Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
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Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
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Is sportsmanship dying? I note in the Olympics some signs of this or am I aging Baby Boomer with a different value system. I will not cite examples but have seen plenty. I also note a sickening
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Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 2/8/2012 1:54 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
Is sportsmanship dying? I note in the Olympics some signs of this or am I aging Baby Boomer with a different value system. I will not cite examples but have seen plenty. I also note a sickening obsession by our media about gold medals and medal tallies as if this is the surrogate for the worth and standing of a country. How about all the nations who go there which win no medals? Do we compete for medals or for competition and the wonder of it all. Why go if you are not a contender for gold? Our press has names for some of our swimmers like "The Missile" etc which is purile in my opinion and gingoistic. I dislike this side of the Olympic frenzy. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 2/8/2012 11:19 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 317
First: 27/10/2011 Last: 8/5/2013 |
Australia aren't doing so well this time around, so far, so I imagine that the relentless bloodhounds in your national press are getting pretty tetchy? I couldn't agree more about the obsession with gold. It is dreadful that our Chris Froome, the road time trial bronze medallist and 2nd placed cyclist in the Tour de France behind the winner Bradley Wiggins has not been placed on the same pedestal. To me, the combination of having two such great cyclists is far more impressive than one alone, since it demonstrates real health and strength for a sport. I'm sure that they recognise the value of each other personally, but the media need to be less obsequiously sychophantic with thier gold fever. To be fair, though, there are some examples of the opposite here in the UK. Michael Jamieson has rightly been lauded for his PB and silver medial in the 200m breaststroke that took a world record to beat him. Well done indeed. Part of your frustration can perhaps be appreciated from the perspective of those young athletes who are potential stars for the future. The games should be an opportunity for them to be driven on to greater achievements in the longer term, as so brilliantly prophesied by the opening ceremony. Yet gold fever does tend to sideline them; we live too much in the greediness of 'now' and not enough in the self-control of 'what could be'. As for rulings, don't get me started on the badminton - right decision is all I will say! Yet I feel horrifically aggrieved for the South Korean fencer, Shin A Lam - wrong decision. And the Japanese mens gymnast team reinstated to silver - right decision. Are such opinions a reflection of personal morals or national culture? Can you be an arbiter of justice without high level experience in a sport? Calling King Solomon to the referee's enclosure... King Solomon to the referee's enclosure.
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 2/8/2012 5:23 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1280
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 14/5/2013 |
True Odysseus, and the art of sportsmenship is ging away. In Archery, for example I bring forth the example of Japanese Kyudo, and the purpose is not to hit the target, but to become the Bow, and the arrow, Kyudo is a Zen-like discipline, whereby one becomes archery. Not suprisingly Kyudo archers of high renown often hit their targets all the time! A side effect of Zen concentration. We have lost the Zen, and the Force in our lives. NEVER THEIR MINDS ON WHERE THEY WERE< OR WHAT THEY WERE DOING! - - - YODA... DuaneF |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 2/8/2012 10:51 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
As the Olympics are now a multimillion dollar industry, success in them now means endorcements. The Mlebourne Olympics were called the Friendly Games. At Montreal all our athletes were amateurs with no government funding. After that medal debacle for Australia, we went home and licked our wounded national egos and the federal government set up the Australian Institute of sport as it could see that government funding by the Communist Eastern Block was bigtime. Since then, in my opinion it has become a matter for the dollars. I noticed in the mens 50metre swimming heats, the slowests heats were associated with darker skin, underdeveloped countries (I don't like Third World) and as the heats got faster the skin got whiter and the funding got bigger. It is not to say these men from poorer countries could not win because of their melanocytes but they could not win in these conditions where money and trainers and time allocated is the prime determinant of gold or whatever medal. I think Australians are bad winners and poor losers. They smack of arrogance. I feel ashamed of the tantrums, tears, excuses etc etc. We are doing poorly overall in terms of our usual gold medal tally. We are not bad all rounders and our overall total tally is not too bad but we have crashed. When someone wins silver here there is a national day of mourning. Courtesy and graciousness about someone who was just plain better is sadly lacking. It is national narcissism aided by a mass media beat up while the boy from the slums of Microcosmia who swam his best and was ranked 86th in the world in swimming in my opinion is the real hero and winner of my gold medal. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 3/8/2012 2:36 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
