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| Vol.3.49 | |
Taking the Ouch Out of Fourthby Vince PoscenteAuthor of The Ant and the Elephant, Invinceable Principles and The Age of Speed Every time the Olympics roll around I get asked if it brings back memories. Let me bring back an article I wrote a couple of years ago. This time with a Beijing twist. Miserable is when you look into an athlete’s eyes who just placed fourth at the Olympics. Laurent Sistach placed fourth in the 1992 Olympic Winter Games in Speed Skiing. I found him in the bar the night following the finals. Hiding behind a glass of Jagermeister he looked up slowly, shrugged and gazed back in the glass as if it were a crystal ball beaconing his future. For eight years he had trained hard. His reward? He got to watch the medal ceremony wondering why those ancient Greeks didn’t have a fourth podium, an aluminum medal and a token crown of olive branches. Somebody has got to lose though. At the Olympics there really are only a few dozen really happy athletes. The rest are thinking about what went wrong. The great equalizer is something that nobody knows about though. It is the athlete’s party at the end. If you watched the closing ceremonies of the 2008 Olympic Games, realize that buses lined up outside the Bird’s Nest in Beijing waiting to take the athletes off to a party that was only for them. No coaches, no officials, no media… just music, dancing and fun. Gymnasts run around like Lilliputians between the legs of lumbering Shot Put’rs. Wrestlers play drinking games with blurry eyed pistol shooters. Soccer players compare heart rates with super-fit triathletes. Spry pole vaulters dance with beefy weightlifters. Medalists with non-medalists. Yet every single Olympian has the same thing on his or her mind. It’s over and I am free for this one night. Even the person who placed fourth is free. The Greeks have a saying that the fourth-place athlete should remember in the days and weeks following. In the Olympics, you don’t lose. You win second place… you win third place… you win fourth place. Ah… bugger it. You placed fourth and the feeling sucked.
Cheers Beijing! You put on a heck of a party. Until next week it’s full speed ahead,
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© 2010 Vince Poscente. All Rights Reserved. |
Cheers Laurent! Sixteen years later I found you on Facebook and notice you have a new baby. Now who’s thinking about fourth when you have something far more precious and golden?