Michael Phelps is arguably the greatest Olympic athlete in the history of the games. He recently added a curious feather to his cap: He now possesses the most individual gold medals EVER, breaking a record dating back all the way to 152 B.C.
The previous record holder, a runner named Leonidas of Rhodes at the age of 36 won 12 individual gold medals in races of 200 and 400 meters, and a shield-carrying race in 152 B.C. (The Olympics officially dates back to 776 B.C. but the Games as we know them now started in 1896)
What I find to be the most interesting thing about this development is the mind blowing fact that the organisers had such indepth records that goes back such a long way!
In these digital times, it is easy to do, all the emails I ever sent can be easily retrieved with a quick search in my email client, I even recently recovered some of the earliest photographs I ever posted online from my Hi5 account and I still recently re-read my first ever blog post online…. but really, preserving records in pre-digital and pre-internet times is truly an herculean task!
Even in this modern age, institutions that we trust to keep our records routinely fail to do so, they have so many tools at their disposal, but they simply do not care enough to use them.
I dare you to contact your primary school (after about 10 years) and ask for your detailed records from say your primary 2 final examinations. I have heard stories that some universities in Nigeria actually destroy records every 10 years or so to make room for new ones. They only keep “relevant data” like final CGPA and certificate, but the individual course records are wiped off.
If The Olympics could keep the 2,168 year old record for Leonidas of Rhodes, this should tell us that doing things the right way is not a function of available technology. It is an outflow from the spirit of excellence.
If you give 2 people the same resources and assign the same tasks, the man who has embraced mediocrity will exhibit it and the man who has cultivated excellence on the inside will display it.
This is what I observed from this affair.
