The Elite Athlete Journey

I confess to being a real Olympic Games’s junkie. While I find the jingoism and the commercialisation nauseating, I love the drama of the Games, the excitement and energy, the joy and the wonder at what a human body can do. As James Magnusson, the Australian swimmer, found out they can also be about evolving and growing as a human being – and that after all is what we are all here to do. Fortunately not many of us have to do it before a global media, largely determined to peddle negativity and judgement.

Unfortunately by the time many talented sports people reach representative honours it seems that often the unadulterated pleasure they first discovered in being able to make their body perform in balance and agility has been lost to the awful “F” words – fear of failure. There is a subtle difference between urging someone to be the best they can be and demanding of them that they always provide only their best.

Wouldn’t it be better if from the start we were saying to talented athletes of all ages, “Young man/lady you are a really amazing cricketer/runner/netballer, celebrate that, enjoy yourselves and commit totally to that journey. But this is just an nth of who you are. This oval/pitch/court/pool does not define you, your limitations or your potential.

And tell yourself as parents that your child being good at sport does not mean that you are somehow superior members of the species – just blessed to be able to share the journey with well co-ordinated children!

Perhaps rather than asking elite athletes to name their greatest moments - invariably their walks to the winner’s podium – we should encourage them to define their most sublime moment. That instant in the 68^th lap of a 5km pool session when body merged with mind and soul and self realisation cemented self worth.  Or the moment in a quad-burning attack on a sand dune when teammates gelled into one unified organism. 

Everyone who has ever played sport recognises that feeling and it’s the reason they love their sport. It’s the perfect wave, the right shot played at precisely the right time when body bypassed mind chatter and instinct took over. 

If we treat the experience of being a sports-person as only a path within the greater journey that is life, it can be a wonderful way for young people to learn many of life’s lessons and to gain understanding of themselves, human nature and the power of body, mind and, yes, soul. It is an opportunity to see the illusion inherent in sport (it is after all only a game), and to do it anyway.