THE OLYMPIC CHAMPION AND THE DUCKS

At the Olympic Games of 1928, Bobby pearce won a gold medal for a rowing arce. He also won the hearts of all who saw him win.

                Bobby Pearce was born in Sydney in Australia. His father was a great sculling champion. When Bobby was five, he was rowing around Sydney harbor in a small boat. At the age of six, he won his first race, competing against fourteen-year-olds.

                By the time he was twenty, Bobby was the sculling champion of Australia. The following year he went to Amsterdam to compete in the Olympic games.

                In the finals he competed against Ken Myers of America. From the start of the race Bobby was in the lead. After half the race was over, he was still leading, and very much ahead of Myers. It seemed that Bobby would easily win the race.

                Then suddenly something happened. Bobby heard a shout from the bank and he looked over his shoulder. He saw a duck and her ducklings swimming across the waterway. They were swimming into the path of his boat and the boat was going to run into them. The poor birds had no idea that they were in the middle of an Olympic race!

                Immediately Bobby slowed down his boat. Myers was catching up very quickly. The people on the bank were cheering and shouting as if they were mad. But Bobby waited until all the ducklings were out of danger. Then he picked up speed again and went on to win the race easily.

                Of all the Olympic champions, it was he who won everybody’s heart. A Dutch Newspaper wrote, “ he won the goodwill of the children of Amsterdam.”

                His friends in the Australian Olympic team were not surprised by the story of the ducks. “Bobby is that kind of a man,” they said.

                From the age of six, Bobby Pearce competed in races for thirty-three years. He stopped taking part in sports in 1945. In all these years he never lost a single race.

***

GATHERED FROM MY OLD TEXT BOOK