Today I was home with a bad back and happened to watch French TV on my iPad supine. It showed the French kayak gold medalist. It was all about the winner. On the podium the silver and bronze women were cut out. All one could see was first. There was no mention of second, third or how the competition went. It was fixated. I thought that this shows how the media are responsible for this attitudinal shift. It is all about national egos, winners, hype and not sportsmanship. It is not magnanimous. Perhaps it never was? Our media do in fairness show the others and discuss competitors. We are 20 million on an island and the world is over there. We do look out to the horizon as we can't look in as there is only the bush and the desert in the middle. But it is still the same only different. We have moved now into FaceBook and Twitter Olympics and mind games by stealth. It is all going away from the original ideal. Soon we will be freezing down sperm and eggs of gold medalists or cloning them. P.S. I later heard our ABC Radio today interviewing the Oz teenager/girl who came second in the kayak slalom (silver). It was all about her and her mother who won Bronze in the same event in Atlanta x years ago and how the then Czech gold medalist was in the race against her all these 16 years later and how she came fourth, bla, bla, bla. There was not a mention of who won this race (France) or who came third (? don't know but she was a woman and she had a mother too we suppose). It is all so focussed, so narcissistic, no nationalistic...so boring, perhaps so ephemeral. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 3/8/2012 8:58 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 317
First: 27/10/2011 Last: 8/5/2013 |
The BBC have a section they run on their nightly Olympics summary programme called 'Underdog of the Day'. It features the more unusual Olympians who are performing at the games, like the rower from Niger and the eventer from Japan in his 70's. It's all a little contrived: they open the short piece a British Bulldog yapping in a mock-up of the MGM logo, motto'd with citius, altius, fortius instead of ars gratia artis. However, it does reflect a deep-rooted something in the British psyche for supporting those who are up against the odds... |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 3/8/2012 10:45 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
I watch Fotxtel which is good because it shows all heats and events and thus one may enjoy the fun of it all like a rower from Tunisia who won his heat in the single sculls and wore board shorts and not the full deal like most. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 3/8/2012 11:09 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
As Australia is in a state of national mourning following our Olympic standing, moves are afoot to reestablish our credibility in the 2016 Olympics with the introduction of three new events; sheep shearing, wood chopping and sheep dog trials. If we win the latter competition, the dog gets the medal and the sports psychologist gets a bone. There were suggestions about beer sculling but the Germans would beat us as their steins are bigger than our glasses. Apparently we spend $500 million on Olympic training over four years. It thus can be seen that the cost of a medal regardless of where it comes on the periodic table (recognising bronze is more than one) is considerable and underlies what I have posted already on this topic. Is it all worthwhile and is it an "arms race"under the guise of a "sports race". The fact that China has equalled the USA and Korea is punching above its weight may also be the result not only of talent but money and national priorities. International prestige is gained by the Olympics and also national and racial superioriy as was tried in the Cold War and in Berlin in 1936. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 4/8/2012 12:31 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 311
First: 7/5/2009 Last: 2/4/2013 |
You are right Odysseus Sports ( including Olympics) were all about a health atmosphere of competition, global fun and a beautiful display of sportsman ship. Now it is a corporate event in which people lie to their OWN kids for years just for a stupid medal. Read this sick news here |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 4/8/2012 1:20 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
Yes, my friend. Afterall, a gold medal is the acme of existence and national aspiration. I think Australia should spend at least $1 billion per athlete ( we could just dig up more coal) which should guarantee us lots of wasted money per medal while we could pay for it by reducing foreign aid and to hell with Medicare. Medals are what it important in life while the rest of us just go to work, earn a living, raise families, educate children, and die eventually sans medals and sans ribbons. Next week it will be Olympic post-mortems, blood on the floor, coaches on toast etc. The mind boggles when one thinks what is spent on this Olympic extravaganza and how this biosphere's assets could be used for better things. It is getting worse. In our newspapers and TV there is hardly a line on science, the intellectual, higher thought, medical innovations, better health but lots on sport, sport and more sport although we are becoming one of the fattest nations on the planet. Even our swimmers are now regarded as too fat! Yes, keep the bad news from our athletes as they must not be disturbed. Money buys gold and that is why most of the competing nations go home empty handed. Greece with 11 million people has one Bronze. I bet they don't spend $500 million over four years. Perhaps they don't value medals as much as we or have so much cash to waste on petulent Olympic hopefuls. They have poor and unemployed sleeping in the streets. But I could be wrong. |
