Less rare than precious
something to be noted with approval and, by all means, a special moment at prizegiving.
Should it be different at the Olympics? It should not.
The decision to award the pair the Pierre de Coubertin medal for sportsmanship was a good one, not because the moments that the New Zealand and US competitors shared were so jaw-droppingly rare but because they encapsulated, so very well, something not to be left behind in even the most rarefied heights of sporting achievement – a sense of goodwill.
A message worth sending out to the world. And if, for the onlooking world, this was the most memorable NZ achievement, then we can live with that too.
The success of any country’s Olympic campaign should be measured not solely by the medal count but also by the extent to which its representatives made their country proud and met the challenges inherent in each of their sports.
But without diminishing their achievements it is surely also true that these were not necessarily a games where the golds dominated public perception quite as much as they have in the past.
Hearts surged every bit as hard when Eliza McCartney, just 19, claimed her bronze in the pole vault.
If there is such a thing as truly Olympian poise, this teenager had it.
When she later said that she felt she had ‘‘nothing to lose and everything to gain’’ she can be taken at her word.
The extent to which she was living in the moment, appreciating every second of her time, was there to be seen.
Fellow teen Lydia Ko exulted in the experience, even though the Olympics is not the mountaintop for her field of excellence. The pair evoked a different sense of admiration. Older athletes like skuller Drysdale, victorious by such a fine margin, and silver medallist shot putter Val Adams, seemed more a model of integrity and dignity.
These are warriors of New Zealand sport having, for so long, achieved so much but sacrificed so much and toiled so hard and long, that they carry what could so easily have been a crushing weight of expectations, both personal and public. And they emerge, quite apart from the medals, with honour intact.