A local sports writer, from a major newspaper, wrote a column this week commenting on how could they call synchronized diving a sport. I assume his sentiments are shared by many when referring to ping pong, fencing, synchronized water dancing and numerous other “events” included in the 2008 ” Summer Games”.
Perhaps that is why they call them the Olympic “Games” rather than the Olympic “Sports”! The remainder of the day became a catalyst for my concluding how culturally, specifically in the United States, we have diminished “Games” in favor of “Sports”. It isn’t a sport unless it generates “big bucks”, and winning is the only acceptable outcome. Other wise it is a minor or club level sport. [I don’t think it is helpful on several counts]. Does driving a race car multiple times around an oval track at speeds above 200 mph, catch a large fish, or shot a wild turkey or deer qualify as a “Sport”?
Arguing these points is not the purpose of this blog. The individual or [team] participating, the athletes if you will, always come first with me, regardless of the game or sport being considered!
How can one not be inspired? I am blown away by the unequaled quality, the level of performance achieved by those athletes in these Olympic events who are representing their respective countries, whether their event is classified as a game or a sport.
I simply cannot imagine “the process”, years, passion, perseverance, the enormous work and developed skill, dedication, adversity, injuries, the moments of defeat and doubt that each has had to “stare down” and overcome. To reach their current level of performance, in the front of a world wide audience is hard to get a “handle on”!
To endure the years of preparation and become qualified to compete against the “best of the best” is a achievement very few of us will ever experience! And in the instance of Olympic competition, with no guarantee of medaling, it may be considered a failure by some athletes and some observers. How does that compute?
Most of the athletes I train in Dynamic Force Weight Training for Speed and Power work hard, most often to failure in each weight training set. It is difficult! There is no guarantee they will excel against their competition in his or her sport, position or event. Many do, some don’t. But how can you not be inspired, and them respect and admire themselves with what each one does to become their very best.
Would it not be a major accomplishment to intensively compete with one another and respect the other person’s enormous effort and determination to excel, and then peacefully live together? For human beings, sadly that has never happened!
I wonder if those individuals who in the past and present have maintained, or seen to it that peaceful coexistence has and never will happen, possess even 10% of the courage of the athletes to “put it all on the line” and then live with the consequences. What is there to fear? The point of the Olympic “Games/Sports” reminds us again, there is nothing to fear! It is the mutual respect of the ”the process” that matters!
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