Why the Wimbledon and Cricket final made me question ‘you win or you lose’
What a sporting weekend we got to witness this past summer weekend. Heart thumping, nail biting, edge of the seat thrill and heartbreak. Both sides (Federer vs Djokovic in the Wimbledon final, England vs New Zealand in the Cricket World Cup final) put their best foot forward. In my assessment, there was only one winner in both matches: luck triggered by artificially constructed human rules. This is my opinion, I’m not a tennis or cricket expert, but as an audience member, I could not walk out saying one side was clearly better than the other. I’d argue that the losing side deserved to win as much as the winning side. Without going into the technical aspects of the game (sorry this piece doesn’t explore that aspect), I’d love to explore and challenge the binary concept of ‘you win or you lose in sport’ in this opinion piece. In the matches the past weekend, based on a sample size of my friends and family, the losing side were as much the winners as the actual winners of the tournament. The results felt unfair, why did one side HAVE to win? And if one side did win, then why does that mean that the other side lost?
To be clear, I’m not saying that the concept of winning vs losing does not work. It absolutely does, it might even be necessary for us to push ourselves forward as a society. It also teaches us a hard lesson that sport can feel unfair just as life. But unfortunately we pay too much importance to who ‘won’ instead of understanding and articulating the actual complexity of a situation. For example, on the Wimbledon board post victory, Djokovic’s name is engraved saying he won the 2019 Wimbledon Final. But on that board, we fail to articulate what a tough fight Federer gave him and how it could have been anyone’s match. History will only remember the winner. That just feels wrong, doesn’t it? What can help take the pain away?
While reporting on scores and talking about successes in society, how can we be better at awarding the losing side with due credit given? From an idealistic lens, I’d rather have sport and society in general more focused on learning. What did I learn from the game irrespective of whether I won or lost? What did I do well? What could I have done better? Winning or losing then just becomes part and parcel of the game. Then more importance should be given to the actual process of playing/watching a match rather than the result of the match.
Maybe one only learns. So the next time I win or lose at something, I’ll ask myself, what did I learn instead of purely focusing on whether I won or lost. This might also help with building more internal resilience. What do you think? Doesn’t winning or losing feel too binary at times and doesn’t help build resilience? Aren’t things more complicated than that? How can we better about articulating that complexity in competition that will help foster more resilience within people when faced with a loss?
To be clear, I’m not saying that the concept of winning vs losing does not work. It absolutely does, it might even be necessary for us to push ourselves forward as a society. It also teaches us a hard lesson that sport can feel unfair just as life. But unfortunately we pay too much importance to who ‘won’ instead of understanding and articulating the actual complexity of a situation. For example, on the Wimbledon board post victory, Djokovic’s name is engraved saying he won the 2019 Wimbledon Final. But on that board, we fail to articulate what a tough fight Federer gave him and how it could have been anyone’s match. History will only remember the winner. That just feels wrong, doesn’t it? What can help take the pain away?
While reporting on scores and talking about successes in society, how can we be better at awarding the losing side with due credit given? From an idealistic lens, I’d rather have sport and society in general more focused on learning. What did I learn from the game irrespective of whether I won or lost? What did I do well? What could I have done better? Winning or losing then just becomes part and parcel of the game. Then more importance should be given to the actual process of playing/watching a match rather than the result of the match.
Maybe one only learns. So the next time I win or lose at something, I’ll ask myself, what did I learn instead of purely focusing on whether I won or lost. This might also help with building more internal resilience. What do you think? Doesn’t winning or losing feel too binary at times and doesn’t help build resilience? Aren’t things more complicated than that? How can we better about articulating that complexity in competition that will help foster more resilience within people when faced with a loss?
Isha this is great, a very interesting topic. When I started reading I said to myself "Spoken like a true everyone-deserves-a-trophy millennial". Eg. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/when-everyone-gets-a-trop_b_1431319
ReplyDeleteBut, actually what you're suggesting is much different. Maybe that we should put more value into the process, into the journey, than the result itself. I don't know if society can learn this, but absolutely it is a very healthy mindset for any individual to subscribe to.
I'm curious - this seems fairly simple to talk about with individual sports like tennis, but I think it gets more complicated with team sports. Consider the case where the best individual player is on the team that doesn't win.. should they be recognized? Maybe a topic for you next post :)