Three-thousand youngsters aged from eight to fifteen took part in a Triathlon yesterday, and nobody won. "Winning wasn't the name of the game," you see. "It was about taking part and giving it your best."
No wonder all three-thousand were 'awarded' a gold medal. Welcome to politically correct sport. Story here [hat tip RW].
9 comments:
Mediocrity
3,000 parents breeding and encouraging it.
3,000 children are not inspired above it.
And Weet Bix supports and promotes it.
(Visualising Weet-Bix box with the following caption on the box.
"Our cereals are not outstanding"
Then ask yourself why our national sports teams don't have it anymore...
IN all fairness to the organisers (and i have helped organised one of these events), with the numbers and the entries it isnt feasible to find a 'winner' as such. Electronic timing is not possible and wld push the price up to far, you cannot have a mass start for a swim that small, and the starting of individuals is all randomly and chaotically done so you cannot record start and finish times (plus each competitor is not body marked at the start which also assists in the timing purposes. In theory there is a winner, in teh first in each age group to cross teh line, there just isnt an official winner.
Of course i would still like to see winners - they have them in running/swimming events for kids that age and if they are more competitive then they can compete at the local pruimary school events etc...
3,000 losers.
Boy I'll bet Leonidas was wishing he'd had them at the gates... NOT.
I bet the child who finished first was hacked off to find they hadn't won.
I understand the Weetbix Kids Triathalon is voluntary and private; as such, perhaps compulsory school Fun Runs would be a better example of what PC is getting at.
I remember being forced to participate in various such 'fun runs' and coming last or close to last, and being extremely irritated at people 'congratulating' me for "doing my best". Well jeez, my best sucked! Thanks for pointing that out!
It was obvious I wasn't cut out for last distance running, so why did they humiliate me by making me 'compete' instead of simply leaving me alone to get on with other things which I could actually excel at?
Having no winners is an obvious way of trying to avoid 'hurt feelings' in compulsory events like the "fun" run. What state schools don't seem to understand is that making everyone participate and having no winners makes a mockery of the the whole idea of a competitive race in the first place.
Well teh person who finished first may not have necessarily won (ie been the fastest). It all depends on when you start............. It is very very difficult to find a winner with about 600 in each category all doing different distances.........If you are concerned about the competitiviness of the youth, i suggest you go to any nz secondary schools (which in almost every instance is a bigger sporting event than the open national champs) to see the competitors smashing themselves to try and win
The desire to protect children from failure stems from this recent development in society desiring to protect them from, well, everything bad.
Unfortunately, if you never know the pain of failure, or even the pain of pain, when you become an adult and have to take responsibility for yourself, you won't be able to cope with it when it inevitably happens to you. A whole generation of narcissitic wussbags and crybabies is being created.
There was an annual inter-schools cross country race in Tawa. There were two divisions, colloqually known as "Slow" and "Fast". The first year, I came 10th in the slow division.
Some boys calculated that they could not win the fast division, but could be competitive in the slow division, so held back in the trials.
The following year, I came 43rd in the fast division. That's the upper quarter, and not bad for someone as athletically challenged as myself - I got nothing but the satisfaction of achieving.
One boy who held back at the trials came 1st in the slow division and got praise heaped on him.
Last time I heard of him he was in prison.
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