What we can learn from Olympians about making mistakes, by Georgia Lewis

Every four years (or five years this time, thanks to the global pandemic), armchair experts of the world assemble. From London to Lima, TVs are turned on and living rooms fill with the roar of often ill-informed insights on the world’s best athletes. There’s nothing quite like the Olympics to make us blurt out opinions on why a dressage rider narrowly missed out on a medal or to critique the form of someone who can jump a bar that is higher than a Ford Transit van.

It’s easy to feel Schadenfreude when an Olympian fails. Look at that muscular Adonis trip over the hurdle! See the hockey player miss that match-winning goal! Whoops, the synchronised swimmers were out of synch!

But when Olympic athletes make mistakes, it is the equivalent of your worst day at work being broadcast on national television. Imagine that — you’ve made your biggest career blunder and everyone in the country can watch it over and over again for their amusement. Your mistake will be a news story. It will live forever on the internet where people will be able to Google it whenever they fancy seeing you mess up.

That is why it is not just inspiring but instructive to listen to the athletes who have made mistakes at the Tokyo Olympics. The words of those who didn’t win, especially if they missed out because of a mistake, are just as important as the breathless interviews with excited gold medallists.

Pamela Ware, a Canadian diver, scored a devastating 0.0 and missed the final when she attempted a springboard dive with a 3.5 degree of difficulty. She misjudged her approach and her knee appeared to buckle slightly. Ware aborted the attempt and jumped into the pool feet-first. Her only other choice in that split second would have been to try and salvage the dive and risk injury.

Afterwards, she posted a wonderful video on Instagram. She didn’t blame anyone; she owned the mistake. She stayed strong and made the important point that what we see on TV is only a fraction of what Olympians actually do. And she vowed that she would bounce back, that her dream was still alive, that she was not going to be defined by one disastrous dive.

It was a lesson in how to handle any mistake — to take responsibility, to explain what happened with humility and honesty, and to commit to moving forward. Her words were a breath of fresh air amid an Olympics that has been blighted by commentators who have been quick to judge athletes from the safety and comfort of their keyboards.

Athletes, like everyone else, are fallible. We all make mistakes. Athletic mistakes usually come wrapped in physiques that have been attained through years of hard work and sacrifice, and that’s important to remember.

Ware's unfortunate foot-first dive, Simone Biles making a mistake on a vault that could have easily resulted in a broken neck, Team GB sprinter Zharnel Hughes getting disqualified from the men’s 100-metres final for a false start — they are all examples of how one mistake can make a lifetime of training seem like a waste of time.

But these three athletes have not wasted their time. Equally, when we make mistakes, it does not negate our years of education or experience. What we can control after we make a mistake is how we react to it. Like Ware, we can take responsibility, learn and look ahead, knowing our lives are more than a single blunder. And we can be very grateful that nobody saw our mistake on TV...