It’s not selfishness. He wanted to be outright champion.
It took courage.
but the reality is that he gave up SO much in that one moment.
I'm thinking of it this way:
You are not splitting a pie. There are two pies and you each get one, and the other person having one takes nothing away from you.
If you split: You are a gold medalist/Olympic champion, you get the prize money (perhaps divided but you will more than make up for that in other earnings as a champion), the sponsor bonuses, higher appearance fees, etc.
The other guy gets those too, but at NO expense to you. There are two pies.
If you jump off and win, you get what you already had and little more (except you are the only one with it and the prize money is greater). You barely get more pie. You simply deny someone else a pie.
If you lose, you just served yourself a much, much smaller pie.
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
but the reality is that he gave up SO much in that one moment.
I'm thinking of it this way:
You are not splitting a pie. There are two pies and you each get one, and the other person having one takes nothing away from you.
If you split: You are a gold medalist/Olympic champion, you get the prize money (perhaps divided but you will more than make up for that in other earnings as a champion), the sponsor bonuses, higher appearance fees, etc.
The other guy gets those too, but at NO expense to you. There are two pies.
If you jump off and win, you get what you already had and little more (except you are the only one with it and the prize money is greater). You barely get more pie. You simply deny someone else a pie.
If you lose, you just served yourself a much, much smaller pie.
That’s just it. The event is the ‘high jump’. They both jumped the same maximum height, with the same number of attempts, and then failed to progress.
The ‘tie break’ involved what was effectively a sudden death endurance competition.
Society handing out a medal to everyone has reached a new peak (or low) depending on how you view it.I think they just gave out two gold medals. Anyone watching on tv able to confirm?
According to McEwen, it was the 27-year-old New Zealander who had suggested they press on with competition on another hot night in the French capital.
“Talking to Hamish, man, I’ve been around him for a long time now,” said McEwen, who finished 12th in the Tokyo final. “We’re good buddies, good opponents, and good jumpers when we jump together. He said he wanted to face off, and I was all for it.
"I have so much respect for what they did in Tokyo. But I always thought that to add to the story and to be able to be given the chance to actually do the jump-off would be so amazing," Kerr said. "I knew straight away that we were going to make history, and we did that."
In 2009, though, a new rule was introduced where the jump off was made optional, which meant that athletes could share the top spot if it was mutually agreed upon.
1) The rule should not be optional.
2) Thank God, they didn't tie.
3) You guys may have it all wrong. Everyone is trying to blame it on the greedy American. Here is how it went down according to McEwen.
“Talking to Hamish, man, I’ve been around him for a long time now. We’re good buddies, good opponents, and good jumpers when we jump together. He said he wanted to face off, and I was all for it,” explained McEwen rather simply afterwards. “We faced off until the last battle and he came out on top, so salute, congratulations to him.”
In 2009, though, a new rule was introduced where the jump off was made optional, which meant that athletes could share the top spot if it was mutually agreed upon.
1) The rule should not be optional.
2) Thank God, they didn't tie.
3) You guys may have it all wrong. Everyone is trying to blame it on the greedy American. Here is how it went down according to McEwen.
“Talking to Hamish, man, I’ve been around him for a long time now. We’re good buddies, good opponents, and good jumpers when we jump together. He said he wanted to face off, and I was all for it,” explained McEwen rather simply afterwards. “We faced off until the last battle and he came out on top, so salute, congratulations to him.”
3) You guys may have it all wrong. Everyone is trying to blame it on the greedy American. Here is how it went down according to McEwen.
“Talking to Hamish, man, I’ve been around him for a long time now. We’re good buddies, good opponents, and good jumpers when we jump together. He said he wanted to face off, and I was all for it,” explained McEwen rather simply afterwards. “We faced off until the last battle and he came out on top, so salute, congratulations to him.”
Now I haven't seen a quote from Kerr.
I provided a quote from Kerr two posts above yours.
It’s clear from the footage that once Hamish was faced with the chance of sharing gold - he was happy to share which is smart. It was McEwen who wanted the jump off. Once he won gold, he was being gracious to McEwen (and trying to back his own previous comments about not sharing the gold). The truth is, anyone who would throw away a gold in their hand is a fool! All that history cares about (and the sponsors & the world) is that you are an Olympic champion - end of