There are some who think the only medal worth winning in the Olympics is gold. But there are at least two examples of silver medal winners who deserve gold for sportsmanship. Serbian Milo Cavic was the swimmer whom everyone thought came in first in the 100 meter butterfly. Somehow Michael Phelps’ lunge for the finish eked out a win by one one-hundredth of a second. Rather than crying foul, berating himself or bemoaning his bad luck Milo Cavic had the personal integrity to take pride in doing his best, congratulating Phelps and graciously accepting the silver medal.

The USA women’s gymnastics team was competing with the Chinese team for the coveted team gold medal when one of the Americans uncharacteristically fell on the final two exercises dropping her teammates out of contention for first place. The next day a reporter asked Shawn Johnson how disappointed she was that she and the team missed the gold due because of one teammate’s mistakes. Without a second’s hesitation Shawn responded that she was proud of her team and made the point that no one gymnast was responsible for missing out on the gold. “We competed as a team and we lost out on the gold as a team.”

One of the traits our kids need to have in life is the ability to handle frustration and disappointment without whining and complaining. While we can celebrate the achievements of stars like Michael Phelps we should also remind our kids that they should aspire to the types of gold medal performances in sportsmanship that Cavic and Johnson showed.  

Dr. Dave