Not a Failure

In Canada, our national chant always seems to be "We're #4!" And some people will sit around and complain about how we're always so close but we can never seem to quite get there. Or we comfort ourselves that4th in the entire world is pretty damn good. And it really is.

But then there are situations like with Melissa Hollingsworth. She was 2nd in the skeleton and then in the last race, she slipped to 5th. You know, we were all a little upset since we had been so close to a medal. But realistically, whatever we felt was no where near what she felt. Then later on, she went on TV and pretty much tearfully apologized to the country. But she has no reason to apologize! She did the best she could. She didn't deliberately set out to raise our hopes and then deviously crash them down. All she did was try her best and it just so happened that, on that day, it didn't turn into a medal for her. She didn't disappoint the country at all.

Or take Jeremy Wotherspoon. He's been in pretty every Olympics I can remember (that's technically a lie though Nagano was the first Olympics I paid a large amount of attention to) and so when I see him compete in the games, I expect big things from him. But at the same time, I'm only judging these athletes based on their performances at one event. I mean, in 2003, he became the most successful male skater in the world cup history with his 49th victory of his career. 49! And that was 7 years ago. But most Canadians won't care because he didn't win a medal. But he is not a failure in the least.

I think the Olympics just needs some perspective sometime. No athlete is a loser here.