Column | Losing with grace 101

Winning isn't everything - sometimes losing with grace is the true mark of a champion in sports and life.

It’s hard to remember this in the medal-hunt frenzy of the Olympic Games but sometimes you can win while losing.

On the last day of the Paris Games, Kinzang Lhamo was the last person to cross the finish line of the women’s marathon, about an hour-and-a-half behind the winner. As she crossed the line, the spectators rose to their feet to cheer her. Lhamo, the only woman in the three-member Bhutan team, taking part in her first Olympics, embodied, as a media report noted, what Pierre de Coubertin, the father of modern Olympics, meant when he said the important thing is “not winning but taking part”.

It’s hard to keep remembering that and not be devastated by mishaps — dropping the baton in a relay, scoring a same-side goal or having a crossbar-crotch collision while trying to pole vault.

The anguish of the sportsperson who came in fourth, missing out on a podium finish by a whisker, is palpable even on television. But there’s coming fourth and then there’s coming last. As pop philosopher ABBA sang: The winner takes it all, the loser’s standing small, beside the victory, that’s her destiny.

I understand that feeling only too well. I was the one who straggled in behind everyone else in school sports even in the sack race or the three-legged race. I was the boy chosen last for any team when we played cricket during recess. And terrified of flubbing the catch and letting down the team, I secretly prayed to be banished to some part of the field where no ball would ever come.

Now imagine letting down your country in front of millions. When Australia’s Rachael “Raygun” Gunn became the roast of social media after her performance in the new breaking category at the Paris Olympics, I laughed along with everyone else but cringed as well. To have the world’s eyes on you, mocking your moves, giving them names like kangaroo hopping, crab walk and chin-holding squirms must have stung. As Raygun seemed to jackknife on the floor, users gleefully shared clips of Madhuri Dixit writhing on the floor in an old Bollywood film.

Gunn lost all three of her round-robin contests with 18-0 scores, failing to get even a single vote from the judges. The trolling was so intense the World DanceSport Federation offered her mental health support.