Rant: Are we obsessed with winning and losing?

Way back in the day I read a quote from a leading sport sociologist Garry Whannel (1983) "For every one winner, there's at least one loser".  It's a very profound statement, and had I belonged to a book club in those days, I'm sure it could have been the topic of much discussion.

Now I'm a pretty competitive guy and it took me a while to learn that losing is ok.  No, it actually is ok.  If I lose, it's probably OK.  It's not that I didn't prepare properly or give the old 110% we like to think is necessary. It's not that the referee had it in for me or the coach must go.  Somebody has to lose.

For those who participate in individual sports, let's face facts, you almost always lose.  500 people in a triathlon race, one winner.  If you are in a racquet or combat sport, on average, you lose half the time.  In team sports, a little less if ties are allowed.  Without at least one loser, there are no winners (Harris 2017).

Look at the sports pages of any media site or even the web pages of local club sites and we report on the heroes of the day (winners) at the expense of the real content.  Who scored, who placed, who finished first, but very little about the competition itself, the performances, the lessons learned, etc.

OK, I'm all for trying to win and giving it all you have within the rules and with proper ethics and all that, but we need to lose this idea that it's all about winning and start to focus on performance (and the other great things about sport).  How many personal bests?  Who were the strong performers (stats aside)?  How strong was the opposition?

I sure as heck didn't win this one.