'Let Your will be done,' because mine usually crashes and burns."

After the type of surgery Kreitzburg had in November 2008, it's normal to start running six months later; he started running at 10-1/2 weeks. By June, he was back on the national team. In November, he competed in a World Cup – finishing just 12/100ths of a second behind USA-1.

Though ultimately he did not make the 2010 Olympic team, the past year has given him a new appreciation for a different kind of reward.

"I've come to a point where I'm grateful for all that's happened this past year," says Kreitzburg. "I've experienced a lot and none of it compares with my relationship with the Lord – the joy and happiness and peace that I've found in Him."

Follow Christa from early in the morning till late at night on Twitter. Christa trained full time for the Olympics as a cross-country skier between 1997 and 2002.

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