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RIO DE JANEIRO -- There are 11,551 athletes competing at these Olympics, all striving for that elusive gold, silver or bronze medal. While Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky and Simone Biles have won multiple golds, around 10,500 of the athletes will go home without a single medal of any color. After the years and years of training and sacrifice, that is devastating for some. But they and others still will take home lessons and emotions that are nearly as important as any medal.And perhaps more so.The Olympics to me are permission to continue wanting things that I may or not get, distance runner Alexi Pappas said. Because I see so many people around me trying so hard as well. Its motivating to be around that. The Olympics are permission to keep believing in yourself because hundreds of other people believe in themselves, and they want something. And its a scary thing to want something but its less scary to be in a whole village of people who want something they may or may not get. ...Theres an element of it being a celebration. People want to do big things here, but everyone recognizes that its an achievement to be here and that the competitions themselves are celebrations.Of Greek-American lineage, Pappas grew up in the Bay Area and attended Dartmouth. In Rio, she competed for Greece in the womens 10,000-meter run, finishing in the top half (17 out of 37 entrants) with a personal-best time of 31:36.16. Like every Olympian, there is more to know about her than just her time in a competition.Pappas is also a writer. And an actress. And a filmmaker. And a poet. She writes poems for Womens Running Magazine, including a recent one titled Before, Olympics 2016, about such pre-competition preparation as knowing where bravery hides so she can draw it out.Every word matters in poetry, Pappas said. That helps me as a writer to appreciate words, and it also helps me as a runner. Because in poetry there are certain limitations, but there also is a lot of creativity within it, and I think that running is similar.Pappas and her fiance, Jeremy Teicher, co-wrote and co-directed the recently completed film Tracktown, which is set in Eugene, Oregon (aka, Tracktown USA). Based on some of her own experiences in the sport, the movie is about an intensely focused runner, played by Pappas, who competes at the U.S. Olympic trials in Eugene. The film also stars SNLs Rachel Dratch and Andy Buckley of The Office.She eventually wants to become a full-time filmmaker -- I would like to make things with Jeremy for the rest of our lives -- but she also wants to run as long as she can.A top runner and vibrant personality in the States, Pappas could have competed for the U.S. but chose to run for Greece instead -- she was able to thanks to dual citizenship since her grandmother is from Greece. She said it was an easy decision.My goals are to compete at the highest level, which you can do regardless of where you run. But also to have an impact on the sport, she said. Im doing that already in the U.S., but I think I can extend it to a place where distance running was born. But Greece has never had the leadership or role models in distance running. This was an obvious opportunity for me.While Pappas time in the 10,000 was more than a minute behind Ethiopian gold medalist Almaz Ayanas world record, Pappas said the race was the highlight of the Olympics. Thats because the Olympics are not just about winning or medaling. You can draw something just from being here and competing against the worlds greatest in your sport, regardless of what that sport is.Everyone at the Olympics is among the best, not just the ones who win gold, Pappas said. There is a remarkable energy to be around.Pappas was saying this outside the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre, where she had just watched Greek teammates compete in synchronized swimming. She turned to Teicher and her father, telling them how odd it was that she and they were Olympians despite vastly different sports. But that is another beauty of the Olympics. It is about athletes in so many sports.Were different creatures, but were all trying to be at the highest level of something very specific, Pappas said. And none of these things are life or death matters. Win or lose here, youre going to be OK. But that you care about something so much that you almost make it a life or death thing is really special. And to be around it is emotional. Were all doing things that are not life and death every day, but if we can dedicate ourselves to it like these women I watched today, thats the best.Thats the lesson of the Olympics. 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While that falls short of Chris Gayles 16, the number of teams Pollard has played for is testament to his appeal to T20 franchises around the world. Yet, though he is only 29, there is a possibility that Pollard will never represent West Indies again.Your tenth T20 team - is it quite tough playing for so many different teams and just kind of popping up for a month and then playing for a different team? I find it very interesting. You go, you get a job done, you impart your knowledge and then you move on. I think its about being professional in everything that you do. Since Ive been going around different teams for a while, I tend to be comfortable wherever.Is it a challenge, in between playing, to maintain your fitness when youve got no one to tell you to do it, because you dont have a full-time contract anywhere? No, its not. If you pride yourself on professional work, you dont need anyone to tell you that you need to stay fit. I think that comes naturally, and if you neglect fitness thats when your performances will drop. Ive seen it. Over the last two years, Ive just seen a little dip in performance because I wasnt able to train hard. But now, coming out of that, and being able to train a lot harder and have that fitness regime, you see the results as well.How much do the teams you play for differ in their approach, like strategy and things like that? They differ a lot. Obviously, different cultures, different ways of playing cricket, but what remains is that it is the same sort of targets and the way you go about it. The cricket itself doesnt change, but the approach changes. Whereas in some leagues they just preach aggressive, aggressive, aggressive, in others theres a more conservative approach: go hard at the top, consolidate in the middle, go hard