International Sports: Winning or Losing

What necessarily follows defeat? Although the goal of the olympics is to bring the nation together as a whole, one may question which the possibility of their country losing will result in the nation turning against each other and the frowning upon of the athletes representing them. The olympics brings hundreds of nations together for competition to fight for the ultimate prize: the beautiful gold medal. The olympics are supposed to bring these nations closer but in reality the results of these games cause bitterness between countries. Sports and war are interchangeable terms because they are similar in many ways. The olympics is a war, pinning country against country, to see who will come out on top. In sports competitions, there are only two sides, the winners and the losers. If your nation wins it boosts morale, nationality, and spirit. The nation feels a surge of power and an increase in ethnocentricity. Winning holds much deeper implications than a superficial gold medal. The competition promotes nationalism, promoting bragging rights for the next four years, if your nation wins. On the other hand, if your nation loses shame is bestowed onto your nation. One is frowned upon by not only one’s country but also the countries who have beaten you. Losing makes an individual feel a sense of uselessness; a sense that you are terrible at your sport and inferior to those who have beaten you. The World Cup is a great example of this. The France national team was looked at as one of the best soccer teams in the world. Their Prime Minister predicted they would play the best but not only did they play terrible and lose but they also refused to practice and ignore instruction from their coach. When they returned to France, they were not greeted kindly by the other citizens. According blogging heads, the best sports blog in the world, the World Cup is not like Olympics where the United States and China are fighting out for all of the medals, it adds more nations into the mix such as the European teams like Uruguay, Brazil, Spain, etc. The World Cup and its competition brings numerous other components into the mix than the Olympics such as a shift in power structure. In the Olympics, the teams with the more resources win. Whereas, in the World Cup it is based on straight-forward, hard work. Uruguay’s team is a great example of what it means to work hard toward a goal. Whether one’s nation wins or loses, it holds a substantial affect on the nation as a whole. If one wins, the whole nation is happy and everyone is supportive of each other. However, if one loses, the nation becomes angered and shows deep disappointment toward you as an athlete. Sport competitions such as the Olympics and the World Cup harbor a lot of positives and negatives within a nation, depending on who is labeled victorious and who is defeated.