Sport: Getting Ready

With six weeks to go, America's athletes pump up for their moment in Seoul

The demands are never ending, the sacrifices outrageous. Relentless workouts, a life lived in sweat. For what? A Greek traveler named Pausanias more than 1,800 years ago wrote of the "unique divinity" that cloaks the Olympics. The mystery may never be phrased better. The lure persists, transfixing competitors, enticing them to devote their lives to it. It leads women like Janet Evans to spend their youth in pools, logging the numbing laps, and men like Tim Daggett to suffer through injury after injury. All for a touch of that divinity.

Perhaps no trial is greater than the constant and solitary hardening...

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