Underwater Window

Dan Stephenson

Description

Two swimmers, close friends and archrivals, chase after the same Olympic gold medal. Archie Hayes is the best swimmer in the world. Talent and luck have brought him Olympic medals, fame, money and women. Doyle Wilson has reached the end of his career with dreams unfulfilled, but he has a final chance in the 400 freestyle, in which Archie owns the world record. Doyle bets that hard work will enable him to beat Archie just once. He burns all his bridges to focus on his lone goal.But Doyle can't be single-minded. Archie is not just his nemesis - they're best friends. Danger lurks around every corner for Archie, a celebrity athlete with a reckless streak. On a training trip to Hawaii, when Archie is mauled by a wave while bodysurfing, Doyle sees his duty - a purpose in life that transcends self-interest and even friendship. Archie's incomparable talent must be preserved and nurtured, and only Doyle can do it. Though Archie's demise would liquidate the main obstacle in Doyle's path to greatness, Doyle rescues him. Repeatedly.Doyle's odyssey to the Olympics teaches him about true friendship and love, the meaning of sacrifice and overcoming obstacles.

Informations

• Publié par: Untreed Reads
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 0001
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611873511
• Langue: English

Extrait

Table of Contents
Copyright
The Underwater Window
What Readers Are Saying About Underwater Window
Dedication

