I’ve tapped into a different kind of awe this week.
In my obsession with watching the Olympics, I’ve become fascinated by the near misses. By the skiers who must simply complete their run to win a medal, but who hit a gate or get going too fast to execute their final jump. Or the athletes who come in as world champions and leave without a medal.
It’s not their failure to perform under pressure that shocks me — it’s amazing anyone can function under such intense scrutiny and the weight of such high expectations. Clutch performances are remarkable. But what I find more incredible is that they keep trying.
The story that has captured my attention perhaps more than any other so far is that of Eliot Grondin. He’s a Canadian snowboarder who missed the gold medal by 0.03 seconds in Milano Cortina this week to Austria’s Alessandro Hammerle. (Three one hundredths of a second! I could barely demonstrate to my granddaughter how little time that is.) But that’s not the worst of it. In 2022 in Beijing, Eliot lost to the same opponent by 0.02 seconds and missed out on the gold medal there too!
Four years of living with falling short by 0.02 seconds.
And now the same story has played out for him again.
What level of grit does it take to keep training for those 1,460 days? And what kind of exceptional resilience will now be required of him to bounce back from this second disappointment?
There are greater tragedies, I know.
But when you see the list of Olympic medals secured in Italy, there are countless incredible stories behind them — of those who made the podium and those who didn’t.
I want to learn from the mindsets of the people who lace up their skates and strap on their skis again next week, win or lose, when the games are done. That’s worth a medal in my books.
