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London Calling

Caroline Queen was making runs down the course at the site of next year's world kayaking championships in Spain when confused spectators would approach. Queen was expected to make the U.S. Olympic team but a controversial ruling of a gate touch has postponed her dream of Olympic Gold. Already, she has moved past the disappointment of not making the Olympic squad and is moving on with her life.

  • Queen preparing for London
  • Ocean full of Optis

    Axel Sly and Chris Craven aren't like most 14-year-olds. Perhaps they are prone to waking up at the crack of noon (if they have a day off) and maybe Craven can't break 100 pounds on the scale. But make no mistake: Sly and Craven – along with 13-year-old Duncan Williford, 15-year-old Pearson Potts and 14-year-old Antoine Screve – are world-class athletes with a chance, in the future, to make the U.S. Olympic team or the America's Cup squad.

  • Not so typical teens looking for Olympic berth
  • Fighting for a dream

    It was just a dream four years ago, but now - after four long years of five practices a week - the dream is real for Javier Molina. The 18 year old from Southern California made the 2008 U.S. Olympic team as a light welterweight boxer.

  • Molina making his way to Beijing
  • Wrestling with success

    There's a new whiz kid of American wrestling. Jake Deitchler, an 18-year-old from Minnesota unfazed by any deficit or opponent, pulled off two major upsets Saturday to win the U.S. 145 1/2 -pound Greco-Roman trials and become the first high schooler on the Olympic wrestling team in 32 years.

  • Deitchlers Day
  • In the Post position

    Alise Post didn't have the most stellar start to her BMX racing career. After her older brother convinced her to try the sport, the then-6-year-old Alise got to the starting gate of her first race at the top of a three-and-a-half-story hill, looked down the nearly 90 degree straight drop – and walked away. Now, some 10-years later, she is on the verge of becoming the best female rider in the United States.

  • Post position
  • Finchum making a splash

    His grandmother was the first one to see the potential. One day when the family was on vacation, Thomas Finchum was jumping off houseboats into a lake. Now, with his potential being realized, his ability could be on display for the world to see as Finchum hopes to be representing America in the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

  • Making a splash
  • Bradford biking to Beijing

    Jerry Bradford had just bought his son Joey a shiny, new GT Mach One bicycle. But the 7-year-old gazed upon the unforgiving terrain of snake-coil turns and sloping sand dunes and began crying. 11-years later Joey Bradford is on the doorstep of realizing Olympic dreams, as he and BMX racing are making their Olympic debuts in Beijing.

  • Bradford and BMX racing making Olympic debuts
  • Queen of the rapids

    Caroline Queen was just minding her own business that day, goofing around in a kayak on the lake at summer camp. The same as any 9-year-old might. She didn't know that, six years later, she would make history by becoming the youngest-ever member of the national whitewater kayak team. She didn't know that at age 16, she would have a legitimate chance to make this year's U.S. Olympic team.

  • Queen trying to become kayaking royalty
  • Practice makes perfect for Peszek

    Luan Peszek said her daughter wasn't always so brilliant in the gym. She just took more turns than anybody else. It seems all those extra turns paid off as Samantha Peszek has progressed into a world-class gymnast who, after placing third in the all-around competition at the Tyson American Cup meet in March, has a strong chance of making the Olympic team.

  • Peszek preperation paying off
  • On track for great things

    San Antonio (TX) Stevens High athele Rynell Parsons ran the 100-meter dash in 10.23 seconds last June, simultaneously winning the USATF Junior National Championships in Indianapolis and setting a national high school sophomore record. It is his speed that sets him apart from other athletes, and now that speed could get him to the Olympics.

  • On track for greatness
  • Taekwondo fighter brings the thunder

    When most little girls dream of being an Olympic champion, they dream of winning the gold in figure skating or in gymnastics. Anees Hasnain was not a typical little girl. Hasnain, nicknamed Thor, has her sights set on medaling in taekwondo and is one weekend away from an opportunity to make her dream come true.

  • Anything but ordinary
  • Craig packs powerful punch

    Everything is within reach now for Charlotte Craig, a 17-year-old soft-spoken Californian with a sweet personality and an unmerciful pair of feet. A win over 2007 Junior Olympic champion Anees Hasnain, 16, on April 5 in Des Moines, Iowa, would earn Craig a spot on the U.S. Olympic team this summer in Beijing as the female flyweight.

  • Charlotte's punch
  • Fortune's found

    The next great United States Olympic wrestling champion may be in a suburb of Portland, Ore. Tyrell Fortune went undefeated in his senior season at Lakeridge High School, and did not let an opponent score a point on him all season. He is poised to go to college on a wrestling scholarship but has his sites much higher - Olympic gold.

  • Tyrell Fortune: The next BIG thing
  • The Long way to success

    At first glance Jessica Long may not appear to be a typical American teenager. But on most levels she is exactly that. She likes hanging out with her friends and talking on the phone. She's addicted to eating chips and salsa and watching Grey's Anatomy on Thursday nights. But dig past the giggly girl on the outside, and a poised and determined young female athlete shines through.

  • Paralympic gold
  • Romano swimming towards the gold

    Long before Megan Romano became a teenage phenom, a high school state champion, an athlete coveted by every elite college program and an Olympic hopeful, her mother noticed something unique. At a young age, she had an uncanny competitive spirit. Now Romano is qualified for six Olympic events and her drive has her ready to swim for the gold.

  • 200m to gold
  • America's next great gynmast

    Shawn Johnson seems to be a typical sophomore at Valley High School in West Des Moines, Iowa. However, typical sophomores don't get asked for autographs when they go out for dinner or appear on The Today Show. Suffice it to say Johnson is not typical, in fact, she is the world's top-ranked female all-around gymnast and like many American gymnasts before her she hopes to become the face of the Games.

  • Shawn Johnson ready to shine in Beijing
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