Everyone's a winner in girls' 400 relay (Nice story)

Pittsburg Post-Gazette ^ | Mike White

[Redcloak]

There is an "old Klingon proverb": If you cannot lose, you cannot win. Put another way, if everyone's a winner, as the title suggests, then everyone loses. These girls lost. "Sportsmanlike" gestures from the other teams do not change that fact.

The point of competition is to see who's best at a particular activity. The other girls were better. If they aren't going to honor the outcome of the competition, then they shouldn't have competed.

[Balding_Eagle]

Who knows, someday down the road, maybe one of these girls will be an Olympian trailing the leader and the leader falls but remembering what happened to her in high school, she will on live worldwide television do the same.

Or maybe she will be elected President of the United States.

Then, The President, seeing our military bring the future AlQada Terrorist Bombers to their knees with enormous sacrifice of lives on both sides, she rememberd what happened in High School. Out of compassion for the fallen enemy, she recalls our forces, so that AlQada has a chance to regroup.

Yeah, touching story I know, the part about AlQada brought tears to my eyes too, but it could happen. The first step has been made.

[Search4Truth]

Was Barney officiating?

[Redcloak]

There have been instances when a tennis player or golfer will overrule a call or admit an unseen error in the name of sportsmanship.

There is a difference between refusing an unfair advantage and refusing to accept the outcome of a fair competition.

[Heyworth]

And it's ironic you would use Lance Armstrong as an example of fairness & sportsmanship given the steroids allegations constantly swirling around him.

Mostly stoked by the French press. Not only is Lance the most tested man in sports, but as new tests come along, they go back and retest old samples. He's never come up dirty.

[kabar]

There is a difference between refusing an unfair advantage and refusing to accept the outcome of a fair competition.

I guess it depends on what the meaning of fair is. If an official misses a call, is that the outcome of fair competition to accept the ruling? Or should you have it reversed as refusing an unfair advantage?

I have no idea what caused the fall of one of the members of the Penn Hill track team. Perhaps those teams that relinquished their place ahead of them felt that they had an unfair advantage.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

...and in a related story, a high-jumper on the field segment of the same competition was given 1st place from his opponents even after he knocked the bar off during his last jumps.