DAILY DOSE OF HOPE – BLOG – NAIMA LETT
LOSING ON PURPOSE
© NaimaLett.com/blog

© Bazuki Muhammad/Reuters, New York Times, photo source

Can’t make this stuff up.

8 OLYMPIANS – as in the BEST athletes in the world – have been disqualified for trying to lose their matches – on purpose.

Who knew badminton could be so scandalous?
Clutch the Queen’s pearls!

This VIDEO REPLAY reveals China’s Yu Yang and Wang Xiaoli and South Korean’s Jung Kyung Eun and Kim Ha Na competing for the World’s Top Worst Athlete: half-hitting the shuttlecock into the net (FYI: In my P.E. class in Augusta, Georgia, we called that feathered projectile a ‘birdie’), letting the birdie fall to the ground without even trying to return a serve, etc., obvious non-play.

I am adamantly against “booing” people, seeing firsthand how booing devastated several artists when I went to a taping of Harlem’s Showtime at the Apollo. But by the time the audience of PAYING customers started booing China and South Korea in the video, I was booing too.

Boo!
Boo!

Fans paid as much as £75.00 per ticket for the best seats in the preliminary rounds; £20 – 35 for the nosebleeds. That’s between $31 – $117 US dollars. How would you like to spend over a hundred dollars to see two teams try to lose?

Boo!

And then they’re in Britain, where the doggone sport originated during the 17th – 18th century! Historical 1800’s drawings show women in bonnets playing badminton’s precursor, battledore and shuttlecock, a game dating back to ancient Greece. And unlike Americans like myself who had one 6-weeks training of badminton in high school P.E. class, most of the British audience in that Olympic arena would’ve played the game from childhood. They LOVE the game. And they KNEW the game they were experiencing was being thrown.

Boo!

But before we get too boo happy, I have to ask the question, do we sometimes intentionally try to lose on purpose?

How many times do we sabotage our relationships?
Or slack off on the job, hoping to be ‘let go’ instead of having to ‘quit’, but we’ve already quit?
How many times do we non-commit because we’re afraid to fail and even more afraid to succeed?

Last Sunday, I preached a sermon called “Run to Win” based on Apostle Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 9:24-27.

Paul makes an analogy that those who compete in the ancient Olympic games do so to win a perishable wreath (our equivalent of a gold medal); but followers of Christ are out to win an imperishable reward. He says that he doesn’t run without aim or box the air, but trains and disciplines his own body in order to win. Paul says, “Run in such a way that you may win.”

We’ll unpack that scripture more when we get to Track and Field, as it has more direct correlation there, but Paul’s point is that nobody goes into a top athletic competition to lose. That’s absurd.

We are to compete to win.
Us. China. South Korea.

The teams who tried to lose on purpose did so in preliminary rounds in an attempt to rig their chances of winning in later rounds. The Chinese team apparently did not want to play their top Chinese team, which would’ve happened if they won the match against the South Koreans. Instead of China playing China and knocking each other out in a quarter final, they wanted to play other teams and have a chance to win gold and silver.

One problem:
Everyone can SEE you trying to LOSE.
We SEE you!

Isn’t it that way with us too?
Everyone can SEE you trying to LOSE.
Let’s stop the madness. Losing is not cute.

Compete to win.
Give it all you got.
Go out fighting.

Our Fab Five gymnasts fought for their gold medals – flying, tumbling, twisting, vaulting in the stratosphere. Yesterday, USA’s Nathan Adrian out-touched Australia’s James Magnussen by one-hundredth of a second to win gold in the 100m freestyle – 1/100 of a second!!!

That’s what we expect from our world’s top athletes, especially since there were so many other athletes knocked out of competing along the way. When we get to the Olympic stage, you’ve got to bring it.

Would we change the way we approach life if folks could boo us when they saw we weren’t giving it our best?

Would our relationships change if our spouses and significant others could boo us when we decide not to give them 100%?

Would my sermons change if folks started booing midway through if they thought I had not given it my all?

Something to ponder.
Let it never be said that we lose on purpose.
Let’s compete to win,
Naima

Anything you want to give your all to? Does this encourage you?

RESPOND TO BLOG
Below, or
Facebook or
Twitter – @naimalett