Sweet jumping jebus, who pissed in Zara’s freaking wheaties?
I don’t know about anybody else, but a fucking SILVER MEDAL is winning.
Top Gun
Slider: Remember, boys, no points for second place.
Silver medalists are apparently less happy than the bronze medalists. Those who got bronze are just thrilled they got a medal. Silver? That’s not gold.
No, a silver medal is not the prize for winning a competition.
Yeah, a silver medal is an amazing accomplishment, but that doesn’t make it a win. If they gave out a second place trophy for the Super Bowl, you wouldn’t say “Congrats on winning the Super Bowl.”
That’s especially the case for competitions which are decided by one side -against-the other games, as with most team sports and most combat sports. Because in that case the silver medal winner just lost their last game/fight/match so they typically feel like losers. Whereas the bronze medal winner (in many cases) just won their last game, so they feel like winners.
As they say, second place = first loser.
Nope. A silver medal is an achievement. It is something to be proud of. But in absolutely no way can you call it “winning”. After losing the final game of the tournament to the US, do you honestly think the Spanish men’s basketball team could declare that they “won”?
Nope - second place is a consolation prize, no matter how many obstacles you had to overcome to achieve it.
Silver medalists in many instances are going to be very rough on themselves. It is coming up just short of winning, if only they had put in more effort preparing and at the event.
It depends on the wording the writer used. There’s nothing wrong with the phrase “Phillips won a silver medal,” but if she went up to her and said “Congratulations on winning at the Olympics,” that’s at least a little off because it could mean winning a medal or winning the event.
She’s still coming across as a rude bitch.
Also, as I implied, there’s a difference between the silver medal in basketball and the silver medal in the 100m. In basketball the silver medalists just lost their last game – no doubt about it. In the 100m the silver medalist beat almost everyone else in the race. That’s why the basketball silver medalists are glum, while the 100m silver medalists are happy. Typically.
Yeah that’s it. The silver medalist sees themselves as the best in the world, except for falling short that one time where it counted. Bronze shows you stand with the best, but you weren’t going to win anyway. But silver says you just needed that one extra bit of effort, you just needed to want it a little more, you should have won but you didn’t. Even if the gold medalist is leaps and bounds ahead of you, and nobody else had a chance of winning, you think it’s just bad luck you competed in that year where that freak of nature was skewing the odds. A silver medal has to be the very worst when it comes in one-on-one competition, where it gets down to that final round, and your last thing you did in the competition was lose. And then when you get the medal you have stand there with the gold medal winner, on a lower step, and watch them get all the applause.
It all depends on the background; if you’re world champion, world recordholder and unbeaten for 3,5 years… silver sounds terrible. If you are used to hanging around as 10th best in most competitions: silver is going to be absolutely terrific. I can think of a few unhappy silver medalists from the last olympics, although I don’t know about this girl’s situation.
I don’t think so.
I don’t think she’s coming off as a rude bitch. I think she’s just matter of fact. If you came second, you did not win.
She’s also making it clear as to her expectations of herself. As others have pointed out, it’s almost worse to get the silver than the bronze because you LOST at the LAST STEP. True, the entire remainder of the field of N-2 competitors would presmably love to trade places with you, but that’s not how it feels for elite competitors who have devoted countless hours of training and practice to be in the position to win that final game, match or round… And then feel like they failed.
If you look her up on Wikipedia, it notes that she’s won several European championships - gold medals - in equestrian, but was not able to compete in the 2004 or 2008 Olympics due to last minute training injuries to her horse. She’s now 31 years old so this past Olympics was nearing the end of her window as an athlete, and what’s more, were held in her home country. So for her to feel like she’s come up just short is triply galling.
Also, mind your choice of words, LavenderBlue. IMHO she’s only “coming across as a bitch” (instead of just “sore loser”) if you think a keen sense of competition and drive to win is “unfeminine”. I mean, women should just be happy with what they get, right? (Not saying that that is what you meant, but that is definitely what it sounds like.)
If you’re not first, you’re last! - Ricky Bobby
“If you ain’t first, you’re last.” - Ricky Bobby
(rats- too slow. I knew SOMEONE would post that!)
Pssshh…
She didn’t win silver,
the horse did.