Athletes always need motivation to achieve their best performances. For some, that push comes in the form of their own indomitable inner competitiveness. For others, it may be a perceived slight by an opponent or the press.

South African Paralympic swimmer Achmat Hassiem — AP

None of those motivations can come close to what drives newly minted bronze medal-winning Paralympic swimmer Achmat Hassiem every time he steps into a pool. The South African star is motivated by pure fear and adrenaline, imagining that he is being chased by the shark that bit off his right leg.

As reported by the Associated Press, Hassiem's rather unique motivational tool comes as the result of direct experience, with Hassiem suffering the lost leg in a 2006 shark attack off the beach in Cape Town. At the time Hassiem was an able-bodied athlete who competed in a number of sports. He was also a lifeguard, and was participating in lifeguarding exercise with his brother, Taariq, when he saw a shark nearly 15-feet long. Unable to alert his brother, Hassiem yelled at other lifeguards nearby to pull his brother from the water while he distracted the shark.

That decision probably saved his brother's life, but it also permanently affected Hassiem's as well. The shark attacked the lifeguard as he slapped the water to gain its attention, then dragged him between 150 and 200 feet. Eventually the South African broke free by sacrificing his leg, forever giving up his appendage with, in his words, "one last enormous push and [I] heard a great snapping sound."

Hassiem walks you through the full terror of that attack in the video you see below.

While the loss of one of Hassiem's legs may have been a traumatic experience -- though nowhere near as horrendous as the loss of a sibling, as Hassiem is quick to counter -- the 30-year-old has made the most of it. An emerging Paralympic star, Hassiem reinvented himself as a one-legged swimmer, eventually becoming one of the best at his craft. After finishing in ninth place at the Beijing Paralympics in 2008, he won the bronze in the 100-meter butterfly on Saturday in London.

And through it all, Hassiem has reflected on that terrifying moment in South Africa to frighten him into a mad dash for the wall during his tough races.

Feel the warmth: Oscar Pistorius and Alan Oliveira immediately after their race. (Getty Images)
On the track, speed is everything, but it's not the only thing. A little dose of grace and humility also helps.

At the London 2012 Games, South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius wowed the world when he became the first double amputee ever to compete in an Olympics. When it comes to the Paralympic Games currently underway in London, he is the unparalleled star, and over the weekend he lost his T44 200-meter race, a race he was expected to win as handily as Usain Bolt did in his recent Olympic runs. (T44 is a classification of relative levels of disability.)

Pistorius placed second to Brazil's Alan Fonteles Cardoso Oliveira, finishing just .07 seconds behind Oliveira's 21.45 seconds. Tough go, it happens, it can be heartbreaking, right? But you take it in the spirit of competition and move on ... or you throw out accusations that not all is above-board.

"We aren't racing a fair race," Pistorius said on-camera right after the race, charging that the blades Oliveira uses are too long and

This man will be running a fashion line. (Getty)

After winning five medals in London, Ryan Lochte is looking to some new challenges before preparing for the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. In addition to angling for roles on "Dancing with the Stars" or "The Bachelor," he told Celebuzz that he is working with E! on a reality television show that will follow his life.

"It's real. It's not fake or anything like that. It's gonna be me, me being myself," he continues. "And I'm pretty much going to show the world that and my new fashion line."

Wait. Hold up. Fashion line? Americans will get to spend their hard-earned cash and then look like Lochte? Though a reality show following his jeah-filled life of swimming and running a fashion line may be a little boring, seeing what he adds to the fashion world will be fascinating.

Will we be able to buy Lochte-licensed grills? Lochte American flag sunglasses? Perhaps knockoffs of the gold and diamond encrusted razor? Maybe a T-shirt with a picture of him wearing a T-shirt with a picture of him on it?

The aftermath of a poor Olympic showing for Russia may have become even more dire on Wednesday, when the coach of the country's women's volleyball team was found hanged in his hotel room with some blaming the team's poor results at the London Games for his death.

Former Russian women's volleyball coach Sergey Ovchinnikov — Getty

As reported by Eurosport and a handful of other outlets, 43-year-old Russian volleyball coach Sergey Ovchinnikov (also spelled Sergei in some outlets) was found hanged in a hotel room while he and his Dynamo Moscow squad were taking part in preseason training in Croatia. Ovchinnikov had recently finished a turbulent Olympic campaign leading the Russian women's volleyball team. The national team had entered as favorites but was eventually eliminated by Brazil in the quarterfinals, failing to convert a whopping six match points in the loss.

While there is certainly no proof that Ovchinnikov's death was brought on by the national team's poor results, two of his colleagues insisted that it played a part in the suicide.

