How many people buy a lottery ticket every week and dream of winning a million dollars or maybe more? How many people have a flutter on the horses, the A-League, the Tennis or any number of sports being played? All of course hoping to win more than they spent.
Yet in both of these activities everyone who participates knows that their chances of winning are far less than they are of losing. How many poor bookmakers have you seen?
In Western Australia LotteryWest gave $260million back to the community, thanks to those who bought tickets but failed to win. This is a huge amount of money and one the community is grateful for. Maybe that is why people continue to buy Lottery tickets. No, it has to be because deep down they believe that one day they will win.
When it comes to sport, everything is geared towards winning. Clubs and individual athletes are given a nutritional program to follow in order to be in perfect condition come match or competition day. Their physical attributes are measured regularly for the same reason, all so that come competition day they are in the best position to win.
It is not just about the athletes, but also about the equipment they use. Their boots, gloves, bats, pads, sticks and all manner of equipment has been tested to give them the best chance of achieving success and winning. In many cases the equipment is especially designed to suit their specific individual needs. No stone is left unturned in the pursuit of glory.
So why is it that when we sit down and watch top sporting contests today, we often witness both combatants playing not to lose?
If there is one thing killing professional sport across the globe at the present time, it is this fear of losing. No longer do teams go out believing that they will win whatever happens, players today have become more cautious.
It may be the public scrutiny that they are under. It may be the coach, and it maybe related to sponsorship.
With so much attention on sport today you would expect to see more characters playing and making a name for themselves, but no, individual brilliance is a luxury these days. Everyone has to be able to run so far in so long a time, be a certain height and have a skin fold no bigger than” x.” They must all play to the game plan, follow the process and become an automaton.
However, if you talk to the players who played alongside the greats in any sport, they will tell you that they did not mind these players “doing their own thing.” In fact they marvelled at their ability. They enjoyed playing alongside them, because they knew that these players could win them games.
Once you become a coach, you know the only inevitable thing is that one day you will be sacked. So do coaches accept that as being inevitable and prepare teams to play with freedom within a structure? No, many opt to “park the bus” to ensure that they don’t lose, and try to sneak a goal on the counter-attack.
It is not just in team games, in individual sports we are seeing more and more players playing what is called the “percentage game.” They will not attack, they will simply wait for a mistake from their opponent, and hope that they make less mistakes and therefore come out on top. There are still the top players who manoeuvre their opponents into positions where they force mistakes, but these are becoming the minority.
Of course in some sports the opportunity of playing not to lose is nigh on impossible. Take boxing for example. However we are seeing more and more no-hopers climb into the ring to boost another fighter’s record, and there is noting worse than such a mismatch, where the one fighter is simply trying to avoid getting hurt in the act of losing.
Sponsors today offer vast sums of money to clubs, organisations and individuals. They naturally want their investment to be successful. If they are not, the sponsor walks away and the income for all diminishes. The sponsors always want value for money. They don’t want to see teams thrashed by their team or their opponents, as once the score gets to a certain point, people lose interest. Which means eyeballs leave their marketing message.
So has sport suddenly become about rewarding mediocrity?
If we look at the Olympic Games, an event that used to be one of the most prestigious on the sporting calendar. As it has expanded and involved more sports, and thereby more athletes, some of that prestige has been eroded.
How many countries athletes live simply to say that that they are an Olympian? Once they are selected or have qualified they have fulfilled that dream. That is enough. They go to the Games, happy to have achieved their dream, but go there with no ambition to win. Just being there is enough.
Many people have laughed at the way Ice speed skater Stephen Bradbury won his Gold medal in the 2002 Winter Olympics. Many more have said he was lucky, one of the luckiest Olympic Gold medallists ever. Really?
Bradbury was not happy to simply be an Olympian. If he was he would have retired after possibly the ’92, ’94 or even ’98 Winter Olympics. After all in 1994 he had won a bronze medal in the short track relay. Australia’s first Winter Olympic medal. However he didn’t retire, he kept going because he wanted to win.
In that Olympic final Bradbury deliberately stayed at the back of the pack. It was not a fluke. After all this was an Olympic final and few people qualify for those due to luck. He had deliberately stayed at the back of the pack in his semi final and crashes ahead of him saw him qualify for the final. The same tactic paid dividends in the final. “There was a massive chance I was going to pick up a medal because there was a big chance of some sort of accident, collision or whatever,” He said and he was right.
Some may argue he was being negative sitting at the back, but the difference is he went out there with a tactic to win. He took the knowledge of previous races and years of experience onto the rink, and made the right choices, he backed himself and it paid off. That should be the lesson.
If we look at the Olympic Games in 1964 there were 387 medals up for grabs in Tokyo in 163 events in 19 sports. Next year in 2020 in the same host city there will be 339 events in 33 sports and 1017 medals will be awarded. In Aquatics alone, which encompasses Water Polo, Swimming, Diving and Artistic swimming there are 49 events, meaning that 147 medals are up for grabs. In 1964 there was only Swimming, Men’s Water Polo and Diving which offered up 23 events and 69 medals. Has the increase in medal events devalued the achievement?
At the end of the day there are some who will argue that if you pay athletes too much they lose their desire to win, and hence they will be happy to go out and simply go through the motions. That may apply to some but most athletes, and certainly those who put in the extra hours when no one is around, want to win. They walk out believing every match they can come off with a victory.
These are the athletes whose rush is playing, they know they won’t win every game, just like the lotto ticket buyer, but they believe they can win, and belief can take you a long way. Ask the Irish Women’s Hockey team who in 2017 were the lowest ranked team at the World cup but went home with a silver medal. Did their coach, Graham Shaw, tell them to go out there and not lose? No he encouraged them to take their game to the opposition. Did it pay dividends?
If sport is to survive in the coming years coaches and players have to trust and believe that they can win. They have every form of support they need to achieve a victory, so why do they go out not to lose? There must be a shift in attitude, they have to go out looking for victory.
Sport is about Glory, there have been over the years many teams and individuals who have won, but those that live long in the memory those who won with a certain style, grace or panache. Winning is not enough, it is how you win that often distinguishes successful teams and athletes from glorious ones.
The famous quote from Spurs Legend, Danny Blanchflower used to adorn a wall of White Hart Lane, and will no doubt still be somewhere in their new stadium when it is finished, in truth it should be writ large in every changing room. Words that should never be forgotten.
“The great fallacy is that the game is first and foremost about winning. It’s nothing of the kind. The game is about glory. It’s about doing things in style, with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom.”