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8

Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15

Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
Underwater Window
By Dan Stephenson
Copyright 2012 by Dan Stephenson
Cover Copyright 2012 by Ginny Glass and Untreed Reads Publishing
The author is hereby established as the sole holder of the copyright. Either the publisher (Untreed Reads) or author may enforce copyrights to the fullest extent.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold, reproduced or transmitted by any means in any form or given away to other people without specific permission from the author and/or publisher. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This is a work of fiction. Apart from the well-known actual people, events, and locales that figure in the narrative, all names, characters, places, and incidents are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to current events or locales, or to living persons, is entirely coincidental.
http://www.untreedreads.com
The Underwater Window
By Dan Stephenson
What Readers Are Saying About Underwater Window
[The] Underwater Window starts fast and moves along with a 6-beat kick. Dan Stephenson knows swimming, and he brings out the richness of the sport. But you don’t need to be a swimmer to enjoy this great story of friendship and rivalry.
—Rowdy Gaines, 3-time Olympic swimming gold medalist, Hall of Fame inductee, Olympic swimming analyst for NBC TV
There’s romance in this story, just below the surface. What’s most endearing about Doyle Wilson is not the all-consuming pursuit of his swimming goals, but his growing awareness that there’s more to life, and that swimming is preparing him for it. I enjoyed this book immensely.
—Janet Evans Willson, 4-time Olympic swimming gold medalist, Hall of Fame inductee, Author of Janet Evans’ Total Swimming
Everyone wants to know what it feels like to win an Olympic medal. Dan Stephenson has captured that moment and many like it in his book, [The] Underwater Window. On many occasions, I caught myself saying, “Yeah, that’s exactly what it was like.” If you want to discover how to build a champion in life (not just in the pool), read this book!
—John Naber, 4-time Olympic gold medalist, Hall of Fame inductee, Author of Awaken the Olympian Within
This engaging and easily readable novel, written by a world Masters swimming champion, plunges you deep into the fascinating fast-lane world of Olympic swimming competition. But [The] Underwater Window dives far deeper than most sports novels—hitting the very bottom of why we race, and what of life is left when we get too old to win our heats.
—Jonathan Rowe, Author of The River of Strange People and A Question of Identity
Take the plunge into [The] Underwater Window , but be prepared to be pulled along until you reach the finish wall. [The] Underwater Window provides a very realistic view into the passion-filled world of elite athletes. Reading it is like a race, not a workout. I laughed, I cheered, I rode the waves of adrenaline. I highly recommend this book to swimmers and non-swimmers alike.
—Brian Goodell, 2-time Olympic gold medalist and Hall of Fame inductee
For Tracey
PART I
Chapter 1
There are four strokes in swimming, and one is named “butterfly.” It’s the most photographed stroke because it looks so graceful. Both arms come out of the water at the same time, while a powerful dolphin kick surges the body forward. What spectators don’t see is that “butterfly” is wicked hard. It requires the coordination of a Chinese gymnast and the strength of a Bulgarian weightlifter. It tires you out quickly, and by the end of a race, that beautiful stroke produces unbearable agony.
The stroke’s namesake epitomizes the sport of swimming. When you look at a monarch butterfly, you see a colorful, elegant creature, his stained glass wings stroking the sky to make him look lighter than air. As you watch him flit from leaf to petal, you don’t see what got him there—the time he spent as a caterpillar, straining his 4,000 muscles, chewing through plants, storing up energy for the great challenge ahead. You don’t see the 5,000 miles he covered migrating to Mexico and back, 25 million wing strokes, one at a time.
* * *
I sat in the ready room in Brisbane trying not to think about butterflies. The flock in my stomach put me at the brink of nausea. The room was small with no windows, the air heavy. Marco, the guy at the end of the row, stood up suddenly and ran to the trash can by the door. He leaned way into it and spewed. I could hear him retch, even though I had earphones on. Marco stood back up, wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his sweat jacket, and returned to his chair.
I tried not to dwell on the fact that the race I was about to swim might be my last. A poor swim would end my career. A great swim would give me a reason to press on, take a shot at the Olympics.
I tried not to think about the tiny hole in my sharkskin swimsuit. I had punctured the fabric with my fingernail in the struggle to pull the thing on. I fretted that the hole would grow into a massive rip. It was just above my right knee, staring up at me every time I looked down.
I tried not to daydream. Dreams are for kids. When I was eight years old, I had dreams. I was a star then, and people told me I was going to go to the Olympics. I believed them. The next year I started watching the Olympics on television. I cheered for the best swimmer and imagined myself, like him, on the medal stand, my hand over my heart, singing the national anthem. I was going to be an Olympic champion, not just in one event but in several—the best swimmer that ever lived. That dream faded, then died, as my repertoire shrank and my competition grew. At age 24 I had goals, not dreams. Goals are hard, cold numbers: a time, a place.
I tried not to think about the kid in the next chair, the Australian teenager who kept looking at me. He wanted to psych me out with his goofy grin. The kid had too many teeth. He was a freak of nature. I tried to psych him out by ignoring him.
A ready room is no place special. It’s a holding tank for swimmers before the finals at big meets. It’s part of the choreography. The meet officials want everything to happen on schedule, including the march onto the pool deck right before the race. They don’t want anyone getting lost, so they herd us together twenty minutes ahead of time. You can’t leave. You can’t do anything but sit there, thinking about your race. Or you can pull something on the guys you’re trying to beat. It’s a breeding ground for psych jobs.
Even if you can tune everyone else out, a ready room is hardly a place for quiet relaxation. The adrenaline pumping through your veins makes it difficult to sit still. Your brain is hard at work, reminding you of everything bad that can happen: a false start, a missed turn, a half-stroke finish. You have to push those thoughts out and concentrate on every aspect of the task ahead. You play the race over and over again in your mind and if you do it right, you see yourself touching first. It takes all the mental strength you can muster.
The ready room in Brisbane was makeshift, as they often are—a converted coach’s office with a lone door leading out to the pool deck. It had four yellow cinder block walls and exactly eight folding chairs. You can’t be comfortable in a pressure cooker anyway.
The clock on the wall of the ready room had a sweep second hand that swept glacially, in stark contrast to the scoreboard clock outside, which had numbers for tenths and hundredths of a second—numbers that spun so fast they blurred. Watching the ready room clock only made me impatient.
I put a towel over my head and turned up my music. I closed my eyes and tried not to think about Archie, my teammate two chairs over. I tried not to focus on his two inch height advantage, his huge feet and hands, his condorian wingspan. I tried to forget his world record time, 3:39.59, though it was tattooed on my brain.
The exit door of my mind was jammed with unwanted thoughts that refused to leave.
All of a sudden, two marshals in white uniforms entered the ready room, stood us up, got us in a line, and led us out onto the pool deck. As we marched, I could hear music blaring and fans cheering, overpowering the music in my earphones. The spectator stands were one level above the pool, so the cheers wafted down from a cloud of witnesses.
I quickly scanned the stands to spot my parents. I smiled when I saw them looking at me, waving. They had come all the way from Michigan to Australia to watch me swim one race in the World Championships. This was it.
We paraded like penguins until we were behind our lanes. I sat down in a chair behind lane 3, the lane assigned to the third-place qualifier. The other swimmers sat down in their chairs, all except Archie, who already had his sweats off. He was stretching and fixing his goggles. Sports Illustrated once described Archie’s pre-race routine as “intimidating,” but he’s not trying to intimidate anybody. He doesn’t do any shadow-boxing or spitting in people’s lanes or anything like that. Archie’s not thinking about you. He’s focused on his own performance.
The thing is, though, you can’t look at him or you’ll be psyched out. Take my word for it. If you watch him, it’ll be like watching you