Gheorghe Curelet-Balan Blog

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Struggle is more important than the triumph!

Since we are in the middle of Winter Olympic Games I did a little research on the subject. The title of this post is my paraphrase to the Olympic Games Creed introduced by Pierre de Coubertin:

"The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well."

I must to confess that when I read the creed for the first time I didn't get it. My interpretation was that it is like a consolation for those that didn't win or it takes care of their self-esteem :) Well...after the recent lesson (that perception could be misleading) I said to myself that the creed must have some sort of a higher and noble meaning. Here it is what I found: the creed is about determination, passion, aspiration for higher grounds and surpassing yourself. These are more important than the victory that is short lived. Of course, winning feels good (that's why people are so interested in the number of medals their country won) but the harder the competition, the sweeter the victory.

On the other hand all those that didn’t win the medal won something else, an opportunity to become better. Any winner knows that even though winning wasn't easy it will be harder to stay on top. A competitive experience is good since all participants learn from their mistakes and competitor’s strengths and weakness. They learn that in order to win the next Olympics medal they need to train harder.

Besides providing an inspiration for these high values, Olympic Games are a celebration of world's harmony, team work, fair play, history and culture of the organizing country.

Each opening and closing ceremony competes with previous ones for a better artistic representation of these ideas.

Links:
- www.nbcolympics.com/index.html
- www.cbc.ca/olympics
- www.ctv.ca/mini/torino2006/
- www.canada.com/topics/sports/wintergames/index.html
- Canadian Olympic Collection
- Canadian Olympic Committee

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