Sacrifice Seen Through the Olympics Category: Sports Views: 188
I’m not into cycling at all (and know very little about it), but today I watched some of the men’s Olympic cycling race. The announcers were commenting about how it’s not strange for quite a few cyclists to drop out of the race (evidently a lot of people made a large fuss about the number of cyclists who dropped out of the Athens Olympic race). The announcers gave the current example of one South African cyclist who was at the back of the pack (it was near the beginning of the race) and dropping back and they said he would probably drop out soon as his job was to set the pace for the flat part of the first loop (I believe that’s what they said) and to help out his teammates. I know some athletes act this way, however I was still nevertheless astounded to hear this. Perhaps this man had no chance of actually medaling, but regardless of that, this man still sacrificed his chances for an Olympic medal and for fame to help some of his teammates do their absolute best and perhaps recognize their dream of getting an Olympic medal. I find it particularly interesting because cycling is an individual sport - it’s not your typical “team sport” like basketball or volleyball, yet with cycling I saw more sacrifice than I see on many “team” sports. Sometimes I think the United States would do even better with some sports if we exhibited the same type of sacrifice in our team sports, if we didn't care who got the glory, only that the team as a whole succeeded. If only the rest of us could say we sacrificed like that for those in our lives.
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