Winning lesson from the fabulous Olympics

As expected, I suppose, there have been a number of articles along the lines of "what we can learn from the Olympics".

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Weren’t the Olympic Games fabulous?

Apart from the record-breaking achievements of the South Africans, there was so much to enthuse about and quite a few of those “tear in the eye” moments that make sport worthwhile.

There were also one or two incidents that illustrated that there are people who are in it for the wrong reasons - and quite a few instances that can be used by those tasked with producing future sportswomen and men as examples of what you shouldn’t be doing.

As expected, I suppose, there have been a number of articles in the social media feeds I follow along the lines of “what we can learn from the Olympics”.

They range from “what business leaders can learn from the Olympics” to “how to prepare your sales team like Olympians” to “six things the Olympic losers got wrong”.

So, I guess I would be missing an opportunity if I didn’t reflect this week on what school coaches and sportspeople can learn from those three weeks in Rio de Janeiro.

In the first instance, knowing teenagers and their self-image issues, I would say please take more care, and find the money to dress them properly.

Much has been said about how ugly those Team SA tracksuits were, and that’s bad enough, but now it’s emerging that the designs and the fabrics used for the competition wear were inferior and might have created a disadvantage.

What madness! In my days of managing school teams and organising tours, I remember that how they looked was inordinately important to the players. I’m amazed that the psychologists involved with the Olympic team never realised that.

That’s small cheese, though. The big things to be learnt have to do with handling winning and losing - not an original story for me, I know - but still the main, and probaby the only, reason why sport is part of the educational process.

And you could use up your monthly data allowance in a day downloading YouTube clips, involving the South Africans alone, to show to the kids at school to get the right points across.

I’m sure everyone has their own favourite, and least favourite, memories, but for me the highlight has to be about Usain Bolt’s reaction to Wayde van Niekerk’s winning the 400m - in the warm-up area, and after his own race.

And the worst? Undoubtedly the way Caster Semenya was snubbed by most of the runners she had beaten in the 800m, even though she made the effort to go across and commiserate with them.

The runners in Wayde van Niekerk’s race were totally different - they embraced him warmly after he had won.

None of those incidents need further explanation. That’s how you react, or don’t react, once the race is won.

It seems a long time ago now, but there were also incidents in the first week of the games that are worth remembering.

Fans of seven-a-side rugby have become used to the high levels of sportsmanship and mutual respect shown week after week on the international circuit.

So, we were a little surprised at the media reaction to the way the players treated each other during their tournament.

And the way in which the champion Fijians reacted when Princess Anne handed out the gold medals, and the hymn of thanks they sang afterwards really was a “tear in the eye” moment.

Chad le Clos’s apparent taunting of Michael Phelps, and Phelps’ reaction to it, was less pretty, however.

After the race, though, their friendship shone through again and they both seemed to handle the situation with grace.

“Win as if you have just lost, and lose as if you have just won.” That’s what the great sport-educationist Paul Dobson said.

There were enough Olympians on my TV who did that, and that’s what we can all learn from the Olympic Games.

Independent Media