Winners don't quit. Quitters don't win.

As a tribute to athletes participating in the SEA games this December, we salute the perseverance and determination of people who never gave up.

1. Michael Jordan did not make it to his high school basketball team, but he practiced for 3 hours every day until he became the world's best basketball player.

2. Albert Einstein had childhood speech impediment, and he failed his university entrance exam into the Swiss Federal Polytechnical School (Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule or ETH). He passed the math and science sections of the entrance exam, but failed the rest (history, languages, geography, etc.)

3. Lance Armstrong was diagnosed with testicular cancer, which metastasized to his brain and his lungs in 1996, not only did he battle caner, he recovered to win the Tour de France a record-breaking 7 consecutive years from 1999 to 2005.

4. Terry Fox lost his right leg to osteosarcoma, a type of cancer that attacks the knee. Yet, he still found strength to run the Marathon of Hope (cross-Canada run), at a pace of 42km a day. He never completed it because his cancer had spread to his lungs. But after 143 days of running, he had covered 5,373km. His courage and determination helped raise $24.17 million for cancer research - thus achieving his goal of raising one dollar for every single Canadian for cancer research.

5. Thomas Edison was labelled as "stupid" and "unteachable" by his school teacher in his early childhood and his parents had to pull him out of school. He also spent his teenage years working and being fired from various jobs. Despite these setbacks, Edison became one of the greatest inventors of all time, and obtained 1,093 patents throughout his career.

6. As a young man, Walt Disney was fired from the Kansas City Star Newspaper because he was thought to have lacked creativity. He then created his own company called Laugh-O-Gram Films which nearly went broke. Classic films like Mickey Mouse, The Three Little Pigs and Pinocchio were even rejected. But 16 years of persuading Pamela Travers to turn her novel Mary Poppins into a film paid off and finally gave Disney his big break.