What is winning? Is it coming first? Is Winning enjoyment?

Fatamorgana

I wondered what people made of this text which was emailed to me today from a swimming coach after a weekend's coacing conference?

I have in mind to reply in some detail and wondered if the racers here would care to add / comment with any specific references that I could perhaps consider as winning to me is not simply competing nor is it enjoyment necessarily, just ask Casey Stoner. Were Usain Bolt to come in 4th at this year's Olympics, would he return home a winner?

Cheers.

---

Winning
What is winning? Is it finishing first? Is it taking a home a gold medal or a Trophy?

NO ITS NOT

These Things are bonuses, keep sakes that will end up in an attic gathering dust.

Winning is not just about coming first as you cannot control anyone else’s ability or actions in a competition. The only person you are in control of is you. Therefore it stands to reason the only person you are ever really in competition with, is yourself and in a 1 horse race there are no prizes for 1st 2nd or 3rd.

Winning can be described as a lot of things.

Winning is taking part. Having the courage to race against people of a higher standard to test yourself and see how good you are, that’s not the action of a loser, that’s a winner. The only true failure in life is failing to try. So even if you finish last you have already won. 99 times out of 100 when you do race someone better than you, this will bring out the best in you and you will do a personal best and as I have said earlier if you beat yourself in a race (get a PB, do a skill you have been working on better) then you have won.

At a conference I was at, a speaker there, Frank Dick O.B.E. (http://www.frankdick.co.uk/) spoke about winning. He described it as “being better today than you were yesterday”, that means if yesterday you streamlined off 90 out of 100 turns and today you streamlined 91 out of 100 you are a winner, because you have improved yourself. If we focus on what others are doing we never focus on ourselves and therefore whilst they improve we will not. Aim to do something better each time in training and you will be a winner. The skills you practice in training directly relate to your races, if you don’t streamline in training you wont in a race. If you don’t practice these details in training then it stands to reason you will never be able to beat yourself and if you don’t beat yourself how can you expect to beat others?

Winning is enjoyment. You all turn up to training because you enjoy swimming, you put yourself through all the hard work in the pool, so enjoy the fun part – RACING. Those of you who do speak to your coaches after races will realise that no matter how bad you thought a swim was there are always positives, things you were better at today than yesterday (a win) those of you who don’t go for feedback will never know. At competitions focus on what you can control which is you, no one else is under your control. Know you have put the work in and got better each time and you will enjoy the race. If you do that you will win.







You may think what I have said here is a bit wishy washy, a bit soft for a coach, but if you think about it I am asking everyone of you:-

To push yourself as hard as you can
To challenge yourself to reach new heights
To compete at the highest level, against the best swimmers around regardless of age difference (young against older or older against younger, it does take a lot of courage for an older swimmer to get on the blocks against people alot younger than themselves), regardless of where people train, regardless of how much “better” they are than you
To be better today than you were yesterday

TO BE A WINNER

And once you become a winner and do things better than yesterday, then you will make progress and the bonuses of medals, throphie’s and qualifying times for major meets will come your way, and all of a sudden people will be racing you to see how good they are.

ddraver

Well, its not the definition of winning is it? That is crossing the line first...


However, I can see that It's good coaching to say things like this to motivate people, kids especially!

afx237vi

Consider that pro cycling is a sport that celebrates the lanterne rouge as a great achievement for whoever achieves it.

derbygrimpeur

winning is finishing first. end of discussion.

All the other stuff is personal achievement.

Pross

Sounds like the sort of guff they say at a school sports day to make everyone feel included. Winning is winning - that's not to say that you can't have achievement when finishing second (or even last but being closer to the others than before). I feel I've achieved something when I improve my 10 mile PB but I haven't won anything. I suppose there are grey areas, I won the club handicap series last year by having the most regular improvements in my TT times and never coming close to being fastest

rick_chasey

Judging by the chat on here about some sprinter wins, it seems it's not at all about winning and everything about how you arrive at the finish line.

inkyfingers

Rick Chasey wrote:

Judging by the chat on here about some sprinter wins, it seems it's not at all about winning and everything about how you arrive at the finish line.

Indeed. If any of us on here ever won a race at pro level it would be a solo attack from the gun over at least 4 major mountain passes and with a 10km summit finish of at least 8% average gradient, anything else isn't really a win is it.

rick_chasey

inkyfingers wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Judging by the chat on here about some sprinter wins, it seems it's not at all about winning and everything about how you arrive at the finish line.

Indeed. If any of us on here ever won a race at pro level it would be a solo attack from the gun over at least 4 major mountain passes and with a 10km summit finish of at least 8% average gradient, anything else isn't really a win is it.

