No Shame, Much Gain

Milano 2026

SUBSTACK

“Oh, what a shame. She just missed the Gold Medal by a fraction.”

I have never been a sporty person. Even as a child, my only inverse achievement was to run last in the Grade 3 Egg and Spoon Race.

Now, with age against me, even the daily 10,000 steps can be a little daunting, which means I have only looked on in awe every four years at the Olympics.

Nowadays we have extreme sports, where fairly simple activities like ski-ing or skating take on eye-watering levels of acrobatics not even dreamed of in my youth. My skating prowess as a teenager involved a weekly visit to the local Ice Skating rink, when I would show off my skills of ‘almost skating backwards’ to an admiring group of lesser skilled friends. And while those days are well behind me, I remember only too vividly the micro-second exaltation when righting oneself after a precarious wobble of the knife edge blade. A wobble that could result in a broken ankle, taking painful weeks to heal, and possible lifetime consequences.

So watching the extraordinary events playing out at the Milano Winter Olympics has been an emotional roller coaster for me, where I silently congratulate not only the Gold, Silver and Bronze winners, but every non-winning member of the teams exposing their mental and physical skills for the world to see. Four or maybe ten years of dedicated practice and pain can be exalted, or wiped away in minutes.

I am prompted to mention this now as while sipping my morning coffee this morning, I found myself growing more and more angry at the Breakfast Team of my local ABC, as they first glowed at the Gold medals won but showered disappointment at those Silver and Bronze medalists, who had not managed to gain the coveted prize. Any others were not even considered worthy of a mention.

The Olympics are not alone in this philosophy. The tabloids are full of corruption, drug-taking and dirty dealings, all to gain the elusive “Main Man’ pinnacle in almost every sporting arena. And if it isn’t for the glory, it is for the monetary gain that comes, not only to the participants, but the organizations that furnish their needs. And of the thousands that are ‘pipped at the post”? What do they do when their dreams have turned sour, and they return, not as hero’s to have got ‘where few men have gone before’, but failures.

There is no such thing as “Shame, they didn’t win Gold,” only “Pride” at participation.