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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

DENNIS PATRICK: OLYMPIC GAMES A METAPHOR FOR LIFE

The 2010 Winter Olympics are over and what a time it was. The pursuit for excellence goes on.

No commentator can spin the reality of success. Competition is what it is. What you see is what you get.

Old records fall and new records are set. A bit of nostalgia welled as I saw prior Olympic champions in the audience watch as their records were eclipsed.

The U.S. led in the medal count with a total of 37 bronze, silver and gold medals as of late Sunday afternoon. That’s the highest ever for Winter Olympics.

But, competition is more than just medals. Medals are the culmination. Behind the awards is sweat, pain and heartache.

The Olympics is a microcosm of life. Not everyone is A or B. Some are C or D. Not everyone excels at everything, nor can they.

The Olympics dispel the fiction that people are equal. They may be created equal before God and the law, but physically, emotionally, in mental toughness and in stamina every athlete, every person, is unique.

Contemporary thinking in some quarters holds that competition is unhealthy. Maybe outcome based basketball would be more to their liking, but would it breed champions in sports or in life?

As always, competition focuses on the challenge to exceed one’s goals. This is the fundamental building block of self esteem, proving to yourself that you can achieve. If you can’t beat yourself, how will you ever improve or excel? It illustrates that self-esteem is not institutionally taught, but self-taught. It comes through trial and error with life’s experiences.

There is equal opportunity, yes. But equal outcome? No. This is one of life’s great lessons.

Some people find their niche at an early age, are motivated to excel and pursue their goals. Others never find their niche. We can empathize with them, but only they can change themselves.

Not everyone can be the best. But everyone can strive to do their best. That’s fundamental to building character. Human beings are a resilient species. Like any athlete, every one of us bears witness to this.

Many athletes started at a very early age and drove themselves. Figure skater Johnny Weir taught himself skating at age 9. He learned an Axel in one day and in two weeks performed a double Axel.

Not everyone made the Olympic team on their first try. This was the case with speed skater Apolo Ohno. In 1996 at age 15 he failed to make the Olympic team and almost gave up skating.

Athletes learn the difference between pain and injury. Pain you work through in pursuit of your objective. Injury quite often renders you incapable of continuing.

Most of the athletes overcame disability and injury on their climb to top.

After 62 years, Steve Holcomb drove his 4-man bobsled team to victory. Until recently, Holcomb had 20-500 vision caused by a degenerative eye condition. He drove the team sled by feel rather than sight. Even after eye surgery he still scuffs his visor so that his vision won’t distract from his feel of the bobsled.

Snowboarder Shaun White won the gold medal in the Men’s Halfpipe. He was born with a heart defect requiring multiple surgeries. He was also severely bowlegged requiring that he wear corrective braces at night.

Alpine skier Julia Mancuso had hip surgery in 2006 to repair a chronic hip problem. She continues to struggle against pain plagued with hip and back problems.

Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn skied with a broken pinkie finger on in the final women’s giant slalom. She broke it in a fall the previous day in her first slalom run.

These examples are not exceptions. They’re common.

There’s no fools gold in the Olympic Games. One succeeds or one does not succeed. Two years from now in London the 2012 Summer Olympics will commence and we’ll again see old records broken and new records set. To everything there is a season.

One can only stand in awe of excellence

 

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at P. O. Box 337, Stanley, ND 58784 or (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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