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Documentation of Loss – Observing Failure in the Modern Olympics

Shin A. Lam, olympic fencer from S. Korea, cries in the arena after a loss to her opponent.

Olympic fencer Shin A-Lam of South Korea remains in the arena to contest an unfavorable ruling without the expected stoicism.  Image credit: Korea Bang

What does it mean to document loss?  What is its rhetorical function?  Rhetoric of Celebrity student Iva Kinnaird assembles an archive of defeat from several Olympic games, tracing the intersections of celebrity and sportsmanship.  The documentation of loss, she asserts, commodifies defeat and makes it available for public consumption.  The result is a strange rhetorical landscape where the lines between winning and losing become less easy to determine.





“The important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”

-       Pierre de Coubertin, Father of the modern Olympic Games

  

Photo Finish

With athletes seemingly nearing the uppermost limits of a performance asymptote, it is necessary to improve technology to measure these near indiscernible differences. When one hundredth of a second is the difference between gold and silver, the cameras must be able to record that highly precise moment.

An olympic photofinish determines Michael Phelps narrowly beats Milorad Cavic--documented by a high-def camera

Image Source: Openwaterpedia

Photographs tend to resist abstraction, non-figuration. Photography is unique in its ability to capture the image of something realistically.  It can mechanically or exactly record things without the influence of a human bias, although man’s interpretation of said image is another story.

Voyeurism


An unconventional shot of the victorious US women's gymnastics team that shows paparazzi swarming the victors

Image Source: Undisputed Legal

Cameras measure success through the information that they record. With a broader definition how that can be measured, it could be said that an athlete’s strength in character (despite their athletic performance) is what makes them successful.  

The emotional nature of some events has “raised spectator voyeurism to an uncomfortable level” (Williams). The viewers want to relate on an emotional level, and that involves seeing the joy or, in many cases, the disappointment in the eyes of the competitors. The close proximity of the cameras is a simple formal way of placing the viewer in the middle of the action, allowing them to more easily feel the weight of any given emotion. 

Beautiful Losers

An artist illustrates a suggestion that the Olympic winners' podium include a spot for last place.

Image Source: Variations on Normal

The trend of honoring dramatic losses and idolizing athletes who lose heroically has not gone unnoticed.

A proposed fourth podium for “when an athlete is either extremely rubbish or gets an injury, but still finishes the race” seems to be an idea that is already metaphorically taking place (Wilcox). It is an occurrence which seems to elicit support from the crowd despite their differences in nationality.

Rodman crosses the finish line dead last with the help of his father

Image Source: Ameblo

Derek Redman, a frontrunner in the 400m sprint at the 1992 Barcelona games is now famously an icon for perseverance and who defines “the essence of the human and Olympic spirit.” Despite coming in last, he provided the public with one of those moments that “remind us what the Olympics are all about” (Barcelona).

This is a problematic situation where the public has turned his devastation into an inspirational moment, denying him agency in the process. His heartbreaking loss is now our Visa commercial.

From a viewer’s perspective, limping across the finish line was a show of his grace in defeat. Interviews with Redmond reveal a different reason for his struggle: his “belief that if he limped fast enough he might still overtake four people and qualify for the final.” (Burnton). It was not heroic strength in character that drove him; it was his delusion acting as a shield from despair.

There is a noble thought that elevating these moments will act as some sort of consolation prize, but what it is really doing is trapping the athlete in that moment by limiting the public’s perception within the confines of a single memorable event. This stagnant image prevents them from moving on.

The video of the race on YouTube sentimentalizes the moment right up to the point of being mawkish. As if the raw footage of a man’s crushed dreams is not enough to convey the heartbreak of the moment, Josh Groban’s “You Raise Me Up” is overlaid.

The footage is edited to elicit sympathy and admiration towards Derek. The video of the race is interlaid with text explaining each moment of the travesty. At the end the text reads “When you don’t give up, YOU CANNOT FAIL!” (Warning).  This slogan, of course, is completely illogical; a person is perfectly capable of failing just as many times as they try*[1]. The inspirational message is understood nonetheless. The result of all this is a contrived sappy documentation skewing the memory of the event (Brackets).

When losing is losing

Mckayla Maroney looks dissatisfied with her Olympic defeat.

Image Source: Postgrad Problems

Winners who lose - McKayla

McKayla Maroney was the obvious favorite to win the gold in the vault competition. She was expected to win by a wide margin. But when it came down to her actual performance on the day, she faltered.  Even in her failure we have elevated her to fame. She is famous for being disappointed with her medal. “She’s so good that she’s probably the only one who doesn’t even have to perform to win the gold” (Macur). An audience can become accustomed to an athlete’s high performance when they are consistently exceptional. Viewed individually, they would all be spectacular, but when seen one after the other they become desensitized to the awesomeness of their capabilities. We expect them to win by exceptional standards. It all goes back to a person’s expectations for their performance relative to others. As was the case with Maroney, one's expectations may be so high that anything less than gold becomes unimpressive.

