Su Yiming wins the Milan Winter Olympics! From talented young players to unknowns, what happened to those athletes who did not win the championship?

Source: “Elitestalk” (ID: elitestalk), reprinted with authorization

On February 18, Su Yiming finally won the first gold medal for the Chinese sports delegation at this Winter Olympics in the men’s snowboard slopestyle final.

And this day happens to be his 22nd birthday. The talented boy stood on the podium, looking up at the national flag rising and shedding hot tears. In the post-match interview, he said: “Overseas, I can only have our national anthem played if I win first place.”

Su Yiming won 1 gold and 1 bronze in this event, and his number of individual Olympic medals increased to 4. However, before he stood on the Livigno Snow Park Slopestyle track, he was under a lot of attention and was burdened with unimaginable pressure. Compared with his birthday, for him, returning to the highest arena of the Olympic Games and winning the first gold medal for the Chinese delegation is the most significant thing!

Picture from CCTV News

Also on the same day, 35-year-old Xu Mengtao successfully defended her title in the women’s aerials final of freestyle skiing at the Milan Winter Olympics. After landing, she shouted with all her strength: “How did I do that? How did I dance so beautifully!”

From the age of 19 to 35, she became the oldest women’s Winter Olympics champion in the history of the Chinese team. In five Winter Olympics, she proved with her strength that as long as you have a dream, you can win at any time.

Success is certainly exciting, but in the logic of “winners and losers”, the spotlight will only shine on the champion, as if only success is worth living.

A total of about 2,900 athletes participated in 116 events in this Winter Olympics, which means that more than 2,500 athletes had hopes but ultimately missed out on medals!From a competitive sports perspective, they failed, and many people may even miss the opportunity to become famous in their lifetime.

Failure is a pity. Regret includes tears, unwillingness, and long-lasting loss.

Does winning or losing matter? important! Her Majesty Muhammad once said: “No one will remember who came second.”

However, there are only a few champions after all. What about those who lose? Being scolded, denied, forgotten, all previous efforts in vain?

Douban 9.0’s documentary “The Defeat” (also known as: Apocalypse of Defeat) tells the stories of eight failed athletes. They tell us from personal experience: 1.Temporary failure does not necessarily mean permanent failure. Life is so long, the most important thing is to learn to face failure.

Only when you lose the game but not lose in life can you truly live your life.

Picture from Douban

A boxing champion dominated by his father

Michael Bent doesn’t like boxing, but his father does. Michael’s first memory in life is sitting in front of the TV with his parents and watching boxing. Two people were fighting on the screen, and someone had an eye injury. Michael was scared, but his father was very excited.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

When he was very young, his father sent him to learn boxing. He didn’t like being hit on the head, but his father didn’t care. When he was in the fifth grade of elementary school, Michael couldn’t stand it anymore. After skipping class, he immediately told his father:“I don’t want to box anymore.”

The father said nothing, got up, broke the TV antenna, and beat Michael violently.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Michael had no choice but to continue.In his view, boxing is not a sport, but a survival instinct.

At the age of 19, he won the U.S. Golden Gloves Championship for two consecutive years and gradually gained some fame.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Later, he broke the record and won multiple amateur championships in a row. But he is not happy. Every time he competes, he hopes that there will be a power outage or a tornado, as long as he is not allowed to step onto the ring.

In order to get rid of his father’s supervision, he simply turned into a professional boxer. But professional boxing is very different from amateur boxing. In his professional debut, Michael was unable to fight back and was knocked to the ground by his opponent.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

For a boxer, there’s nothing more humiliating than that.

After losing the game, Michael’s life fell into darkness.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Walking on the street, people pointed at him:“The five-time national champion was knocked down in the first round of a professional match…”

He did not park illegally, but there was a ticket on his car with insulting words written on it.

He was in great pain and once wanted to commit suicide, but he was afraid of death.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Fortunately, he was spotted by the coach of the former boxing champion. He signed a contract, went through hard training, and finally returned to the court again.

Michael won 10 consecutive matches and then faced the then boxing champion Tommy Morrison. Surprisingly,He actually won the match and became the new boxing champion.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Michael felt like he was being driven to become a champion, which was not what he wanted.

He wanted to retire, but no one allowed him to leave under his fame and he had to continue playing one game after another.

Until one day, he was knocked to the ground again. He was hit hard on the head and passed out. He was unconscious for 96 hours. While unconscious, he heard his father say:“Let that damn guy die…”

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

After waking up, the doctor told him that he could no longer box. If his head was injured again, he would become a vegetative state. Michael was very happy after hearing this. He felt that he was finally free!

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

He bought a house, signed up for writing classes, and wrote an article for a magazine called“Analysis of Knockdown”the article recorded his many years of boxing experience and received great attention.

He also started acting in movies. He sincerely loves the actor’s career. He feels very comfortable with his colleagues and feels that he is respected.After traveling in circles for half his life, he finally felt like he belonged.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Miles Davis famously said:“Sometimes it takes a long time to find yourself.”

After being knocked down on the field, Michael was finally able to stop and ask “Who am I?” Many people never get out of the slump after failure, but Michael found his own way.

For that failure, he was only grateful, even though it hurt.

Genius discriminated against by judges

Surya is a talented French athlete. She is black and her parents adopted her from India.

Her mother loved sports and took her to try many sports: fencing, ballet, diving, gymnastics, figure skating, etc. She is extremely talented and excels in everything. She won the junior world championship in the single jump at the age of 9.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Of all the sports, Surya loves figure skating the most. When she was 11 years old, she was spotted by the national team coach Dijie and moved to Paris for training. It was very difficult when they first arrived in Paris. They had no suitable place to live and lived in a car for half a year.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

She worked hard and had talent, and she successfully entered the national team a year later.

