So I spent the Sunday teaching my 5-year-old how to start a running race: foot behind the line, go on the ‘g’ of GO!, that sort of thing. Then, into the race, don’t look left, don’t look right, just straight ahead (his friend Thomas fell over in his race waving at his mum). Then run right through the line - how many youngsters stop just short and ruin all their hard work (you wouldn’t get Dwain Chambers doing that sort of thing).
We turned up on the Monday: me, admittedly fighting the urge to be competitive dad, him, really looking forward to the competition. It turns out there was no running race. They were divided into teams and they did silly little obstacle races and didn’t even do them against another team, just working up points. There was a winning team, but other than that it was devoid of that competitive edge. I was disappointed, my son was disappointed, and I can’t shake the nagging feeling that this kind of goody goody inclusional spirit misses the point, makes naturally gifted athletes miss out on excelling, and breeds the ‘gentleman loser’ mentality from which some of our national teams suffer. I don’t think the Aussies and the Americans have the same approach.