Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
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Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
Discuss non-medical topics
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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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 4/8/2012 2:14 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 106
First: 13/3/2012 Last: 9/5/2013 |
Agree with all the above. What I found interesting about the Australian competitors was the difference between The Swimmers, and The Rest. For the most part, and of course, there were exceptions, I was impressed by The Rowers and their acknowledgement of the winners' accomplishment. I was also impressed by the The Rest, who accepted defeat and spoke of how a true champion who has been defeated goes off and looks at what he/she has to do to come back. Markers of the true champions. Gracious and inclusive of other competitors. I was not impressed by the bawling and beaten swimmers, who truly sounded like they thought the medals were automatically theirs. Seems like they believed their own publicity machine. And yes, often, the ones who come in last - and last in the Olympics is still the best of the rest of the world, are the true heroes, who probably know they don't have a chance, but they get in there and give it their best. If you are looking for true heroes, through and through, check out the Para Olympics. Now there is a whole bunch of winners - against more formidable odds than just the puny power of the most superb athlete from any part of the world.
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 4/8/2012 3:04 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
I totally agree, Linda. Nice to read your comments which sing from the same hymn sheet. One of our swimmers missed gold by 1/100th of a second and there was little grace about how well the winner did who beat him. It was just more breast beating, excuses, recriminations etc. One of our ex-Olymic gold medalists (swimmer) has been critical from back home of the swimmers and their attitudes as well as relative lack of dedication to training. She has been acknowledged as having a valid point but been told to be quiet lest it upset the team in the pool who are all texting, Twittering and Fluttering with the vapours. It was nice to see the rowers who generally were so magnanimous. We love to see the Kiwis win (even against us reluctantly) and from a small nation they do so well on the water. They have true grit. I think the media feed a lot of the bad stuff. Coaches also should read the riot act with bad behaviour but many coaches are even worse. |
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Re: Is sportsmanship on its death bed?
posted at 5/8/2012 2:09 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 324
First: 23/12/2011 Last: 3/5/2013 |
I am afraid that I am very much a cynic of sport in general so any opinions i express here will probably seem to be biased. |
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Some agonal reflections of games
posted at 5/8/2012 4:30 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
It seems to me that if time is the thing to beat in many sports now, an exponential amount of resources are needed with diminishing returns to slice milliseconds off the last record. This usually means that the best resourced wins. However, I note that countries such as Ethiopia and Kenya shone in the women's 10,000 metres but I have no idea about what resources they had other than pure talent, grit and lean bodies. As sporting prowess becomes more dependant on technological prowess, I cannot see how the playing field is becoming more even. it is not. There are about 12,000 athletes, 204 or is it 205 nations and few medals really. Thus most go to the games really to compete, to enjoy the ambiance and experience. If only the world's best three attend for each sport, what a dismal affair it would be. Australia competed in all but three sports (football, handball and fencing) and has never won a medal in fencing. They had a go as we believe in having a go. I reflect upon the men and women there competing; people from mud huts of Kenya, bamboo homes of Laos, high rise in New York, athletes from the African and Australian bush, from Oceania's islands and the prairies of Canada etc. They come for reasons akin to the ideals of the original games as few are here for medals. In the 6th century BC were the Pythian Games which were fore-runners of the Olympic Games and were held at Delphi in honour of Apollo and included dance and art. They occurred two years between the Olympics. The Greek word for games is agones which means a contest, struggle or competition and from which we get agony (agonia) which means torment in Greek or a contest for victory. I have stood in the stadium in Delphi and been in awe at its beauty. I can still feel the agonas. In Homer (eg The Iliad) when a hero was killed, his compatriots would celebrate after the funeral with funereal games; a genuine letting off of steam and emotion in a positive way. Thus games are more than sport but served some social function as well. They buildt teams and cohesion and even humour (viz The Iliad). And thus competition for honours and attainment of excellence is agonal. It embodies struggle with oneself and with others, with the elements and with injury. We, as doctors, have each had our own agonas. We could not be here without them. We, in my opinion, are akin to Olympians; each of us. We are not all medal winners but we know the arena and we know agonas. I also think of the downside for each athlete; years of early rising, the cost on personal life, on families and on one's mental stability and of injury and the long-term damage to body and soul. This is a cloistered existence. No wonder some athletes break down and sob, have tantrums and do stupid things when drunk. This is no excuse however. Discipline of body means discipline of mind. Mens sana in corpore sano. The winner has to wrestle with the mind as well as the body. It makes me happy to see winners and losers genuinely congratulating one another. The is magnanimous; big spirited. This is the real joy of competition. It brings joy to both athletes and spectators. I am not watching for medals but for the agonas (and for magnanimity). Many athletes are well known to the one another and many are friends although adversaries. This is well seen in Homer. When this is all over, and years later, will they be haunted by the demon of that 10 millisecond "loss" which gave them silver or will they revel in that greater notion of an ideal that once rewarded the winner with an ephmeral laurel garland from Tempe in Thessaly rather than a million talent sponsorship from a chariot company in Outer Germania. Odysseus |
