Heartache doesn’t get any easier
Ihate being a sports journalist as much as I love it. The experience of covering the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang has exposed my mixed feelings even more.
As composed and objective as I am supposed to stay, those heart-wrenching moments when Olympic dreams are shattered by some tiny error, small margin or controversial officiating still catch me off guard.
It’s almost impossible to be immune when you see athletes let their true feelings show in the mixed zone — the area where we, the media, lurk in search of postperformance interviews. I was there to witness all five silver medals won by Chinese athletes so far in South Korea, and each near-miss was equally poignant.
China’s world champion figure skating pair Han Cong and Sui Wenjing put on a brave face after losing to Aljona Savchenko and Bruno Massot of Germany in the final by a mere 0.43 points — the slightest ever margin between gold and silver in Olympic pair skating history.
“We feel so sad that we lost the goldmedal dream today...” said Han afterward before Sui abruptly chopped her partner off mid-sentence, shouting: “How could we lose the dream? We just lost the medal while the dream is always here.”
Admirable words of wisdom, indeed, but the tears welling up in Sui’s eyes and her quivering voice betrayed her.
Trying to remain tough just showed how badly she was hurt. That was to be expected, perhaps, for someone who has had to learn to walk again — let alone skate and jump — following surgery to both ankles.
Like every one of my colleagues in the mixed zone, I’d prefer to see them cry out instead of containing their emotions so hard.
Maybe they have been conditioned by the cruel nature of competitive sport to move on quickly and always look to the next opportunity.
Han, 25, and Sui, 22, are still young enough to chase their golden dream again, but not everyone has age on their side.
Legendary basketball star Michael Jordan once said: “You fail over and over and over again until you succeed”, but in reality that success might never come.
Chinese aerials skier Xu Mengtao, a silver medalist at the 2014 Sochi Games and sixth-place finisher at Vancouver 2010, arrived in Pyeongchang determined to claim gold at the third attempt having survived three serious injuries. A steel screw pinned into her left knee was testament to her steely will.
Sadly, though, Xu came up even shorter than at previous Games when she crashed on landing in her second jump in the final, bowing out before the decisive third run.
She looked inconsolable afterward, and none of us tried to stop her for an interview as she wept passing through the mixed zone.
It seems I underestimated Xu’s resilience, however. The next morning she defiantly wrote on Weibo: “I am not done yet. Call my name if you want to see me at Beijing 2022!” — a comment which racked up over 10,000 likes within hours of being posted.
More hearts will be broken as the Games enter their second half, but for sure more will be reborn, too.
See, that’s why I love this job as much as I hate it.