The media is flooded with news of our high-powered Olympic athletes who have sacrificed all to win. Many have spent the most precious years of their childhood shoved and pummeled towards winning.
Years of grueling training, three to five hours a day for a moment of glory. A glory indeed well deserved! But at what cost?
The road toward gold is paved with exhaustive routines starting as early as 7 years for the likes of Phelps and Ye Shiwen, and countless others.
Those who never make it to the winner’s podium fade into the crowds of defeated. No writeups or celebration awaits for them at home.
I grew up in a country where winning was the king and God of all human pursuits. Nothing mattered but the win, irregardless how you achieved it. It is how we were coerced to see our self-worth. Coaches were revered and could do no wrong.
Competition was instilled as being good for all mankind. From ancient Greece circa 776 BC, the first games offered laurel leaves for the top athletes.
Now the coveted gold medal seduces the world’s youth towards obsessive paths of sacrificing their whole lives, even damaging their bodies with enhancers, such as steroids, EPO or various other methods of doping.
We can all applaud the winners, but only if their tears could tell us what they had to do to win. But what about the “losers”, who limp off concealing their pain? The dark side of the Olympics is only for those who care to go beyond the applause.
What is this race of being the best? What real merit is there at being first? First of what? Certainly not of the circuit of life. We can train for ages on end and life can throw us a curveball. And end it all.
I am appalled in reading how children from a very early age are plucked from their families and shipped off to draconian training camps.
These chosen children are literally stripped of any normalcy of living as a child. They are virtually brainwashed and programmed to have no other goals except winning a medal, and only gold will do!
Daily harsh and relentless exercises are shoved upon their small bodies. They are truly enslaved to perform at all costs. They have no other choice as humiliation is the alternative of not complying with their exhaustive routines.
The Chinese sports camps seem to be the worse of them all. Reportage of children enduring excruciating pain all for of a game to win. They are not treated as children but machines to go on as political banners and propaganda for their country.
I have nothing against sports per se, as all sports can strengthen the body and teach us focus and discipline. Yet to brainwash our youth into seeing winning as the be-all and end-all, does little to prepare them for what life is all about.
It does not matter if you are the most well-trained and strongest in your field. Winning still has a matter of luck involved. Especially when you are amongst others as well-trained as you. Human strengths and talents waiver from day-to-day. We can not always be at top form and speed every day.
Willing to win gives us the best shot towards getting the goal, except that your competition probably has the same mindset. Down the line, you have to accept that there are matters of winning outside of your control. Give it your best effort and hope for the rest.
Although, we can certainly try to bend the tide of fate in our favor, ultimately our destiny is much too complicated for us to control. Blueprints of life await for us to live it out, and make the best of what life throws our way.
Always winning gives you a false illusion that you are always in control of your life. That if we try hard enough, we will always make it to the goal.
Life is not always just and fair. Sometimes the very goals we seek, turn out to be in the end to lead us astray, back into the darker abyss of life.
Losing, however painful, can be a blessing in disguise. Losing is far the better teacher of life, as it prepares us to accept life as it is, not always as we want it. We come to see that there is more to living than just winning the race.
Olympic games certainly unites the global community for a common goal of outshining each other. The battle of nations to host the games must point to the money-making of it all.
Superficially, all the fireworks and spectacles might make for wonderful entertainment, and at least there are not lions devouring human beings, but the dark side is there.
Under the glossy camouflage of winning is the brutalizing of children, and that alone leaves me nothing to really cheer about.
Im so glad you wrote this article..I agree with it so much..I also wonder about the ones that do win..Seems like later in their lives, they are forgotten after years pass. then what do they do when they are older and never can compete again, or even have a job that is any way to do with what they were trained in.it just seems to be both lose in the end..the poor ones that did not get the metal and the ones that actually do..thank you cherry for writing this..
Thank you Becky for your excellent input!! You brought out a very sad reality about these athletes that is so true. Even after the gold, they fade into the background of life, unless they are picked up by professionals, and only in some sports who are spectator worthy. The ones who never got a medal, they are quickly forgotten.
The very sad truth is a lot of those who never made it to the podium, are/were as talented as those who did. All those wasted years of training and then what?
Merci pour cet article très intéressant, je partage ton point de vue. Je suis même triste pour eux car bien souvent, ces personnes qui ont gagné un jour une médaile, vivent dans le passé, ils évoquent perpétuellement cette médaille comme une justification de toute leur vie. Je trouve cela tragique de vivre dans le passé, dans la gloire passée qui disparait inexorablement pour sombrer dans un oubli total. Il y a une forme de mélancolie j’ai l’impression mais je ne suis pas psychiatre.
Le culte du numéro 1 me fait peur car si on pousse un peu les choses, on arrive à des idées très faschistes je trouve…
Merci Benoist pour ton excellent commentaire! Les sacrifices qu’ils on fait pour gagner un médaille d’or sont énormes. Ils ne peut pas jamais récupérer leur enfance perdu. Merci pour avoir ajouté que cette médaille peut devienne pour eux le seule justification de leur vie. Oui, vraiment triste! Et en plus, cette moment de gloire les à coute cher pour un activité que très peu que continuer comme pro.
Je suis complément d’accord avec ton analyse d’un culte du numéro 1 semble d’être aux abords du fascisme.
J’espère que mon réponse n’est pas trop plein de fautes en francais. Tu préfère que je réponse en anglais ou francais?