A 'Landis' then?

inkyfingers

Rick Chasey wrote:

inkyfingers wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Judging by the chat on here about some sprinter wins, it seems it's not at all about winning and everything about how you arrive at the finish line.

Indeed. If any of us on here ever won a race at pro level it would be a solo attack from the gun over at least 4 major mountain passes and with a 10km summit finish of at least 8% average gradient, anything else isn't really a win is it.

A 'Landis' then?

Nah, that wasn't a summit finish was it. Chipper.

Yellow Peril

Interesting thread this.

If the purpose of the competition is to win and winning, as Derby grimpeur points out, is crossing the line first then continuing to race when there is no hope of winning is pointless.

I have seen a lot of this. I am a fairly crap racer and timetriallist I only ever race handicaps as I am the longest of longmarkers and my best result is eigth. I have finished last on numerous occassions and when I have eventually finished and seen the result sheet I have seen a list of riders who have DNF'd not because of illness or injury or breakdown but just because they couldn't hold the wheel of their group on that day and couldn't deal with the shame of being dropped. I'd never jack a race just because it wasn't going my way (it never does) but to some people not being ~"a winner" is to lose face. They couldn't cope with being the last finisher on the result sheet.

Is winning in a TT the same as winning in a bunch race? We have 2 or 3 guys who divvy up the TT's over here between them yet over a 100 turn out every week. Should 97 of them stay at home because their participation is pointless as they will never win?

rick_chasey

Yellow's got it.

Exactly.

derbygrimpeur

no he hasn't. The question is not "is the point of participation, winning?" it is "what is winning? is it coming first?"

Just because you don't ever stand a chances of winning doesn't mean you shouldn't participate. Your participation is not pointless. You participate for personal achievement, whatever your own standards may be.

Winning in a TT is more impressive (IMO) than in a Road Race as it's usually because you're the best rider there, which is not always the case in a RR.

Winning remains being first across the line (or in a TT, the one with the quickest time). You personal achievement, and reason for participating, can be whatever you want it to be. That's the beauty of sport - you don't have to be the best to enjoy it.

derbygrimpeur

by "best" I mean strognest/fittest. A RR winner may be a better rider than a stronger/fitter rival

shockedsoshocked

Winning is a poor choice of words, as it's an absolute, simply being first.

There are many things that can be as satisfying if you don't have the ability to win, even if it's just simply doing a bit better than last time.

Pross

derbygrimpeur wrote:

no he hasn't. The question is not "is the point of participation, winning?" it is "what is winning? is it coming first?"

Just because you don't ever stand a chances of winning doesn't mean you shouldn't participate. Your participation is not pointless. You participate for personal achievement, whatever your own standards may be.

Winning in a TT is more impressive (IMO) than in a Road Race as it's usually because you're the best rider there, which is not always the case in a RR.

Winning remains being first across the line (or in a TT, the one with the quickest time). You personal achievement, and reason for participating, can be whatever you want it to be. That's the beauty of sport - you don't have to be the best to enjoy it.

Exactly this. The person writing the article has chosen the wrong wording to make the point they are trying to make.

Remarkable

Victory.

Fatamorgana

My reply:

"....
"Winning is not just about coming first. " Actually, it is exactly that. If Usain Bolt comes fourth and fails to make it to the winner's podium, will he be a happy camper? Is there a medal for coming fourth even? Do you even recall who came fourth in the Beijing Games blue riband event ? If he won bronze, is this winning the Men's 100m?

"Winning is taking part. " No. Competing is taking part. A winner is deemed to have come first. On this there is no debate.

Who won the last General Election? Certainly not the Green Party nor the Monster Raving Loony Party, but they both took part. Therefore the idea that "even if you finish last you have already won" is to seriously dumb down what winning means; to win. If my child comes last in the freestyle swim, neither I nor the child consider it a win and they don't tell their grandparents they won either (I hope!). Ask Bradley Wiggins if coming 4th in the Tour de France last year felt like winning; however, just don't bet against him this year!

You can win bronze, but you did not win the race. Similarly you can win the Lottery, or £10 perhaps. Your company, A, won the contract to clean my school / office / but not company B - they failed to win the contract.Thus winning has several meanings in the English language yet for the purpose of competing in the swimming pool, Olympics or any similar point in between, we need to consider winning the business of coming first.

When competing you are competing against the fellow competitors and yourself. When training, you have one eye on the competition and you train accordingly as you alluded to, "and all of a sudden people will be racing you to see how good they are". You train to improve but this is only one reason to train, and a yardstick is both your own performance & that of your peers. By improving you may become good enough to win.

"Winning is enjoyment" No entirely. Ask Casey Stoner, 26, the current MotoGP World Champion, "(I) think that I am one of the few riders who can actually say they have retired (at the end of the 2012 season) when they have stopped enjoying it." He's a winner but no longer enjoys what he does for a living. Training can give as much or more pleasure, ask any endorphin what its doing in your blood stream at the end of a tough session!

