With opening ceremonies for the Pyeongchang Olympics only three days away, Under Armour launched an “Unlike Any” campaign celebrating female athletes, and a new film starring world champion alpine skier Lindsey Vonn ahead of her big races.
Vonn’s short film was inspired by the athlete’s “undeniable strength and dedication to her sport–through debilitating injuries and setbacks.” The film “honors and showcases how each injury is a part of her journey, and how it has pushed her and molded her into the champion she is today: ‘each wound filled with sunlight to bond my old self to my new… I was hurt & did not end & now I am endless.'”
Below is a spoken-word poem by Safia Eihillo featured in the film.
Kintsugi (for Lindsey Vonn)
in the art of metal joinery
a cracked pot fuses back together
with precious molten liquid
gleaming vein
at the site of each breaking
this is what I became
each wound filled with sunlight to bond my old self to my new
I know intimately
the aching of leg bones as a kind of growing
I know intimately what a body cannot & then can
I was hurt & did not end
& now I am endless
my body breaks
& it breaks
& I do not
my body splits & I make home around its borders
a life force the color of precious metals pours out & sutures my wounds
makes me a map of all I survive
& makes me unlike any
Photo courtesy Under Armour
