I still want to be Vladimir

Just the other day I had a couple of hours to spare, so I decided to do a little cleaning up here and there. Something fell from the big closet in my room. It was a box carefully closed so that it would not open. Inside there was no dust, for it had not been opened in years. I found one of the few remaining items I keep from my childhood, a small scrap-book I had mindfully put together between the ages of 12 and 15 perhaps. It's about one person in particular: Vladimir Salnikov. As I posted here elsewhere, he's one of my favorite athletes ever. He swam in the Olympic Games of 1976, 1980 and 1988, won four gold medals. He is best known for being the first man to swim under 15' over 1500 metres, a feat acomplished at the Moscow Olympics before a roaring local crowd. He is then well known for causing pretty much an upset: by 1988 he was considered well past his prime (at age 28) and a non-factor for the 1500 race. He swam a great race and coming from behind outtouched his opponents to capture a thrilling gold medal and so closed brilliantly his amazing career. I remember watching that race in 1988, aged 11, I remember all the fuzz that this Salnikov person caused, I remember how deeply fascinated I was. I remember looking everywhere I could for information about him, his pictures, any data I could put together. Looking at the neatly put together collection of articles, photographs and other memorabilia I can still see that 11 year-old doing it all. I never told anyone in person, I never said this openly, but I wanted to be like Salnikov, I wanted that attention, I wanted to be as cute as he was! I was fascinated by the Russian and the whole halo around him. I wanted his triumphs. I wanted that. I craved for the medals and the records and the anthem and the whole thing. Instead of doing my cleaning I re-read the articles and the rather scholarly notes I took about Salnikov at age 12! It was like a flashback. I remembered our house in Torreón, the constant quarrels between my parents, our dogs, my little sister, the heat, everything, as if I had never grown up at all. It felt weird then. I looked at the picture of that handsome youg man of 1988 only to realise that I still pretty much wanted to be him, in more than one sense. By the way, I'm 28 myself! and sadly, not as acomplished as the Russian legend.