An excerpt from the autobiographical book by Leonid Zhabotinsky "At the Top of Olympus"
It was at the USSR Youth Championship.
On a 100 kg bar. in training, I repeatedly took more weight, but here ... it seemed to be jammed. I take a projectile and I can’t squeeze it out. And so all 3 approaches. There are tears in his eyes, resentment, disappointment, and not so much from effort, but from shame.
After zero, hands drop by themselves, especially in weightlifting, having received such a result in one movement, the athlete practically drops out of the fight, loses all chances to catch up with the opponent.
I wanted to run away from shame, but my coach Nikolai Ivanovich stopped me:
- Just think, trouble - got zero! It is better to get zeros at the beginning of the path than on the Big Platform. Remember this rule, young man!
On that day, I had a chance to drink a bitter cup, in a snatch in three sets of 100 kg, the weight was zero, and only in the clean and jerk I boldly recorded 130 kg, but this was no longer a consolation for me.
On this unlucky day, I received considerable experience and an important lesson for myself. I remembered that it is necessary to fight to the end, not paying attention to any breakdowns. Every athlete has failures, while it may seem that everything has gone to pieces and lead fatigue binds the muscles. That's when you need to show willpower so that she says strong words in an authoritative tone: Go and win!
Much later, in a poem by the English writer Kipling, I found lines of amazing power that I always remember when things get tough.
Here they are:
- If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the will which says to them: “Hold on!"
This quatrain served me as a life divisive, therefore, not with the ashes of burnt hopes, I entered the competition again and again.