"He took the Olympics very personally," Russian men's volleyball coach Vladimir Alekno told RT.com. "I saw what he was going through and how upset he was after the defeat. He didn't talk much. Even after victories he was always thinking about something and smoked a lot."

According to Sovetsky Sports news service, Ovchinnikov had also complained of recurring headaches in recent days, a malady which may or may not be connected to the Olympics and the stress it brought.

(The Local)The German men's hockey team had quite a party to celebrate winning the gold medal in London. Now, they face a $625,000 bill for it.

The team rented out the MS Deutschland for their post-Olympic soiree. Pictures surfaced of the team smoking cigars and drinking champagne on the boat. After the party, Deutschland staff found burn marks, stains from spilled drinks and broken glass.

Though the team apologized and gave the Deutschland's operators a signed stick, that isn't enough to make up for the damage or the time lost to repairing the boat.

"The carpets and upholstery cannot be replaced while the ship is in use," Deilmann shipping company spokeswoman Kornelia Kneissl told Bild newspaper. Every day on land costs the shipping company €75,000, she said.

With the missed time on water and repairs, the bill will come out to about $625,000. With $625K, the German team could have bought a one-bedroom apartment in New York, a bungalow in a hot area of Atlanta, or five police officers for a town in suburban Maryland.

Instead, the boat's owners will look to each team member to pay for the damages. Instead of going after the group, they want whoever was responsible for the damage to pay. The company imagines this will end up in court. Yep, that's a good assumption to make.

Thanks, USA Today.

A few weeks removed from the pomp and spectacle that was the 2012 London Olympics, members of the 1972 Team USA men's basketball team met in Lexington, Ky., last weekend to reflect on the 40th anniversary of the team's disappointing silver-medal run. That "silver medal" performance has long been criticized as a hollow number two in the annals of sport, as a combination of terrible referee work, blatantly incorrect scorekeeping, and out and out corruption just about handed the gold medal to a (very good, it should be remembered) Russian team that was full of older pros. Team USA, four decades on, still hasn't accepted their silver medals, and for good reason. Russia was a gold-medal deserving squad on paper, but Team USA earned the gold that year.

And center Tom Burleson, in reflecting on the lowest point of his sporting career, used the get-together to remind us all of what is easily the lowest point in Olympic history. The tragic and stunning kidnapping and murder of 11 Israeli athletes by Palestinian terrorists just four days before Team USA's gold-medal contest versus Russia. A typically must-read report from NBA.com's Steve Aschburner details the big center's emotional response to recalling the horror from close proximity, some 40 years removed from Munich.

Burleson had been out acting the part of a tourist with his fiancée on Sept. 5, 1972, unaware that the Israeli athletes had been taken hostage. After spying a longer than usual line to get back into the athletes' quarters after his afternoon out, he snuck in a previously used and purportedly innocuous garage entrance with two Italian athletes, only to be met by German police officers (due to complicated Soviet-era international policy, German military authorities could not aid in attempting to bring an end to the kidnapping plot) with rifles drawn. As Burleson was pinned against a wall with a rifle in his back, he could hear the Israeli athletes being led from the Athletes' Village and to an airport where they later met their demise in a hail of terrorist gunfire and incompetence from the German authorities.

The 7-2 NBA veteran broke down as he discussed the events of the afternoon. From NBA.com:

Immediately after this picture was taken, Ray Lewis sacked Michael Phelps. (Facebook)

Gajillion-time Olympic medalist Michael Phelps stopped by Baltimore Ravens practice on Monday to motivate the players as the regular season nears.

"'Go get 'em!' that was basically his message," Ravens coach John Harbaugh said. "He just talked about the last four years and what it takes to persevere like that, and he said, 'Go get 'em.' .. He had a great message for us, and we appreciate that."

Phelps retired from swimming competition after breaking the all-time Olympic medal record in London. He's 27, is 6-foot-4 and has the reach of a 6-foot-8 man, and is known for his speed. Perhaps this "visit" was just a ruse to start working Phelps out at wide receiver?

Michael Johnson won four Olympic gold medals in track in his career. During Saturday's America's Cup fleet race final, he showed why he didn't win any medals in sailing. Johnson fell off the back of Team Oracle USA, and may have cost the boat the final individual race.

He was part of the crew as a guest racer. Watch as he crossed the rigging along the stern of the catamaran, lost his footing and fell into the San Francisco Bay.

As the Oracle was still in the running to win the race, it couldn't go back for Johnson.

"He yelled out," Russell Coutts, the head of Team Oracle, said. "I think he was expecting me to come back, but there was no way I was coming back."

A committee boat picked up Johnson. Team Oracle took second in the final race due in part to Johnson's fall, but the good news is it had enough points to win the overall fleet races competition.