Not about gold, but he gets some

By Rob Gray

AMES - Tim Dwight won his first gold medal of the 2011 Iowa Games in the long jump Saturday.

He hadn't jumped in 18 years, though, and it showed.

“Awful,” Dwight said about his best leap of 18 feet, 8 inches, which topped his 35-39 age group. “Awful.”

But Dwight's 25-event odyssey through the 25th Games isn't predicated on winning top prizes. It's about celebrating the spirit of competition.

The former Iowa City High, Iowa and NFL standout wended through 18 events last weekend and caps his 25-for-25 effort with four sports in Saturday's Games finale. He competed in three sports the opening weekend.

“People are being awesome to me - ‘Hey it's so great you're doing this,'” Dwight said. “Like yesterday, I didn't win all those events, you know, like old-school back in the day, but people didn't care. It really wasn't my main focus, because I knew going in I had all these other events. But it was nice to get out there and see how people reacted. They're like, ‘Man, you're just like a normal person.' I'm like, ‘Well, yeah. I'm just hanging out and having fun, too.' So it's been a great experience.”

Dwight, who turned 36 last week, said training for grueling distance events such as last month's Ironman Triathlon at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho, hampered his ability to rekindle formerly top-flight sprint speed.

“To run fast you've got to train fast,” Dwight said. “Doing some of these distances, like these Ironmans, I got stuck in third gear ... My fast-twitch (muscle) fibers are going, ‘What are you doing to us? You know? We haven't done this for a long time.' Next year I really want to focus and come back and run the 100, the 200, the quarter (400). Just focus on those events and not all these other 20-some events.”

Dwight proved to have pretty good aim in Sunday's air rifle and air pistol events, though.

“He had more bull's-eyes than I thought he would have,” Iowa Games Executive Director Clarence Hudson said. “He surprised even himself.”

In a lot of ways.

“There's a lot going on,” said Dwight, who scored 176 points in the air pistol competition, good for second place. “Your breathing, the sight, and making sure of your trigger finger and how you line up and where this hand is - there's a lot of stuff. So that wasn't physically hard, but mentally I could see myself starting to fade as my shots were getting farther and farther off, so I had to slow down, catch myself and relax, because they give you so much time. Then it was better.”

Dwight didn't place in the 100 freestyle swim Sunday.

He collected the one age-group gold, a silver and four bronzes last weekend and will compete Saturday in sand volleyball, flag football, dodgeball and soccer.

“That will be fun, to actually play with some people on a team,” Dwight said. “Get cohesive.”