Political Quotes

“Mr. President, last week, the world saw something that it had never seen before: surfing as an Olympic sport. The story of how this happened begins with a native Hawaiian named Duke Kahanamoku. Duke was a natural athlete. He learned to swim at Waikiki Beach, and he went on to win five Olympic swimming medals, including three golds. He was an innovator who pioneered something called the ``Kahanamoku kick,'' or the flutter kick, now used by most freestyle swimmers. He was a visionary who, after winning gold at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics, pressed the International Olympic Committee to make surfing an Olympic sport. He traveled the world to promote surfing, bringing it to the continental United States and Australia and elsewhere, and became known as the father of modern surfing. But, more than anything else, Duke Kahanamoku was an ambassador of aloha and the spirit of Hawaii. A reporter once asked him if it was a bigger thrill to win gold medals or ``ride some of those giant waves,'' and he answered that surfing was a bigger thrill. One century later, Duke's vision of Olympic surfing became reality, and there is nothing more fitting than Hawaii's own Carissa Moore winning the first Olympic Gold Medal. If you want to see what the embodiment of aloha looks like, look no further than Carissa Moore. Like Duke, she shares his native Hawaiian roots and started surfing at Waikiki Beach as a young child. By the time she reached high school, she was already world-class.…”