The Olympic losing spirit

With the Olympics still dominating the news I find it a bit nauseating that the message promoted by the media is one of 'taking part' not winning. This has been deemed the most important element of the events even to the point that the athletes themselves are regurgitating this nonsense. How many times have we heard over the past few days, 'It's not about about the medals it's about taking part.'? If this is the medias way of managing the publics expectations then at least give the poor competitors credit for trying their best instead of pouncing on them the moment they fail to win, either the expected medal or any medal at all with questions like;

'So Tom, no medal today? Talk me through it.'

It's pretty obvious, especially after seeing Euan Burton's devastation when he lost in his opening bout, that our athletes are trying their utmost, even with the promoted expectations of mediocrity. This is a particular good example, the pre-competition mantra, it's all about taking part' was very quickly replaced by a direct attack from a leading official from the British Judo Association, Densign White, blaming the teams 'lack of commitment' on their perceived poor performance, not really the encouragement and support required to raise the morale of the remaining fighters.

In football tournaments the media raise the publics expectations, praising and elevating our footballing gaggle of mediocre buffoons to heroes prior to the event. Then, as they habitually crash out of the competition at an early stage, release a torrent of abuse lambasting the team in general and the manager in particular. In contrast, well slightly, the media have once more raised the competing British athletes to heroic status but still the parallel message of mediocrity remains, perhaps as the safety net for failure.

I expect that our athletes have the desire to succeed but it must be difficult when the national attitude to competition is merely to take part. This can be seen at Infant, primary and junior schools throughout the land on sports days when non-competitive events take place where there are no winners, no losers and no point. Countries such as the USA and Australia certainly do not have this approach and have a great deal of success with it.

With all of this said, it is obvious to me that the British attitude of 'taking part' can be improved. It is obviously unfair when athletes have a talent for a particular discipline, they have an advantage over those who do not. Let's get the team together but let them draw lots to see which events they compete in, that will ensure that it is all about taking part with no chance at all of winning anything, or very little, and hence no disappointments. This can even apply to the winter sports, this is a positive approach and will allow the poor athletes to try something new rather than an event they have stuck at for a minimum of ten years.