No athlete, in the hundreds of years that amateur and professional sports have been around, has ever won a silver medal.
You see, you don’t win a silver medal. A silver medal is the result of you or your team losing the gold-medal game. Winners are awarded the gold and the losers are given the silver. That’s how it has always been done. I’m sure in this age of “everyone is a winner”, all Olympic and professional athletes eventually will receive participation ribbons.
You do, however, win a bronze medal. In fact, a bronze arguably is more rewarding than a silver. It says that you or your team won your last game. A silver medal tells everyone you lost your last game.
What does it all mean?
When Canada’s Olympic women’s hockey team lost to the U.S. in the gold-medal game last night, a Canadian player refused to wear her silver medal. As expected, there was outrage and controversy that an athlete didn’t adhere to Olympic rules. Yes, it’s actually a rule at the Olympics that an athlete must wear his/her medal after it being awarded.
It also was suggested the Canadian athlete in question showed poor sportsmanship. Fair enough.
But who would want to wear a silver medal around his/her neck?
You just lost the most important game from the past four years. After several years of training, countless practices and hours in the gym perfecting your craft, whether it’s a team or individual sport, you just lost. You lost to your most bitter of rivals on the biggest stage for amateur athletics.
Would you want to wear a colour of medal that signals “second best”? I wouldn’t. Every player on the ice that night wanted the gold medal. It’s safe to say that no one wanted the silver medal, especially in the manner the game was decided (a shootout).
Last month at the world junior hockey championship, a Swedish player tossed his silver medal into the crowd after his team lost the gold-medal game. A similar outcry of poor sportsmanship followed.
I’ll admit that throwing your medal away is going too far, but the gesture of not wanting the medal is understood.
Maybe several years from now when these athletes have retired and matured they can look back at their careers and fondly recall the time they competed in the Olympics or at the world junior tournament. Not every athlete is that fortunate, that talented to reach a high level. Such an experience should be chronicled. Maybe then a silver medal would mean something and would be cherished.
The emotion of today is why those medals are not wanted. And who knows, maybe they’ll never be wanted. I’m not sure why silver and bronze medals are awarded at all. Professional sports don’t hand out trophies for second and third place. But that’s a topic for a different day.
The Mendoza Lines 