Not so Gold Medal Moments at the Olympics

When I arrived at my daughter’s preschool one day this week to pick her up, she greeted me with a great big smile and a gold medal around her neck. In fact, all her classmates were sporting Torino-inspired medals, made out of old gold AOL freebie discs.

Since the Winter Games began February 10th, the teachers at my daughter’s school have been steeping their 3, 4 and 5 year old students in Olympic lore. They've been learning about sportsmanship and the Olympic spirit by “discussing” the Olympic Creed which states, "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph, but the struggle.” More succinctly put – it’s not all about winning.

It’s a concept that’s still foreign to preschoolers, who are developmentally and therefore understandably, still in the “all about me” phase. “I’m not sure it really sunk in,” is how the preschool director put it when I asked about the kids’ reaction to the Olympic Creed. After watching 17 days worth of coverage from Torino, I think you could sadly say the same thing about too many of this year’s top crop of athletes.

Take for example American speed skaters Chad Heddrick and Shani Davis. Davis, as you probably know by now, won the individual men’s 1,000 meters, after choosing to save his energy by passing up on participating in the team pursuit. His gold medal is the first ever to be earned by a black athlete in an individual winter Olympic sport. But the historic first, and Davis’ accomplishment, was sullied by teammate (and multi-medalist) Heddrick, who had a public hissy fit over Davis’ decision NOT to complete for the team. In the UNsportsmanlike conduct event – Heddrick takes the gold.