During the 2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy, Canadian cross country skier Sara Renner was on her way to a gold medal when her ski pole broke. Without it, she had no chance of winning. Seeing this take place, Norwegian coach Bjornar Haakensmoen gave Renner a new pole and she and her teammate Beckie Scott were able to finish the race with a silver medal. What is especially interesting about this is that the Norwegian team came in fourth place.
In other words, had Haakensmoen not given Renner a pole, his team would have won an Olympic medal.
When asked about this later, Haakensmoen stated, "Our policy in Norway is we should give poles or skis to everyone. We talked about it at our team meeting the night before. We are a country which believes in fair play. I like to be somebody of fair sportsmanship.''
Though the Norwegians lost this race, it is clear that they are true winners. This incident even became one of the highlights of the 2006 Olympics. How can this be?
In order to understand this we need to look at the root of the word "competition."
It does not mean to win at all costs. It comes from the Latin word "competere," meaning to strive together to improve. The Norwegian coach understood this.
He knew that a bronze medal would mean nothing if his team had not earned it. The Canadians clearly deserved to complete the race ahead of them; on this day they were better.
At the same time, when every athlete in an Olympic race is competing at their highest level, often achieving personal best scores, is it really even possible to call anyone a loser?
All coaches and athletes know the value of competition in order to become one's very best.
One can do drill after drill, but it means nothing until it is used in a competitive setting. After a game is played, good coaches talk to their players about what went well and what did not, and they come up with a practice plan to get ready for the next competition. Without the challenge, we cannot improve. A good coach knows the value of a loss. In fact, it is much more difficult to be one's best and stay focused on constant improvement if one is always winning. In true competition there are no losers, only constant improvement.
Examples of this can be seen in all aspects of life. During the Cold War, there was intense competition in the automobile industry in West Germany, while in East Germany there was only one car maker. As a result, while Mercedes, Audi, BMW, Porsche and even Volkswagen produced technologically advanced, world-class automobiles, all that the East Germans could come up with was a slow, polluting, unreliable, plastic (the body really was made of hard plastic) car called the Trabant.
Life is a beautiful and exciting thing when we seek constant improvement.
In essence, we are all meant to develop our own talents, and we are better able to achieve unimaginable heights when we do not strive to win, but to truly compete with our brothers and sisters.