again at the end.What would be an extreme? A couple of the years that I played in the English T20 league. Wed go hard and try to consolidate and then go hard again.How much does your personal role change? The more you have played and the more experience you get, obviously your role changes. When youre a young player you go out there, you dominate attacks, you just go, go, go. You get more senior, theres more responsibility on your shoulders. Sometimes the risk-taking is not as much, whereas in some other situations you have no choice but to go out and take risks.So, you know, it changes for me, and the roles in different teams. If Im batting high up the order theres a certain responsibility. If Im batting six and seven, theres a certain responsibility to be there at the end to finish off games.Wheres your favourite place to bat? Now in T20 cricket, I dont mind batting No. 4 or No. 5. I think it gives you flexibility. You lose two quick wickets or three quick wickets, or you come in when the team just needs you to accelerate it in the middle or accelerate at the end. I think thats now my ideal position.In T20 leagues, should there be more drug-testing? I think theres a sufficient amount of drug-testing. Ive had numerous, numerous drug tests all over the world. I dont think you find many cricketers taking drugs and stuff like that. If the people in authority think that they need to have more drug-testing, then so be it. But I havent seen many cricketers getting banned for drugs. Theres a few, but in everything that you do, theres always a few bad apples.In the T20 teams you play for, can you talk about the use of data? Stats and data - its there, but I think its there for more of a baseline. I think if you try to go into too much thinking about stats and the average score on a ground, you sometimes tend to miss a trick. Cricketers should actually play and the stats are just a baseline to see where people are progressing, where you can take advantage of a team, their weaknesses and stuff like that. But if you use too many stats in T20 cricket and start to complicate it, thats when youre in trouble. Stats are good, data is good, but you need to use it sparingly.Its there, but I dont much it up, as we will say in the Caribbean. Some people will think a stat is this and a guys not good at this particular time or whatever. Give him the opportunity. Lets see.Can you talk about your boundary catching? It comes naturally. Its just about what you can do, concentration, getting your hand in the right position, and getting some to stick. You can say luck is on your side as well, but if you do it time and time again, it cant be luck.For me, its all about pride. When I started out, I think I was known as one of the best fielders, but then you always have competition and thats how you get better. As Jonty Rhodes said, if you dont go, you never know. So if I dont jump and attempt to take that catch, I never know if Ill be able to.What I try to do is give myself the opportunity to take that catch. And it has worked out in me getting some different catches and people all around the world talking about it. So thats good.How do you feel about being dropped from the ODI team? Im not surprised that it actually happened. I knew from the time I had a couple bad games or bad series thats whats going to happen and that is what theyre going to use against me, because of all that happened between 2014 till now. I had one good series coming back - a very good series as well - and then next time a bad one and then youre out.I just accept it and move on. I have the opportunity still to play around the world. If they feel justified in what they did and thats want they want to do, Im fine with that as well.Do you think theres a chance you might never play for West Indies again? Thats a question the selection panel will have to answer. Ill be playing cricket around the world and still trying to do the best I can. Will I play for West Indies again? I dont know. You want to use your knowledge and the experience of these guys in order to better West Indies cricket, but I guess the upper heads, as they call it, and the management at the top have different ideas.Would you want a white-ball contract from the West Indies Cricket Board? Thats one of the things we have been advocating for a long time. So hopefully. But saying you want it or you need it is two different things. Even now, only Test players get retainer contracts.But when you look at it in reality, guys who have served West Indies cricket for a long time, or more senior guys, are getting the same remunerations as guys who have just played one Test match. So Im not sure if the process in which they go about it is right. I dont know if they will think about white-ball contracts. At the moment they alone know what they want to achieve, and we can just hope that good sense prevails in the end. I cant say if I want one. I want a lot of things in life.How hard is it to just rock up and play for West Indies, like in the last ODI series, when youve been playing other forms before? Its the least of the problems. I think the most important thing is being paid properly for your services. I can rock up and play, but I think theres more to rocking up and playing for West Indies than that. Its about pride, its about passion, its about representing. At the end of it all, its your job. If youre lucky enough to play ten, 15, 20 years at the top, then you would have a substantial career. At the end of the day youve got to live, youll have kids, get married, and theres a lot more to it than jusst rocking up and playing.ddddddddddddAre some West Indies players - the younger guys - afraid to speak out against the WICB? They wont say it, but they are. Because what you have seen, theres a trend, right? Darren Sammy was regarded as one of the best leaders we have in the Caribbean. Sammy, for the first time, came out and spoke against the board. Sammy was sacked. Phil Simmons wanted different mechanisms to get his job done better. He spoke out against the board, got himself sacked. Dwayne Bravo has been in trouble with the board. Pollard has been in trouble with the board. Chris Gayle has been in trouble with the board for speaking out. So if the younger players have seen that trend, theyd rather just stay quiet. They are learning what not to say because of what the outcome is going to be.How would you fix cricket in the West Indies? We have to fix it from the top. We have to change the whole system, we have to change the