Thus winning is not everything, but winning most certainly is coming first. Most of us will never win, but that's not why we compete and would be to miss the point entirely as coming first is not why we're in the pool or on the bike or running that race or bidding for contracts.

I appreciate the summing up but have, as you'll have gathered, some issues over wording and definitions but your conclusions are sound.

Yellow Peril

I don't think winning is that simple. Lots of dictionaries have several definitions for winning. A common one is success which can be judged on several levels.

Getting on the podium makes you a winner, you have all been successful but only one has come first. Jonny Bellis getting back on a bike is a winner but he hasn't won any races.

winning is different things to different people. Coming first is exactly that, coming first.

jgsi

Yellow Peril wrote:

Interesting thread this.

If the purpose of the competition is to win and winning, as Derby grimpeur points out, is crossing the line first then continuing to race when there is no hope of winning is pointless.

I have seen a lot of this. I am a fairly crap racer and timetriallist I only ever race handicaps as I am the longest of longmarkers and my best result is eigth. I have finished last on numerous occassions and when I have eventually finished and seen the result sheet I have seen a list of riders who have DNF'd not because of illness or injury or breakdown but just because they couldn't hold the wheel of their group on that day and couldn't deal with the shame of being dropped. I'd never jack a race just because it wasn't going my way (it never does) but to some people not being ~"a winner" is to lose face. They couldn't cope with being the last finisher on the result sheet.

Is winning in a TT the same as winning in a bunch race? We have 2 or 3 guys who divvy up the TT's over here between them yet over a 100 turn out every week. Should 97 of them stay at home because their participation is pointless as they will never win?

I am with this.. I always strive to win... hold that thought in my head at least.. truth be known it is very unlikely to happen... not going to pack in racing though.
was a little unhappy this weekend with a race director's call to retire me and a few others after being lapped on a shortish road circuit when I saw no harm in continuing to hold with the main bunch, not interfere but finish a lap down instead of a dnf being recorded.
He may have thought it pointless letting us carry on, but I saw it the opposite way.

Jambes de Fer

I thought 'WINNING' was the state of being Charlie Sheen, i.e. on as many drugs as possible.

/2011

Fatamorgana

The reply (my own repy last night was similar to that posted above but I changed it somewhat):

"...The whole purpose of my email was to get the swimmers to realize that 1st 2nd and 3rd are not the be all and end all, sometimes in life we will get beaten and its how we view and react to that defeat that determines how far we can get in life or sport.

I go to a story told to me on my level 3 Coaches course by Malcolm Fergusson former head of British Swimming and Olympic coach. He was in America coaching the world record holder and world number 1 in 100m fly in an Olympic year. Every thing they did running up to the Olympics went as planned, no injuries, no missed sessions and every race went to plan - the perfect preparation (which never normally happens). In the final he broke the world record as planned, but won the silver. We cannot control what others do so we have to control what we do and view every self improvement as a victory. When asked if he was disappointed he said "on missing the gold yes on my performance no, there was nothing more I could of done today the simple fact is on this day he was quicker than me". He went back to training and at world championships the next year won the gold and broke the record again.

As you say our wording is slightly different but the message is the same, to quote the USA army "be all you can be". They way I worded it was for the younger swimmers to encourage them to try harder in training and to improve themselves to new levels and as you say and the quotes you have used we are on the same page with regards to self improvement and the desire to "win". What I dont want is people just focusing on medals, coming back from a race where they have improved skills such as streamling, turns or technique and done a PB but been beaten by someone who is physically more developed than them or doing twice the training and throwing a hissy fit and crying and only focusing on the fact they were beat instead of the fact they had improved.

Nor do I want them not having the courage to enter races where they may get beat, my most memorable moment in swimming was getting beat by Adrian Moorhouse in 1988 (the year he won the Olympic gold) it's not winning the Doncaster darts open meet or silver and bronze at regional championships or even competing in nationals or world masters. Until you reach senior level swimming and the body has stopped developing you cannot really compare one swimmer to another, none of the current Olympic team started winning regionals or nationals to after puberty and their growth slowed down or stopped, it is a long hard slog to get to the top in this sport, more so than others and if we can encourage self improvement above all, the journey becomes shorter."

timoid.

ShockedSoShocked wrote:

Winning is a poor choice of words, as it's an absolute, simply being first.

There are many things that can be as satisfying if you don't have the ability to win, even if it's just simply doing a bit better than last time.

This. ^^^

Don't confuse achievement with winning. Struggling to finish when others have given up (a la Yellow Peril) can be a fine achievement. But only one person can win a particular event.