Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Mission Monitor Board Every 10 Years Forum Summon the Heroes!

I ran across the photo below when I was reorganizing my files. And it made me pull up, at once, for the umpteenth time, my RealPlayer copy of one of the most inspiring, hero-evoking pieces of music I've ever heard.

It's one of the works of Olympic Games theme music written by John Williams, "The Olympic Spirit." You can find it (as I did later) on the CD "Summon the Heroes," where it accompanies Williams's brilliant orchestral suite of that title written for the 1996 Centennial Olympics.

This shorter brass-and-strings piece is more compact and vivid, and is my own favorite. When I saw the event and athlete shown below at the 2002 Winter Games, I was so exhilarated that I had to search the Net for a file of this. (It came from a semi-official Williams site, not from Kazaa or similar sources.)

You can download the RealPlayer version of "The Olympic Spirit" here , either to play directly after receiving it, or to save as a 637 KB file. (Be sure to use a file name ending with ".rm" if you save it, not ".ram".) It runs 4:06.

Take a listen to it at full length, beyond the snippets you've heard on the NBC broadcasts, and tell me whether it would be a vivid theme for a movie (of any kind) with the Legionnaires. I believe it would! ... if the Olympics didn't have first claim on it *sigh*

And the girl below? Sarah Hughes, o'course, who won the gold medal in individual skating after the most beautiful such performance I've ever seen -- and one of the most improbable turns of judging, as well. She never came out on top in any one category, but she was consistent and strong in all of them, bar none ... and that, with her passion, won the day. As we want to see happen with our fictional heroes, wouldn't you say?

It's the only portrait of someone without wings that I've yet let anyone post at my Yahoo! Group, Pteraphiles . Because, nonetheless, sans wings and ring, she was F L Y I N G!

Great pic. Boy, I wish I could do that - and live. It must feel FANTASTIC!!

now now, what about the improbable turn in judging when the russians got gold in the pairs when all they did was screw up.

That pairs brouhaha wasn't "improbable," it was the result of corrupt judging, from all accounts. And the Canadians did deserve the sole gold medals. For once, the Olympic officials admitted fallibility. I saw it as a high point, not a low point, to resolve it as they did.

An ICE skating bump, because it's Too Darn Hot. And I'm gonna go play that .rm clip again!