My children believe they are more athletic than I am simply because they are better at sports. "No, athletic ability is 90 percent mental," I inform them archly.

"Yes, Dad, as an athlete, you are mental," they agree.

My older daughter's volleyball team participates in — and wins — national tournaments. I mentally picture myself doing what she does and realize I'd be pretty good at it if I tried. "See, your sports genes had to come from somewhere," I inform her.

"That's what I keep hoping," she replies.

Then there is James, my son-in-law-to-be, who is an Olympic-class runner. He is so fast that if I jumped out of a second-story window he could take the stairs and beat me to the ground. "If you do anything to hurt my daughter, I'll hunt you down," I've told him. "I may have to use a small airplane to do it, but I'll catch up with you."

I suppose "Olympic-class" is a bit vague: I, for example, have always felt that I was an Olympic-class pole-vaulter, utilizing my superior mental skills to get myself 90 percent there. (I mean, it looks so easy: You just run down a track ad stick a pole in the ground, and boing, you're catapulted into the air!

Once you are at the top, you just fall back down, which I figure is the other 10 percent. No, when I speak of my future son-in-law as being "Olympic-class," I mean as in "going to the Olympics to compete in the 800-meter run."

I probably would have been pretty good in the 800-meter run myself, except for the fact that when I was his age, they didn't have the metric system.

But there's a catch: To go the Olympics, you have to compete in a series of trials — otherwise, you'd probably see me out there doing the pole vault, if I felt like it. At these Olympic trials, you face the very best this nation has to offer in non-mental athletes, and a few tenths of a second is all it takes to cut you from the team.

Just a couple of weeks ago, James was ranked the fastest man in the country in his event, well on the way to accomplishing his life's dream of representing our nation at the Olympic games. Just a few track meets stood in his way — and one of them, in Eugene, Ore., had him worried.

James had raced in Eugene before and hadn't done well. He is allergic to certain pollens, the kind released by the tons into the air in Eugene by the local sod farms. He didn't even know about this allergy until he ran in a Eugene event several years ago, when he was nearly struck down by aching, asthmatic lungs. His hope for this year was that a special diet and other precautions would prevent a repeat of the debilitating allergies, and allow him to move beyond the Eugene races and on to the pursuit for Olympic gold.

It was not to be. About 15 days ago, in the final two laps of the race, James couldn't get enough oxygen to keep his finely muscled legs working at their peak, and he fell too far back to advance to the next trial.

And so, that's it: a life's dream, over in the time it takes to dash a few hundred meters.

I hate the end to this story and wish I could use my mental powers to fix it. It seems wrong and unfair that he was bested not by the competition, but by the air itself.

In the end, though, this was a contest of strengths, and weaknesses, in human bodies. James trains in Boulder, Colo. — it wouldn't have been fair to flatland runners to hold the event there. Some athletes may have trouble with the air in China. Maybe it's "unfair" that those of us who are mental athletes could never be in the Olympics except for the pole vault, which as I said looks pretty easy.

James tackled his training with determination and showed tremendous courage and optimism in going to Eugene. He's a man to be admired, and I'll be proud to call him my son-in-law.

To write Bruce Cameron, visit his Website at www.wbrucecameron.com. To find out more about Bruce Cameron and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.

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