Olympics swimming: Five athletes to watch

Team USA and Team Australia traditionally dominate in the pool, and London should see a renewal of that rivalry. But there are also a few surprises:

3. Missy Franklin, USA

Robert Pratta/REUTERS
Member of US national Olympic swimming team Missy Franklin attends a news conference after a training session for the London 2012 Olympics in Bellerive, France Saturday.

Missy Franklin is, in essence, the Phelps of these Olympics.

Of course, Phelps could win another seven medals, but that's old news. Franklin, too, could win seven medals – and she's just 17. If she can manage it, she would be the first American woman to do it. None has ever won more than six in a single Games.

It's a tall order. She's a favorite in her two backstroke events, and the US always hopes to medal in each of the three relays – leaving the 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle as her wildcards. If Franklin succeeds, she might singlehandedly relegate the Phelps-Lochte showdown to the swimming undercard, which would be no small achievement in itself.   

3 of 5

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.