[The World on the Page] The Discipline of Excellence... Lessons from the Olympics

Sports: “Paintings Drawn with Sweat”
Overcoming the Limits of Physical and Mental Pain
The Glory of Victory Lasts Only a Moment
The Moment You Stop Training, You Become the Loser

The Olympics are in full swing. Watching the athletes push the limits of human capability with all their might, I am amazed by the momentary dynamism and graceful beauty. Faster, higher, farther, more precise! The magnificent spectacle that unfolds when one takes a step beyond imaginable extremes shakes our hearts like a work of art. Sports truly are ‘poetry written with the body’ and ‘paintings drawn with sweat.’

In Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics, competitions were called agon. Agon was a game that tested excellence in human qualities such as strength, speed, and memory. Unlike the modern Olympics, ancient Greek competitions did not only test physical skills but also memory techniques, persuasion, and political argumentation through epic recitations, rhetoric, and tragic performances. In any field, proving how excellently one had honed their innate talents earned the individual honor and brought glory to their community. For the Greeks, the cultivation of excellence was the highest goal in life. This spirit continues to flow through today’s Olympics.

The core principle of all competitions is fairness. Competitions are held in a heterogeneous space where the forces of reality do not operate (or are believed not to operate). The venue exists both within and outside reality. Different rules apply in competitions. No matter how high one’s status or how much money one has, those who do not train their body and mind to the limit cannot demonstrate their excellence. This is why competition rules are endlessly adjusted to prevent the influence of real-world power. In this sense, banning full-body swimsuits in swimming is commendable. It prevents technological doping powered by capital from deciding the outcome beyond the disgraceful rule violations involving drugs, allowing athletes to focus more on improving their skills. A competition where the underdog in reality can never win is simply boring.

In Greek, the skill of competition is called techne. Originally, this word meant bringing what was imagined only in the mind into the body. Improving techne requires not only a trained body but also broad imagination and brilliant creativity. The bouldering event in sport climbing is very interesting. The charm of this event seems to lie in the fact that athletes cannot see the problems beforehand. Athletes stay indoors and then come out to the venue to solve as many new problems as possible within a time limit. It is a beautiful competition that requires not only miraculous physical ability to cling to vertical cliffs as if with suction cups but also imagination and creativity to instantly design routes and a high level of concentration that allows no small mistakes. Throughout the competition, the whole family was left speechless by the athletes’ amazing techne.

The person who demonstrates the highest skill in a competition becomes the protagonist of excellence in their field. In Greek, the protagonist is called protagonist. The prefix proto- means ‘the very first.’ The protagonist of the laurel is the person who defeats everyone in a field and stands at the forefront. He is a human masterpiece who has made his own actions into a work of art. Those who repeatedly become protagonists in competitions become synonymous with that field, action, and skill. This is probably why new gymnastics techniques that surpass human limits are named after athletes. Every subsequent athlete calls that name during practice, making it a living legend. If a hero is someone who has overcome death as a human, then a person who has honed excellence in their field to the extreme becomes an immortal hero.

However, not just anyone can become a legend. Not everyone with archery skills becomes Kim Woo-jin, and not everyone who plays badminton becomes An Se-young. Anyone who wants to cultivate excellence must endure extreme physical and mental pain. Pain is called agonia in Greek. It comes from agon. This word probably arose because one must overcome the sweat shed to win, the muscles endlessly torn and healed, and the tedious repetitions done until the body fully adapts. All winners in competitions are also victors over pain. The many scars on athletes’ bodies, the compression bandages wrapped here and there, and the dark cupping marks are vivid evidence. Without the will to endure repeated pain and surpass yesterday’s self, no glory is possible.

Competitions are the best human enhancement system. They show what humans can achieve when they do their best without killing the loser. As the race between lions and antelopes on the savannah shows, losers in nature’s competitions pay with their lives. The same applies to human society. Those defeated in war either die or become slaves, making it difficult to fight again. The phrase ‘wishing to lie on firewood and tasting gall’ ironically shows how difficult it is for losers to take revenge.

Competitions are different. As long as everyone does their best and the winner’s honor is recognized, winners and losers are completely equal in competitions. We know that the glory of the winner is only momentary. The loser who lost by a hair’s breadth uses the winner as a mirror to train themselves and whips themselves day and night to surpass them. The moment one becomes complacent and stops self-discipline, the winner immediately falls to the loser. How often do we see the world’s number one ranked athlete lose form and get eliminated? Because losers who did their best are given a chance to challenge again and keep striving, records are continuously broken. The very existence of competition is a permanent innovation machine designed to surpass the ‘impossible barrier.’

Therefore, the moment when winners and losers embrace after a match shows the true form of friendship. This embrace is both an acknowledgment of the excellence shown by the winner and a promise to compete again in the next match. Nietzsche said in “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” “One must find the best enemy in one’s friend.” As the greatest Olympic athletes show, true friendship exists in the form of competing for excellence and taking the greatest rival as a friend. This is why Mencius said, “Demanding goodness from each other [責善] is the way of friends.” We are the same. Depending on what we take as a mirror and how persistently we endure and cultivate ourselves, the color of life’s medal changes. The Olympic Games teach us this.

Jang Eun-su, Publishing Culture Critic