From ASU to the Olympics, twice (opens in new tab)

Imagine it: the roar of the crowd flattening into white noise, the medal cool and improbably heavy against your chest, and a flag rising above your eyeline. When Mikael Örn is asked whether the real experience lives up to the movie version — whether standing on that Olympic podium in Los Angeles in 1984 felt as cinematic as people imagine — he doesn’t undercut the fantasy.“It was like that,” he says, with a smile. “It was unbelievable.”