[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000-2001, Book III)]
[November 29, 2000]
[Pages 2591-2592]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 2591]]


Remarks at a Reception for the United States Olympic and Paralympic 
Teams
November 29, 2000

    Thank you very much. First of all, Hillary and I are delighted to 
welcome all of you here. And I want to thank Secretary Shalala and General McCaffrey 
for being part of our Olympic delegation to Sydney. I thank the United 
States Olympic Committee President Bill Hybl for 
being here, and the Olympians who are here with me, who will come up in 
a moment.
    I'm also grateful, I might say, to the people of Australia, who did 
a wonderful job in welcoming our American athletes and organizing these 
Olympics. And really, I asked all the team here so that I could forgive 
them for completely destroying my sleep habits for several weeks during 
the Olympics. [Laughter] Like so many Americans, I was thrilled by the 
accomplishments of these remarkable teams.
    I have often said that it seems to me the Olympics capture our 
imagination not just because we love athletics and love competition but 
because we think the Olympics and Paralympics games work the way life 
ought to work: people work together; if you work hard and play by the 
rules, you get rewarded; you're evaluated regardless of race or gender 
or station in life; individuals and teams find success and wind up 
winning just by making the efforts.
    The summer games in Australia were no different than the ones before 
them. America did very well, once again, with 40 gold medals, 97 
overall, more than any other country. And our spirit was put on display 
there, as one athlete after another overcame tremendous odds to achieve 
victory, athletes like our diver, Laura Wilkinson, who captured the gold medal just 3 months after 
breaking three bones in her right foot; Lenny Krayzelburg, who came here from the Ukraine in 1989 and just a 
decade later won all three of the backstroke events; the women's 
softball team lost three games in a row and still came from behind to 
win the gold medal; and of course, there was the minor matter of a 
little farm boy from Wyoming, Rulon Gardner, 
who defeated Alexandre Karelin.
    The Sydney games broke new barriers, opening gates of competition to 
people once left behind. More than 4,000 athletes, representing a record 
122 countries, competed in this year's Paralympic games. Americans like 
sprinter Marlon Shirley and cyclist Pam 
Fernandes proved that disability is no barrier 
to success.
    We also reached a milestone for female athletes. A hundred years ago 
the first women competed at the Paris summer Olympics. There were 19, 
and one, the golfer Margot Abbot, became the first American woman to win 
an American Olympic gold medal.
    This year, in the first Olympics of the new millennium, women 
comprised a recordbreaking 42 percent of the participants. And for the 
first time, women competed in the pole vault, water polo, and 
weightlifting. I might say, I watched the women's weightlifting and 
water polo competition with great interest, and after it was over, I 
couldn't tell which one was rougher. [Laughter] The final American medal 
of this year's Olympic games went to a woman, Emily deRiel, in the first-ever women's pentathlon. You pushed the 
limits of the human body and the human spirit.
    Every Olympian stands in the starting blocks alone, of course, but 
no one wins alone. No one wins without family, friends, coaches, and 
others who have helped you make the most of your God-given ability. I 
hope that you, each and every one of you, in your own way, will take 
some time to help others make the most of their God-given abilities.
    And let me just put in one plug for one public interest matter that 
I care a lot about. One of the great ironies of the present day is that 
as Americans fall more and more in love with athletes and athletics, 
more and more of our young people are participating by sitting on the 
sidelines or on the couch only. More and more of our young children are 
overweight and out of shape, and they are putting their health, long-
term, at risk. We have got to turn this around.
    This morning Secretary Shalala and our 
Education Secretary, Dick Riley, led a 
meeting with our partners to explore the most effective way to implement 
a report's recommendation that was issued to me today about this--and 
you may have read about it in the newspaper--more

[[Page 2592]]

and more young people doing less and less exercise mean more and more 
overweight. It's going to take a team effort for us to turn this around.
    Not every young person can win an Olympic medal or even make the 
Olympics teams, but every young person has a body that is a gift from 
God that ought to be maximized in terms of health and capacity. So I ask 
for your help in that.
    Let me just say one final thing. For some of you, your Olympic 
moment may be now just a wonderful memory in your lives. For others, it 
is just the beginning of a long and illustrious career in your sport. 
But for all of you, your training and your achievement will bring a 
lifetime of benefits. You now know what you can do if you do your best. 
I hope that these benefits will accrue to you, your community, your 
country, and the rest of our world.
    We must always remember that no matter how many records we break or 
how fast we run or how high we jump, there are still no limits to our 
quest for excellence--the Olympic motto from the beginning: citius, 
altius, fortius, swifter, higher, stronger. I hope you will bring that 
to the work of citizenship as well as to your competition, now and 
forever.
    Congratulations. We are very, very proud of you.

[At this point, U.S. Olympic Committee President Bill Hybl, International Olympic Committee Vice President Anita L. 
DeFrantz, and members of the Olympic team 
presented gifts to the President.]

    The President. Thank you. Let me--I don't think I did this right, 
but the Olympians who gave me the award were Stacy Dragila and Lenny Krayzelburg and 
Marlon Shirley and Pam Fernandes, and they represent this whole team. And they also made me 
a little warmer out here today. [Laughter] So I want to thank them for 
their remarks. I thank all of you for being here. We either are or 
already have taken a picture with the whole team, and then we're going 
to go inside and let everybody look at the White House. But thank you 
very, very much, all of you. Welcome again, and happy holidays.
    Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 12:45 p.m. in the South Portico at the 
White House. In his remarks, he referred to Greco-Roman wrestler Rulon 
Gardner and pole vaulter Stacy Dragila, U.S. Olympic team; and Greco-
Roman wrestler Alexandre Karelin, Russian Olympic team.