London teaches athletes the valuable lesson in closing ceremony
For the athletes, London was the place that taught this valuable lesson: if you’re going to tank a match or a race for strategic reasons, for heaven’s sake, do it subtly. The Algerian runner Taoufik Makhloufi seemingly tried the blatant approach during a heat in the 800 meters, when he simply stopped running before the end of the first lap, presumably to save his strength for the 1,500-meter race, which he was favored to win. Makhloufi was ejected from the Games, though that decision was reversed when two doctors said he had an injury that could, with appropriate treatment, allow him to compete in 24 hours. That treatment worked miracles; not only did Makhloufi win gold in the 1,500, he jogged a rapturous victory lap.
Eight female badminton players were not as fortunate. They were accused of deliberately hitting shuttles into the net and out of bounds, hoping that by losing a preliminary match in their round-robin tournament they would face a weaker opponent in the coming rounds. There was no reprieve for any of them, and one player, China’s Yu Yang, announced that she would quit the sport.
That announcement — “Goodbye my beloved badminton” — came via Yu’s microblog, just one example of how social media elbowed their way into the Games, occasionally with disastrous results. There was the case of the mohawked Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella, who was expelled by his country’s Olympic committee after expressing hostility to South Koreans and questioning their intelligence on Twitter. (The South Koreans had just beaten the Swiss, 2-1.)
But one of the great stories of these Olympics was the effect they had on England itself. Triumphalism does not come naturally to this country, where the cultural stock in trade has long been dignity in defeat. This, let’s not forget, is a nation where one of the most beloved poems is Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” which valorizes a military rout at the hands of the Russians.
Eight female badminton players were not as fortunate. They were accused of deliberately hitting shuttles into the net and out of bounds, hoping that by losing a preliminary match in their round-robin tournament they would face a weaker opponent in the coming rounds. There was no reprieve for any of them, and one player, China’s Yu Yang, announced that she would quit the sport.
That announcement — “Goodbye my beloved badminton” — came via Yu’s microblog, just one example of how social media elbowed their way into the Games, occasionally with disastrous results. There was the case of the mohawked Swiss soccer player Michel Morganella, who was expelled by his country’s Olympic committee after expressing hostility to South Koreans and questioning their intelligence on Twitter. (The South Koreans had just beaten the Swiss, 2-1.)
But one of the great stories of these Olympics was the effect they had on England itself. Triumphalism does not come naturally to this country, where the cultural stock in trade has long been dignity in defeat. This, let’s not forget, is a nation where one of the most beloved poems is Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade,” which valorizes a military rout at the hands of the Russians.
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