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"I am a failure?" "My entire life is a waste, because I didn't win one event?" "my life is over?" From a skiing perspective, the Olympics are one race, an overall world title is 50 or more races, over a five month span. Which is really more impressive? Bode Miller took a fifth in the downhill, making him the fifth best downhiller on that given day. for an entire year, he was the best overall skier in the World. Downhill racing is not the equivalent of a track event, where you can readily predict who is going to win, based on past performance, and where courses and conditions are always equal. Different courses affect different people in different ways, the true genius, frankly, Bode Miller's true genius is that he skis on the absolute edge, every time, when he does it well, he beats everyone, otherwise he crashes and burns. And, for the past 18 months, he has beaten everyone more than he has crashed and burned. Over a series of races, he's going to beat you, but on any given day, you can't bet on him. At the 2005 World Championships, the one he won the overall title in, he placed first in the downhill and super-g, and posted DNFs in the slalom, GS and combined. Were the three he DNFed in failures? interesting question. as for the Games as a whole, only two other racers have top ten finishes in two or more events, Hermann Meier and Kjetil Andre Ammodt. that's it. If there was an overall title at stake, Bode Miller would be in third. what a crappy showing.
An American example. Think of someone like Tony Stewart in NASCAR. Absolutely brilliant, and over the course of a season, he proved himself the most consistently successful driver (winning the points title) should his season be considered a failure because he came in 15th in the Daytona 500 last year? And his 5th this weekend, the race after winning the Cup Title last season? same position as Bode in the downhill, after all? Just because we hype one quardrennial event, based on hitting your peak one day out of 1461, he's a failure? And Michelle Kwan, with 4 world titles, is a failure because none of them were in a year divisible by four?
Take Antoine Deneraiz, who has won exactly one world class, international ski race in his life, and it was the Olympic race. great for him, a career day, he skied the perfect race in the perfect conditions, a perfect confluence, that's what it takes. But it's one day. Olympic ski races, especially for the men and even more especially in the downhill, are basically crapshoots, rarely does the standing world champion, or the posted favourite win, it hasn't happened in Torino, It didn't happen in Salt Lake, it didn't happen in Nagano, Lillehammer or Albertville. In fact the last time the standing world champion won the Olympic downhill was Bill Johnson in Sarajevo, 1984.
I am altogether confused by people who say that athletes should be more disappointed in their failures, their psyche is between them and their God, not us. I was always taught that sportsmanship involved congratulating the winner, and making them the story, not your loss. But we want hair-pulling. On those particular days, people were more successful than Bode Miller. he knows that, and if he also knows that he was doing his absolute best to win, what's the problem with saying that? "I did my best and someone else was better" it's not the end of the world. In Jacobellis' case, she made a stupid mistake, the person who didn't make the stupid mistake won the race, Jacobellis was lucky to come out with a Silver, and she knows it, why not revel in the success of that, not dwell on the failure? Someone else was better than you, raced a better race, the glory belongs to them, not you. bad luck.
your point that failure can haunt people is a good one, but if it doesn't, if people have more to their lives than this one day, why should it? maybe their lives are more than one day? I'd call that healthy, not frustrating.
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