Former Olympians also get paid to make appearances. Many of them won their medals in an era when Olympic success didn't go hand-in-hand with financial success.

I would like to be as fit as I've always been. I've been blessed with good health I've been blessed with stamina. Particularly for those great classical roles you need an Olympian stamina. I fortunately have that.

My late wife Olympia was Goan and I've been to India many times. I love the food there. We used to do our shopping in Southall where you can find cheap but wonderful fruit like mangoes vegetables and spices. I didn't do much of the cooking as Olympia did a lot - I was the under-chef and did some of the chopping.

Olympia was a town crawling with music. I was new to the whole punk scene. The culture shock continued Olympia had bagels! We didn't have bagels in Arkansas. You could order vegetarian food all over town! It was so crazy to me - a place with so many vegetarians the restaurants made special dishes for them?

Well first let me say that I think health care reform is important. It has to be a priority. And our system is broken. The Finance Committee bill is the best effort yet due in large measure to the efforts of my colleague Olympia Snowe but it's not there yet. It falls short.

Parents it seems have an almost Olympian persistence when it comes to suggesting more secure and lucrative lines of work for their children who have the notion that writing is an actual profession. I say this from experience.