Whats Wrong With Silver and Bronze?

As I watch the olympics this year, I am totally confused about something... Now all of the athletes work very hard to be at the level of competition that qualfies them for the olympics. Used to be that a country took pride in any medal that one of their star atheletes won. Not so anymore it seems......

For instance, the other night in one of the skiing events, A young woman from Canada won the silver medal. I heard not one word about her victory. Fastforward to the next day when a young Canadian wins a gold medal in his ski event and its talked about all evening and again the next day... Such and such wins gold for Canada, Canadas first gold..... like the silver didn't mean anything.... This young woman won the first medal for her country, it was silver, so what!! Kudos to her!! Since when was being second best in the world a bad thing??

I do not understand the mentality of this. I would be extremely proud to be second or third best in the world!!

Take this for example... your son or daughter is a skater... such a great skater that they get a chance to go to the olympics...your child wins bronze. Would you, could you be any prouder of them if they had won the gold?

I think that it is time that the hard working atheletes that win silver and bronze are given more recognition. Don't you??

Why are they not? Why is that not considered good enough anymore??

Who knows. Things are changing and people are acting weird about everything.I suspect that over the next five years, a great many things that were once respected and revered are going to fall by the wayside.

I've been watching the Olympics...and I have actually been surprised at the athletes winning silver and bronze. I've noticed at the past few Olympics (summer and winter) that the silver and bronze winners have looked disappointed. But this Olympics...sometimes the silver and bronze winners look happier than the gold medal winners. It has been a pleasant surprise.

As for the media...I'm not surprised...they only want to report the big wins. If Canadian media makes a huge deal about the silver medal...then they also have to acknowledge that someone else was better than them. To me it is stupid...they should still be proud of their silver.

If you are saying that silver and bronze is ok, what about 4th place? Does someone have to win a medal at all to be recognized as being special? Does someone even have to be in the olympics? Its all just a bunch of stupid games to distract us from the REAL game called our own lives.

The Olympics is something big, its not a backyard contest....silver and bronze are good but the goal is the gold. To have a family member or even a friend get bronze should be a welcome to any who has close ties for fierce competition. In the end though it's the gold that brings it home, and the fame with it for best time, or score.

I'ts how it works...dunno why the thread though...

Although I am opposed and uninterested with the Olympics for a variety of reasons, the very issue raised by Greenize is one of my core problems with the Olympics (or at least what the Olympics have become)

Here in Canada there has been a massive media push for people to get to know the athletes, and root them on, which I think is quite positive as I don't think the Olympics should be about the countries, but rather the individual athletes. However, the moment an athlete gets gold it's CANADA'S gold, not the athletes. Canada didn't do anything except in the case of corporations and large government contribute a lot of money. If I'm sitting on my couch watching TV, I do not feel any pride for someone from the same nation as me winning at an event, even if I am drinking Coke-Cola (one of the proud sponsors of the Canadian Olympic Team), because I didn't even do anything.

Unfortunately the Olympics are all about seeing which country is the best, not seeing which athletes are.

[edit on 17-2-2010 by JohnBadger]