Golden envy

by-Zack Walton

Driven so hard to compete, athletes often lose sight of a real accomplishment when it doesn’t match up to their standards of achievement.

What makes a champion is not titles won or awards received—or, in the case of the Olympics, gold medals earned—but it seems to be the only thing that fans recognize.

Everyone likes to see a champion. A moment frozen in time that signifies a person’s accomplishment, showing the fruits of all their hard labor, captures the attention of all sports fans.

Michael Jordan hitting the series-clinching shot against the Utah Jazz in the 1998 NBA Finals. Joe Namath running off the field after the victory in Super Bowl III, following the prediction that his New York Jets would beat the heavily favored Baltimore Colts.

These images immediately project ‘champion’ to the minds of sports fans.

But these are not the only champions. Often times there are more champions than just those on the top of the podium.

Former Fresno State wrestler Stephen Abas captured the silver medal in the 121-pound freestyle wrestling division this weekend. Abas entered the Olympics as the United States champion, but according to wrestling experts, was a relative long shot to win the gold.

Abas moved briskly through the preliminary rounds and advanced to the gold medal match against Russian Mavlet Batirov by beating eventual bronze medalist Chikara Tanabe of Japan.

But in the final match, Abas was out-wrestled, dropping a 9-1 decision, and took his place one step down from the top of the podium.

That one step is significant, but it shouldn’t be the deciding factor in whether or not Abas has reached the status of a champion.

He is a champion. And he’s Fresno State’s champion.

Abas becomes the university’s first Olympic medalist in wrestling and joins Laura Berg of the U.S. Olympic softball team as Fresno State alumni capturing medals from the XXVIII Olympiad.

But a glance at him on the podium during the medal ceremony doesn’t reflect any of this.

Abas appeared dejected, almost as though within himself he sensed failure. Abas is far from a failure. He has achieved something only a handful of those before him—none from Fresno State—have accomplished.

But don’t look for this to happen to him again.

Fresno State wrestling coach Dennis Deliddo said Abas doesn’t make mistakes twice.

“Stephen makes it a point to not to lose twice to the same wrestler,” Deliddo said. “He works really hard and always beats those who have beat him.”

If any individual on earth were recognized as the second-best athlete in the world in a particular athletic event, I bet 99.999 percent of them would be ecstatic.

The lone 0.001 percent represent the gold medalist and the dejected silver medalist.

Not everyone that steps on the podium and has the silver medallion placed around his or her neck is disappointed. But taking a look at the second-place finishers from the 2004 summer Olympics, several instances occur where anything other than gold equals disappointment.

In the men’s gymnastic individual all-around, Paul Hamm of the U.S. edged out South Korea’s Dae Eun-kim by .012 of a point—the closet finish in men’s gymnastics history. And since then, controversy has loomed as to whether bronze medalist Yang Tae-young of South Korea should have actually won gold.

During the medal ceremony, both Dae and Yang stared blankly as the U.S. National Anthem played.

After losing to Argentina in the semifinals, the U.S. men’s basketball team beat Lithuania for the bronze medal and members of Team USA proceeded to trudge their way through the medal ceremony, leaving the podium emotionless and solemn.

After failing to earn gold in the individual all-around for the third straight Olympics, Svetlana Khorkina of Russia stood disgruntled on the silver-medal winning step of the podium, next to gold medalist Carly Patterson of the U.S.

Olympic athletes who accomplish incredible feats, on the world level, should be able to realize there’s no shame in second.

Be proud of their achievements and stand as champions.

This columnist can be reached at zwalton5@csufresno.edu