Russian hockey players, defeating the Canadians in the final by 1.6 score, won the silver in the World Championships. Nobody likes to defeat, but it’s sports which, like the whole life, cannot consist only by victories. What followed the final match was extremely ugly. The majority of Russian team players did not stay until the end of the awards ceremony and left the stadium before the gold medals were handed and the national anthem of Canada was played.
In good time, I was a fan for the Soviet team, which, naturally, was winning and defeating, but to be honest, I do not envision that Vladislav Tretiak or Alexander Yakushev would behave so during the defeat. In those times, the relations between the Soviet Union and the West were just as bad, as now, but the notions about the ethics in sports were at a higher level. The problem, therefore, is not so much political as moral. The behavior of nowadays Russian athletes reminded me of the case when the Azerbaijani athlete squats during the playing of Armenia’s national anthem.
This is a perfect indicator of expressing or non-expressing grief in the case of defeat, which allows learning whether we are dealing with a successful or unsuccessful person (nation). Charles Aznavour, who, certainly, is a 100 percent established person, in response to the question during the interview with Pozner about whether there were moments of disappointments when he was not recognized as a singer when young, he said that he had such thoughts in the evening, but in the morning, they were gone.
Accepting the defeat with dignity and an open forehead means paving a way for future victories. Blaming the whole world when defeating, complaining of injustice and “skullduggery” means constantly staying in the position of defeat. The next steps are the endless pitying toward your own valuable person and entering into the image of a victim. And the most successfully, the victim is always in search for the “victims” like it to establish an “alliance of upset” and to run endless talks about the defeats. The so-called exchange of the negative experience.
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It may sound strange, but I am convinced, by and large, there are no defeats and failures but experiments for which we need to be thankful as they are opportunities to learn lessons. As people say, when God sends us a gift, he usually packages it as a problem. The bigger is the problem, the larger is the packaged gift.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