Soon, she came to prominence at the French National Championships, winning the title and then the European Championship. After that, she won nine consecutive championships in France, becoming the country’s hope for the world figure skating championship.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

However, when she moved to international competitions, everything went terribly wrong.

In international figure skating competitions, judges expect to see beauties like “ice princesses”, that is, slender white girls.But Suriya is obviously not. She has been repeatedly criticized for being picky, “dancing inelegantly” and “her costume is ugly”… Actually there are also unspoken reasons: “She is too dark and does not look good!”

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Suriya knows this situation,Her choice was to take the hardcore route and try the extremely difficult triple triple jump combination and quadruple jump.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Suriya’s Olympic debut was not a happy one. She challenged the quadruple jump, but her movements were not perfect, so she fell behind in the rankings and lost the chance to be on the podium.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

At the World Championships not long after, Suriya performed perfectly, and her performance was far more difficult than others. But the judges still gave the gold medal to the white athlete, and Suriya only got the silver medal.

Suriya refused to accept it. She took off the prize on the spot and refused to stand on the podium.Is she destined to be a loser just because of her skin color? Can’t even get fair treatment once?

She felt wronged. It was also from this game that some people reflected that maybe the focus of the matter was not the gold medal, but that the system was broken.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

When she participated in the Winter Olympics again, Suriya made an amazing move:She performed a backflip in the opening scene！That’s a prohibited move in the arena!Because it is too dangerous, if it falls to the ground, it can easily damage the brain.

But Surya did it! She combines gymnastics with figure skating, something no one has ever seen before! The whole place was excited!

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

As for the judges, she no longer cares.In that competition, she still ranked low, but everyone will remember her backflip! She is the true uncrowned king.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Since then, Suriya gave up the gold medal in the competition. She walked onto the stage, performed figure skating, performed backflips, and showed the world her unique grace.

She became a skating coach, and when encouraging black kids to skate, she said:“Winning the game is not the most important thing in life. You don’t need to wait for a gold medal to change your life.”

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

It’s great to have a gold medal, but when you still can’t get it after giving it all, enjoy it and move on.

Suriya believes that people should strive to be a good person instead of trying to win medals. It’s really not worth it if you ruin your life or end up sad just for a medal.

The female sledder known as the “second child of ten thousand years”

There is a special kind of competition in Alaska, the dog sledding sport. This sport has very high physical requirements for people. The whole journey is 1,600 kilometers. In the weather of minus 40 to 50 degrees Celsius, the contestants have to cross valleys, rivers, creeks, mountains, rocks and other areas.

The competition starts on the first Saturday in March every year and lasts for eighty or ninety days. No one knows what emergencies will be encountered on the road.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Most of the participants in the competition are men, but one female player, Ellie, is particularly famous.Not because she won the championship, but because she kept competing but never won.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Ellie originally lived in the city and loves small animals, especially dogs. She studied biology in college, but she was unhappy because she didn’t know what kind of life she wanted.

She came to Alaska, adopted a sled dog, and let the dog pull her around. That summer, she lived in a tent and thought she had found heaven on earth.There, she can challenge herself and take control of her life.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Ellie was so excited when she found out about the sled dog race. She took her dog to the competition and came in second to last. She is very happy:“Wow! It’s our first time here, and we’re not in last place!”

After participating once, Ellie began to think about the actual process of the competition and made a plan.

She wants to win, she is a very competitive person.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Ellie started raising sled dogs and opened a dog farm. She named each dog, trained them to behave and run as a team, and treated the dogs like real athletes.

In 2001, she participated in the competition for the first time and won 33rd place; the next year, she placed 29th; the third year, she placed 14th; from the 4th to the 11th year, she participated every year, always hovering after 10th place.

In her 12th year, she made a major breakthrough and finished second. Looks promising for the title! But in the 13th year, she still ranked second.

Mentioning her ranking, locals said:“She has been working very hard.”Ellie felt that there was a strong flavor of sympathy in the words.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

During her 14th competition, she encountered bad weather. The ice on the beach was broken, and it looked like there was a sandstorm on the ground.

Ellie and the dogs were the first to find the route. She originally had a chance to win the championship, but she felt sorry for the dogs and was worried about the safety of other contestants and dogs, so she chose to stay in the cabin to rescue.

When the results came out, she was still in second place, only 2 minutes and 22 seconds away from the championship!

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

During her 15th competition, she encountered someone riding a snowmobile to commit an attack. She was very scared, but she didn’t give up the game after escaping from the scene and took third place.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Going on the road for the 16th time requires a lot of courage. She needs to overcome her own psychological barriers: Will she encounter bad people on the road again? She finally chose to participate and won 8th place.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

Although she never won the championship, Ellie lived a happy life.

Those dogs were raised by her and taught by her. For her, dogs will always be the most important part of her life. Even if they no longer compete, they will stay together for the rest of their lives.

The picture comes from the documentary “Zhao Yu”

She married locally and ran a dog farm with her husband.

To outsiders, she puts all her mental, physical, spiritual and emotional focus on the game.But she understands in her heart that the championship is not that important. The most beautiful time is traveling with the dog.

Learning to face failure is a required course in life

There are many stories about failure in “Apocalypse of Defeat”.

The basketball player who messed up everything, the marathon runner who almost died in the desert, and the football team who always lost… They all experienced miserable defeats and finally found a lifestyle that suited them.

They are losers in the game, but winners in life.Only by having the courage to look directly at defeat can you hone your vision of wisdom, discover your true self, and redefine the meaning of life.

The glory of the winner is worthy of cheering, and the choice of the loser is also worthy of attention. For us ordinary people, failure may be more worthy of careful reading.

author:Shi Lin is a wordsmith, a picture book lover, dedicated to writing, and living a simple life.

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