The agony of sports

Short note: I wrote about the agony of sports in the Olympics Games. Please reply to my email or comment here with your thoughts. I also write a newsletter with commentary on how businesses make money. Newsletter link here.

It’s difficult to be a professional athlete. It must be hard to train day and night for years and years till you get an opportunity in the limelight. And then if you fail, you get trashed publicly across newsprint and talking heads on television. People only celebrate you in public for what you practice in private. Unfortunately, none of us will ever see the practice or realize the toll it can take on athletes.

You train for 4 years to participate in the Olympics. You wake up with a headache or a bodyache and you wipe out in the first round of your event. The cheers become jeers. The support falls away and you are left alone in the dark in your room. It was always a battle in your head during the years of training. You were disciplined, ate the same meals and slept at the same time. You mentally swore off anxieties and fears, but you could not drown out the hooting spectators on the day of the event.

In the ring, you are all alone. Your coaches are nearby but do not play a part. The opponent feints, moves a different way and you react with poise. You do not overcompensate, you move with purpose and leave doubt outside of the wrestling mat. You don’t have a choice. You signed away the best years of your life to focus on a sport for unknown rewards. Now, you pray, and hope the hundreds of hours of practice kick in and let you perform at your potential.

You bargain with the Gods. You plead for the odds to be in your favor and believe in your ability to overcome almost anything on event day. You left your home, family, friends and everything that comforted you for a dream. This dream lets the people who watch you dream of a better life and prospects. The weight of the medal is not measured in grams, it is in the hopes of the people you carry unwittingly every second of your bout.

The fairness of competitive sports can be argued. The glory lies in achieving for a select few and the agony is available to many more. You cannot coach individuals to deal with the distress of near success. Failure is failure be it in a single decimal point or centimetres. The Olympics have binary outcomes and the weight of expectations spare none. These used to be games.