Gearing up for their Olympic broadcasts next month, NBC and its affiliate, USA Network, did yeoman’s work last week covering the swimming trials in Omaha, Neb., and the track-and-field trials in Eugene, Ore. To me, these are the premier Olympic competitions, contests of pure athleticism, distilled of any subjectivity and the undue influence of fickle, self-important coaches.
The problem is, while NBC effectively introduced sports fans to the marquee names of the Summer Games, we don’t watch the trials to see who wins. We watch to see who loses. That’s where the “human drama of athletic competition,” as ABC’s Wide World of Sports used to put it, lies – in defeat and disappointment. Every time Michael Phelps or Katie Hoff wins yet another event, somebody’s Olympic dreams are getting flushed down the drain, somebody who has dedicated decades of his or her life to maximizing his or her athletic potential, only to come up a heartbreaking fraction of a second short.
The poet Edwin Markham got it right, though. “Defeat may serve as well as victory to shake the soul and let the glory out,” he said. Paradoxically, it was Muhammad Ali losing to Joe Frazier in 1971 that certified his claim to our affections. The same goes for Roger Federer last Sunday: Losing a brilliant five-setter in the Wimbledon finals to Rafael Nadal only italicized his immense grace.
Of course, NBC isn’t simply broadcasting a competition; it’s casting the stars of its Olympic reality show. I understand that. But every time the network fixed its cameras on Phelps and Hoff, it failed to register the poignancy of another athlete’s disappointment. Most of the time, you didn’t even see those people. They were just background extras.
Everybody who follows Olympic sports has somebody they’re pulling for who gets slighted in the coverage. For me, it was Eric Shanteau, who trains with Longhorn Aquatics. Shanteau had told me in February (“Playing Through,” Feb. 29) how crushing it was placing third in the 2004 trials. Given the high level of American swimming, that third may have been good enough to win a bronze in Athens, yet it wasn’t good enough to make the team (in swimming, they only take two per event), and that’s all he wanted – to be an Olympian. “I fantasize about hitting the wall and looking up and seeing a ‘1’ or ‘2’ next to my name,” he’d told me. “A ‘1’ would be great. But you know what? A ‘2’ would be just as good.”
That didn’t happen after the first of his two events, the 100-meter breaststroke. He again finished third, and the USA Network didn’t give a damn. Two nights later, though, in the biggest upset in the swimming trials, he and Scott Spann edged out their Longhorn Aquatic teammate Brendan Hansen in the 200-meter breaststroke. My giddy joy for Shanteau – and I can only imagine his, multiplied by about a trillion – was in direct proportion to his earlier disappointment.
My point is, the thrill of victory means nothing without the agony of defeat.
Please write Mr. Hackett at playingthrough@austinchronicle.com.
This article appears in July 11 • 2008.