whole culture, we have to change the whole structure. And if you start somewhere, you start at the top, then it filters down.We tried different models. Ive seen all sorts of different reports and stuff like that. We look at the Australian structure or the English structure and take out two pages that suit us and say, okay, were going put this in place, and thats it. No. Its a whole structure. Thats why a book starts from the front and it ends in the back.We are just trying for shortcuts all the time. So, for me, everything from the top needs to change first before it gets down to the bottom. But unfortunately what all the fans sadly see is the finished product, which is the players out there, and we get judged. You get judged and you get the majority of the blame, but things are not really in place for you to perform at your optimal.I wouldnt just change the president for arguments sake. No. I would say the whole structure needs to change - everything. The infrastructure, the stadiums and the things that are sub-standard to produce international cricket. Now, international cricketers come on the scene after one good year of domestic cricket and sometimes we can see the results on the field. Then we blame the players. So there are a lot of things, not just the president.Why are West Indies ninth in ODIs when they are so good at T20? T20 cricket comes naturally. There are just 20 overs, you go out there and play your natural game for an hour and a half and thats it. Its about concentration, its about mentality. Its about the wickets you have played on in the West Indies, and then having to go, for instance, to Australia, and try to dominate. When you go overseas, its difficult to adjust.But us as cricketers are not blaming anybody, because at some point we need to take responsibility for that.So the players do have to take some of the blame for how West Indies cricket is? Yeah, of course. But look at what happened in 2014 on the India tour. They did an investigation and said the board, the players association, and the players are culpable for what happened. But what happened after that? The players were the ones sanctioned alone, right? And okay, if youre responsible, you take responsibility for it. You accept it and you try to move forward. But again, we are responsible for everything in West Indies cricket now. Thats the way. What are the changes you have seen in the top hierarchy of the WICB? None. But you see the players changing day in, day out.A holistic sort of redevelopment has to take place in order for West Indies to go forward, and those are just some of the reasons why we are No. 9 in the world in ODIs.Now you have fired one coach who said he wasnt getting along with the players. And then we brought another coach who was getting along with the players, the results started to look okay - World T20 win, we got to the final of the tri-series, won a Test match, and you have seen that the players are comfortable. Again, the coach goes. So we go right back to square one.They get rid of most of the senior players to go young. The end result of it? Most of the senior players are back. So youre just going around and around and around and not actually finding the root of the problem. Thats the reason why were No. 9. Well get to No. 8, well get to No. 7, okay. Then where do we go from there? Are you sad that youve never played a Test match? At the start, I was. Now I can cope with disappointment. Because of how West Indies cricket is and has been run, sometimes you just get labelled. And when you dont get an opportunity then people will say you cant do it. How would you know if someone cant do something if you dont get an opportunity? Ive never got the opportunity to play, but the consensus is that I cant play [Test cricket].Im not sorry for myself. I have accepted what it is and I have moved on from harping about playing Test cricket. It is what it is. If I wasnt destined to play a Test match, then I wasnt destined to. If I was destined to play 50 Test matches, I will. So just lets see. But Im not disappointed. Sometimes dreams dont come true.Will young players follow your path and specialise in T20 cricket while West Indies Test cricket actually gets worse and worse? I can see players just wanting to play the short format of the game. But what I will always say, as we were taught growing up, is that Test cricket is the pinnacle. Yes, you want to play the shorter format, but sometimes you still want to test yourself in a longer format. I started playing cricket because I wanted to play West Indies Test matches and 50-over cricket. It just happened that T20 came around and thats what took precedence. When I scored runs in the first-class arena, I was still branded a one-day cricketer, because I was hitting sixes in first-class games. Now, in Test matches youre seeing a lot of sixes as well. So I see it happening, but I still urge them to test themselves in the longer format of the game.Are you worried that in the future West Indies might collapse completely? Honestly, I cant see it happening. West Indies have a rich culture, a rich legacy, and I dont think we will let it happen. We have been going through a bad time for the last 20 years or so, but theres always some light at the end of the tunnel. So I dont think its going to collapse and youre going to see regions go on their own. We just need to get our acts together so West Indies cricket can recover, because we all pride ourselves on that. You can be from Barbados, Trinidad, Guyana, or wherever - youll be considered a West Indian.Whats the secret of West Indians in T20? I think it comes naturally to us. Were strong, were able to hit the balls out of the ground. Where teams run between the wickets and get twos, we get fours and sixes. It works to our advantage. We stick to our strength. Around the world, West Indies go out and try and dominate in the leagues as well. It shows how strong we are. And it was very disappointing to see that we lost 3-0 to Pakistan, because we were so good at it.Do you think this West Indies team can dominate T20s in the same way as in the 1980s they dominated Test cricket? When you say this West Indies team, you have to be specific about which players we are talking about. If we are talking about that World Cup team and a couple of other young players, I definitely think so.But if not, and youre just going to change your whole structure and get rid of all the seniors, then I dont know how long our domination is going to be for. ' ' '