Olympic athletes show our children what can be accomplished
Iread Elise Kennedy’s commentary on the Olympic Games in the Jan. 17 Gazette with equal parts dismay and alarm (Opinion, “Don’t try this at home”).
Her viewpoint that the Olympics give children unrealistic expectations of what they are able to do is counterintuitive.
Further, she discounts athletes’ suitability to be positive role models, by implying that they encourage excessive risk-taking, which will ultimately land your child in hospital.
To me, Olympic athletes personify strength of mind and body, and endurance and determination. These are qualities that are highly valuable in life, not just in sport. The successes of Olympic athletes can show children what is possible to accomplish. Their disappointments illustrate that sometimes you may fall down, but you have to pick yourself up and try again. The Olympics represent not a reason to fear risk, but a cause to celebrate achievement and motivation.
Kennedy would do well to give children a bit more credit in distinguishing the expert from the beginner. She says “Olympic athletes who hurl themselves off the ice with no helmet or padding are praised as ambassadors for their country and lauded as if they were military heroes.” She says that feats are unrealistic and that “children need to know what it really is possible for them to do.”
Yet a child who sees national figure-skating champion Kaetlyn Osmond perform a triple Lutz is unlikely to go out that same day and try such a jump in her backyard rink. She may, however, be more motivated to get on those skates and perhaps even ask her parents to sign her up for figure-skating classes.
A few months ago I heard Caroline Ouellette of the Canadian women’s hockey team speak at a conference in Montreal. The conference host was a charity, the 60 Million Girls Foundation, which supports and promotes girls’ education in developing countries.
The organization invited Ouellette because it recognizes that sport is a useful tool in increasing children’s confidence. Ouellette spoke with passion about her love for hockey and her hope that girls across the nation will see sports as a worthwhile endeavour. She is a worthy role model, particularly when compared to the sexualized alternative of the Miley Cyruses of the world.
Of course there are risks that go along with sports. Nothing is risk-free in life, and to shield our children from risk is to deny them the chance to explore.
Beyond sport, where would society be without the risktakers, such as the entrepreneurs who risk capital to set up new businesses and the scientists and doctors who pursue new thinking in experiments? Children can learn to take risks in sport and then parlay that into the rest of their lives.
Finally, in stark contrast to Kennedy’s assertion that the ancient Greeks conceived the Olympics as a practice for war, the games served the opposite purpose.
The ancient Olympics brought together feuding city states; they declared a truce in times of war, to create a moment of solidarity every four years. The modern Olympics were born with the same ideal. They are a true testament to the art of the possible. We can all use a little motivation some days — and the Olympics, as Sochi next month will show, provide it in spades (and gold, silver and bronze).