When You’re Winning, Don’t Look Away

Two previously accomplished men from separate countries were expected to come in first and second in the men’s 1500m Olympic track finals in Paris—practically a foregone conclusion. The question was who would best whom? They turned on one another verbally in the media, the trash talk growing uglier as the final competition neared. In fact, they were so obsessed with their rivalry, repeatedly glancing to the side during the race to check out the run the other was having, they were both clearly shocked when someone else (Cole Hocker of the U.S.A.) slipped past them to win the gold medal while American Yared Nuguse took the bronze. Neither Hocker nor Nuguse could stop smiling as Hocker described their good fortune to the cameras, an American flag extended across his back.

People believe sports are relatively clean of bias. In swimming, who touched the pad first? A win of thousandths of a second is clear. The sports that were once tainted by prejudicial judgements such as gymnastics or figure skating have been stripped down to specific guidelines and video finishes to minimize human preference. A camera caught the precise moment when Cole Hocker won his gold. The men who suffered from his triumph had created their own weakness.

Who can’t recall fretting and maybe obsessing over the opinion of someone else? In the arts, especially, where value can be subjective, we often forget that one person’s critique cannot be the final, only word. If it is, you’ve forgotten why you were trying to do your best in the first place. Beating a rival shouldn’t be the main reason you’re competing. Even winning an award or earning cash isn’t the original motivation for doing what you love. If it is, you’re a victim of your own insecurity. Although you may be tempted to blame and make excuses, if you can’t win in a fair competition, you aren’t the winner that day. Maybe you need to work harder or accept that you’re missing a vital ingredient. In the meantime, be proud of what you can accomplish.

Spite often backfires. I remember speaking in a high school dramatic interpretation contest. A boy in my round was desperate to defeat me as one of the top competitors, so he sat with his back to the judge and when I reached an emotional high in my presentation, he drew a fake mouse out of his shoe box and began petting it. If I hadn’t been engrossed in my performance, I would’ve laughed. The boy had no idea that the bane of my existence was remembering. His little stunt distracted the part of my brain that enjoyed blacking out my memory at inopportune moments. As a result, I didn’t forget a word. And I won the contest. I would’ve thanked him, but I thought that might have been disingenuous.

Spite tarnishes gold, silver, and bronze. A bad winner is as distasteful as a bad loser. If you can’t lose, don’t compete. And, as I once told a national champion, if you win, remember you didn’t get to that point by yourself. You didn’t give yourself your talent. Someone will eventually do better than you. Someone somewhere is preparing to do better right now. Enjoy your own triumphs, even if they’re visible to you alone. And when you’re approaching your finish line, don’t defeat yourself.