Sport Is Love. Who Knew?

Sport is love. Yes, now we see it. There they were. Slope-side at the Beijing Olympics of all places. The same Olympics denounced as the “genocide games.” There they were: moments of truth about the emotion of sport.

And what was that emotion? Fear? Pride? Dominance? Resentment? Antipathy? Exultation? Suspicion? Revenge? Bravado? Thanks to sports media, these are the scenarios we have been trained to expect. This was different. This was more positive and genuine.

It was not the focus-grouped message of the “Olympic movement.” This was not an IOC statement about the brotherhood of sports. Nor was it a choreographed whitewash from the authoritarian host country, or a corporate-sponsorship platitude about hardship, effort, and achievement. Those are stirring, but they come across as 80% production values and 20% sincerity.

Rather, this was simple honesty and clarity in defeat.

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Sport is love: honesty and clarity

There was Shaun White, revered and hyped: multi-gold medal winner; the personification of snowboarding; and a sponsorship magnet. He is older now, less goofy, and with better hair. Media savvy, he declared at the games that this was his last Olympics. Unfortunately, the going-out-on-top, Hollywood script had issues: namely human frailty and the reality of competition.

Failing for his third time to get to a podium score, must have been a come-down. It was a near miss. Still, it was a sound defeat. And this was it: humbled publicly, career over. So much reality in an instant. And still the media had to be fed. What were his emotions in this moment? Did he thank the broadcaster? Did he thank his corporate sponsors? Gratefully no. White rose to the moment. Did he thank his competitors, fans, and family? Yes. But most noticeably he thanked snowboarding. The sport of snowboarding. He called it “the love of my life.”

Yes, of course. It must be.

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Sport is love: engaged, no hiding, no ghosting

And there was Mikaela Shiffrin. Just days before she was the undisputed commander of the heights of Alpine skiing. A sure winner of multiple golds awaiting her coronation. Now she was also publicly humbled – not once but twice. After her first DNF she thoughtfully assessed her performance and the adjustments she would make. She was a champion with knowledge, talent, and experience to draw upon.

Suddenly, after her second DNF, she was untethered, uncertain, doubting everything she thought she knew, and looking deep into human fallibility. It’s a long, disorienting tumble down from the pinnacle. How does one stop the fall and recover? For Shiffrin it seems, humanity, unseen within her highly technical sport, broke her fall and extended an arm. “I would never have expected to feel in this moment – severely under-performing in an Olympics – I would never have felt that humans could be so kind,” she said. “I never would’ve expected that the most surprising thing of my Olympic experience is how kind people have been in the face of my failure.”

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Sport is love: pursuit, judgement, understanding

And that is part of the beauty of sport. The journey is at once a solace and a map to the way forward. When things are going well, success is its own reward. But when fortune turns, there is still the sport itself – the discovery, the effort, the mastery, the competition, the people, the kindness: the loves of our lives.