Listening to women’s national volleyball team coach Julio Velasco commenting on the stupendous women’s volleyball semifinal won by Italy, I was thinking about several things. Let’s start with what he told Eurosport:
Volleyball and journalism need to stop talking about the missing gold, it is detrimental to everyone.
You always see what is missing, it is an all-Italian sport, the grass is always greener on the other side. It’s a philosophy of life, but Olympic gold when it comes it will come: there are so many strong teams, you can win and you can lose, the important thing is that the nerves don’t betray us, it will be the first medal, let’s enjoy this, what we have and not what we don’t have, then it’s clear that we will give everything we have to do more.
We must be able to find even more tranquility, the girls were a bit tense, we did not play our best volleyball, there were some mistakes that were a bit trivial, the result of tension.
1. We are obsessed with what we don’t have
Medals-gold, silver or bronze-are very important milestones but they are also numbers.
At the end of the Olympics you can look at the medal table and count whether the national team did better or worse than last time but what you see is a set of numbers, which by the way doesn’t make much sense.
Comparing the medal table of 2012 to that of 2024 and both to that of 1972 or 1992 matters very relatively since in the meantime new disciplines have been added and others have been excluded.
Besides: even the medals themselves have difference, right?
Bronze is almost a consolation, only gold counts, and silver they give to the first of the losers.
How many times have you heard or thought that?
Let’s assume that already participating in the Olympics is a victory for a great many athletes (for everyone, probably).
Once you are in the Olympics, any achievement is the most important for you and the nation you represent.
And this was taught to us by the athletes who rejoiced over a fourth or fifth place finish or otherwise getting to the finals or semifinals.
It matters to participate, doesn’t it?
It counts giving everything, doesn’t it?
What Velasco says, however, is even more profound: we are obsessed with an award, as if a medal defines an athlete, as if they only have merit if they win one.
The result is that we only look at what we don’t have and take for granted what we do have.
There are extraordinary athletes and there is a national team that can compete at the world level but we think that its only value is the number of medals it wins.
To think that already being able to contend with other nations is not so trivial.
It does not mean settling for any performance-it means realizing the qualities of the athletes and female athletes.
Not taking anything for granted, and this was explained by very young athletes who by a whisker (in some cases tenths of a second) did not reach the podium.
Maybe they were inexperienced, maybe being there and participating was already a victory, but after all, that’s the spirit, isn’t it?
Those obsessed with gold are the same as those in a meme circulating these days: there is a decidedly out-of-shape guy lying uncomfortably on a couch who, while eating junk food, comments on the millimeter errors of artistic gymnastics competitions saying “Pathetic.”
Surely he would have done better, but he didn’t go to Paris, who knows why.
2. A little less pressure
Removing the veil of myth from gold does not mean saying that any medal is good.
Aside from the fact that, in the case of women’s volleyball, a loss would still mean silver, Velasco pointed out another interesting aspect that relates not only to physical preparation but especially to mental preparation.
He said that being relaxed can sometimes be better than focusing like laser beams on a result.
Especially when maybe it doesn’t come easily and you start to lose confidence.
That’s when we make the most mistakes.
We have come to confuse focus with obsession: being focused on an outcome means being responsive, being able to adapt to changing fortunes, being able to interpret opponents, studying them and knowing their weaknesses.
It means respecting them.
Being stiffened by the weight of the pressure you feel on your shoulders loaded with expectations only produces nervousness and mistakes.
Velasco basically says that a team must have competence and respect for the opponent.
And think about doing well what it can do.
Maybe proceed step by step, point by point, without thinking about the result.
Have confidence in the process, they say: if you give your best you get your best and if you lose it means the opponent was better than you, the end.
3. The relationship with victory
Victory has taken on a profoundly wrong meaning in recent years.
It does not mean being better than an opponent: it means annihilating him.
In the era of brutal simplifications and warring and violent public debate, the physical or figurative annihilation of the antagonist seems to be the only permissible victory.
No: the losing opponent always has the honor of having tried and deserves all respect.
I was thinking about this while watching the men’s basketball semifinal: until 3/4 of the game Serbia was leading.
A stupendous and exhilarating pattern was being set up: the underdog (okay, speaking of Serbia the word “underdog” is a bit excessive, I agree) who is beating the favorite.
Then in a few minutes the situation was reversed and the U.S. recovered and won.
Then I thought about the beauty of the sport: it is magnificent not because only those who have to win win but because sometimes the underdogs win and because other times those who seem to be losing eventually recover and win.
The most beautiful feats are the most hard-fought and suffered ones. The beautiful thing about sports is not the victory but it is the achievement of victory.
It is not the goal: it is the journey. And when you arrive, you think about where to go next.