When winning is losing

 Kerri Strug's father carries her to victory after a vault injury renders her unable to walk in the 1996 Olympic games.

Image Source: Fit Sugar

One of the most famous moments in the modern history of gymnastics is Kerri Strug’s 1996 Vault. The defining moment of her career came down to her performing a gold winning vault with an injured leg. The moment of victory was replayed in a countdown of the “30 Greatest NBC Olympic Moments” (Brackets). We are given these stories in the format of a countdown  which attempts to quantify the weight of an emotional connection. The video documenting the event plays up Kerri’s  struggle and the victory that it earns her and her country. The darker reality that is seldom talked about in relation to this moment is the implications of the injury Strug incurred.  She snagged the gold in the team final but was unable to compete in her individual event.

It is replayed as a victory for the American team, and it was, in a way, but it was also a crushing defeat for the athlete on an individual level. At the bottom of the video “Due to her injury, Kerri Strug was unable to compete in the individual all-around competition and event finals, despite having qualified for both.” Once again, inspirational music is overlaid. With both this video and the Derek Redmond clip, the moment is sentimentalized to mask the disparity between what occurred to the athlete and the way an audience wishes to perceive that occurrence.

When losing is winning (maybe) - Badminton


Officials speak to the Chinese and South Korean badmitton teams during the match they deliberately threw at the 2012 Olympic games.

Image Source: Yahoo! Sports

The Greeks aspired to win for the sake of eternal glory. “They were also given all manner of material rewards by the cities they represented, but the original goal was to establish everlasting fame on earth, the sure route to immortality” (Williams). In this case, competing well in their sport consequently proving their athleticism was the way to remain in the public’s consciousness. Now, with different modes of achieving longevity in the public eye through celebrity, there are different, less straightforward, ways of being remembered. This begs the question - do you have to win in your event if the goal is to be remembered? The answer, given the current climate of celebrity culture: of course not. People are remembered for anything seen as being an outlier in the traditional winner narrative. One major qualifier to the winner’s narrative is the basic requirement that they must win.

In the scandalous badminton tournament placement match which the Chinese and South Korean women’s teams both ‘threw’, the players became infamous for their strategy of losing. What infuriated viewers most was not that they lost, but that they did so without even trying to conceal their intent. It is rare for blatant misconduct to occur at this level, and “in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport” (Belson).  The misconduct is “complicated by the fact that the rules of the sport seemed to give the athletes an incentive to lose” (Belson). Although the teams were disqualified for their actions, they achieved something that no other badminton teams ever have. They created a story interesting enough to live on in the memory of the viewer. The commentator said of the strategy during the match, “This, I’m very sorry to say, could be one of the biggest news stories of the games so far” The YouTube replays of the match in question revealed it was eighteen times as popular as the video of the final match in which determined the gold medalist. By the Greek standards of what is implicit with victory, it is arguable that, although the players lost, they still reached an early goal of the games, and therefore won. The idea of victory and of failure is relative and dependent on what makes up one’s own personal goals.

With the increasing capabilities to deliver information to an audience, there is a focus on reactions to loss and the sportsmanship that goes along with it. The myth of how an athlete won or lost overshadows their results. The Olympics has become not just about winning or losing--it is more about how that win or loss is recorded and repeated back to an audience .



[1] This is dependent on a person’s definition of failure. A quick Google dictionary search brings the result “lack of success” is broad enough to allow their use to be true. 

Works Cited

"Barcelona 1992  ." Derek Anthony Redmond. Olympic.org, n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Belson, Ken. "Olympic Ideal Takes Beating In Badminton." The New York Times. The New York Times, 02 Aug. 2012. Web. 29 Apr. 2013.

Brackets, Joe. "30 Greatest NBC Olympic Moments." N.p., 23 Apr. 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Burnton, Simon. "50 Stunning Olympic Moments No3: Derek Redmond and Dad Finish 400m." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 12 May 0030. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Macur, Juliet. "American Slips at the Finish, Losing Her Grip on the Gold." The New York Times. The New York Times, 06 Aug. 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. 

"Pierre De Coubertin." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 23 Apr. 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

WARNING: You Will Cry While Watching This. Perf. Derek Redmond and Josh Groban. YouTube. YouTube, 22 May 2012. Web. 28 Apr. 2013. 

Wilcox, Dominic. "Beautiful Losers." Variations on Normal. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2013.

Williams, Gregory. "Better Luck Next Time." Cabinet Summer 2002: n. pag. Cabinet Magazine. Web. 27 Apr. 2013. 


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