The Nature of Victory

I am a jock. It shows in the way I dress, the shape of my body, the manner of my walk. I always have been and I may well always be an athlete. There is an innate competitive spirit that burns within me and a desire, even a conquest, to support other athletes who have been able to do what I could not—take it to the highest level. I am the girl who tears up at the end of all big tournaments out of absolute glee and utter jealousy for the winning team. I want to see an honest winner….and I find that the existence of such a thing gets harder and harder to believe in.

In the same week, the once indestructible Roger Federer lost his Wimbledon winning streak (capping out at five in a row) and Dara Torres, who had already retired, returned to the Olympic Trials to win both of her events at the age of 41 (to make her fifth Olympic swimming team). What amazing victories! That’s what I wanted to think. That’s what I wanted to believe. But, instead, I wondered…..Floyd Landis tested positive for performance enhancing drugs after an amazing and unexpected 2006 Tour de France; Marion Jones denied, denied, denied using anything until 2007, when she admitted to drug use for the previous seven years and was subsequently stripped of all earnings from that era; the “Mitchell Report” came out months later, calling into question 89 Major League Baseball players’ performances.

I had a picture of Marion Jones, torn from a magazine, among a number of other athletes in a collage that covered my door throughout college—as inspiration. “Dedicate yourself. Sacrifice for your desires. You can do it,” the collage proclaimed. And so I did. I read constantly, worked regularly, and volunteered always in order to stand out to the right grad school. But how great a sacrifice does that sacrifice become? Is there a point when the goal becomes greater than the merit of achieving the goal justly?

It’s Machiavelli all over again. “The end justifies the means. The end justifies the means.” We tell ourselves, again and again, creating a mantra by which to live. The blinders go on and the perspective goes out. Compete. Win. Want it more. It’s the battle for the athlete and the athlete’s supporter. As the athlete competes physically and defeats the odds to win, we, the spectators compete mentally for the belief in that victory. Although victory is a word we all wish to partake in, extreme victory is a phrase we glare down with doubt.

Mother of one, Dara Torres, couldn’t see the scoreboard to see if she had won the 100m freestyle but she could hear the crowd chanting her name. The audience was filled with the momentum and joy from the belief that stats like age don’t matter, even in the Olympics, if you only give it enough. Yet, we doubt and Dara must be conscious of that doubt. She has volunteered to be tested for drug enhancement more often than the other swimmers on her team. An amazing feat is met by an equally challenging swarm of public pressure and doubt: achieve then maintain perfection but we don’t believe anyone can be perfect. We support you.