10 life lessons to learn from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

Every four years (well, five this time around), we get to see the world’s best athletes compete at the Olympic Games. Through their wins and losses, trips and falls, we see heartening displays of courage and humanity, team spirit and camaraderie, and the human spirit at its highest and lowest.

After the year that has been 2020, we’ve never needed the Olympic Games more to remind us that there’s light at the end of every tunnel. Here are some life lessons we took from binge-watching the games the past few weeks. 

In everything, choose kindness

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One day, you’re the country’s favourite son holding aloft its only Olympic gold medal. The next, you’re the target of Singapore’s KBW (keyboard warriors) and a slew of mean-spirited comments.

How we chose to react to Joseph Schooling’s failure to advance to the 100m butterfly semi-finals speaks volumes about us (yes, not him) and our ability to extend empathy and compassion. While there’s no question that a national athlete must bring their best to the Games, what if this was his best?

Thankfully, numerous acts of kindness rose above the snarky remarks about his physique, as well as the expected cries over NS deferment and use of state funds.

In a Facebook post, President Halimah Yacob paid tribute to Schooling’s years of sacrifice and dispensed words of wisdom we could all be inspired by: “One moment, we carry people to the highest pedestal with our words, yet the next moment we thrash them to the ground just because they fail to live up to our expectations.

Yet, many a time, we would ask for dispensation for ourselves if we did not achieve something which others expect of us. We argue that we are only human but we don’t apply the same yardstick to others.”

Your mental health matters

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Even GOATs have bad days. In Simone Biles’ case, a combination of mental health concerns and a case of “the twisties” saw the seven-time Olympic medalist suddenly withdrawing from the women’s team gymnastic finals and three other individual events.

Facing heavy media scrutiny, she eventually finished Tokyo 2020 with two medals and a renewed mindset. To step away and out of the competition to put her mental health first took great maturity and courage from Biles, and perhaps in this process, she has re-found herself.

In an interview with NBC, she summarised her Olympic performance: “I didn’t really care about the outcome,” she added. “I was just happy that I made the routine and that I got to compete one more time.”

Don't be afraid to be you

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When the cameras picked up Olympic gold medalist Tom Daly calmly knitting in the stands, the Internet broke. The heart-warming sight of the British diver working the yarn gave us all the warm fuzzies.

The four-time Olympian, who somehow finds the time between competitions and training to knit, said “the one thing that has kept me sane throughout this whole process is my love for knitting and crocheting and all things stitching”, according to an interview with Sports Illustrated.

Aside from knitting a sleeve for his gold medal (because why not), he’s knitted a pink cardigan for fellow Malaysian diver Cheong Jun Hoong and various other colourful pieces documented on his Instagram (@madewithlovebytomdaley).

His piece de resistance though, is a white sweater with “Team GB”, the Olympics rings, “GBR” and “Tokyo” (written in kanji) which he crafted “as something that would remind me of the Olympics to look back on in the future”, which he is (of course) using as a fundraising effort for @thebraintumourcharity in memory of his dad. Seriously, how much more can we love this individual!

In everything, give your 100 per cent

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While most of us spent 2020 working from home and binging on food deliveries and Netflix marathons, Olympic rower Joan Poh was doing the impossible: juggling her day job as a dialysis nurse at Tan Tock Seng Hospital and training for Tokyo 2020.

While she finished 28th out of 32 competitors in the women’s single sculls competition with a time of 8:21.23, hers was an achievement that showed true grit and determination.

In an interview with the New York Times, she explained modestly: “When I’m at work, I’m 100 per cent a nurse. When I’m training, I’m 100 per cent a rower. It’s always about finding that balance and making it work.” Poh is the second Singaporean rower to reach the Olympics. We hope that this won’t be her only appearance.

Hard work always pays off

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No one saw 18-year-old Ahmed Hafnaoui coming. Not the sports commentators, perhaps not even himself, even though he was leading the 400m freestyle race for most of the 3 minutes 43.36 seconds it took to win his first gold medal.

It was a masterful, powerful performance by the Tunisian teenager who is only the second Tunisian to qualify for an Olympic swimming final. This pre-Olympics Instagram post gives a peek at what drives him in the water: “Win If You Can, Lose If You Must, But NEVER QUIT!”

Your response to adversity determines your success

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Yu Mengyu may have lost to world no. 3’s Mima Ito (Japan) 4-1, placing fourth in the Table Tennis Women’s Singles, but she’s a golden girl in our eyes. The 31-year-old who once ranked 9th in 2010, impressed us over and over again with her grit, powering through debilitating spinal and shoulder injuries to bring her best to the table time after time.

The only player among the semi-finalists not ranked among the world’s top four (she went into the Olympics ranked 47th), her stoic, laser focus and ability to compartmentalise her mistakes and failures is the mark of a true champion.

When you stumble, pick yourself up

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Dutch distance runner Sifan Hassan is proof that Olympic athletes are of a different calibre. 300m from the finish line of her 1,500m heat, she tripped and fell to the ground. For the next minute, she opened her stride and sprinted her way to first place, much to the amazement of everyone watching. Her powerful performance was further sealed later that day when she won her 5,000m final with relative ease.

In an interview with Associated Press, Hassan said the thought [of quitting the 1,500m race] crossed her mind for a split second. “But I told myself no. I didn’t want to regret it later. I don’t want all the excuses.”

Victory is what you define it as

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The first female sprinter to represent Singapore at the Olympic Games in 65 years, Veronica Shanti Pereira has done us proud. Clocking in a timing of 23.96 seconds in the heats of the 200m dash, ranking 39th overall (and sixth in her race), she achieved what she set out to do: to go under 24 seconds and enjoy her race.

Going into Tokyo 2020, Pereira who has not had a competitive race since 2019, knew she would be an outlier for any medal possibilities, but it didn’t deter her. “I want a good time, a personal best or something (near to it) that is good,” she said in an interview with The Straits Times.

“But the fact I am here, I am already thankful. I am not going into (the heat) with too much expectation, and I want to focus on enjoying my race.”

There’s no harm in asking

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No, you didn’t just watch a Hallmark movie, Qatar’s Mutaz Essa Barshim and Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi did agree to become co-gold medalists in the Olympic high jump.

After an exhausting two-hour competition where the pair recorded their best clearances of 2.37m each, the duo decided instead of doing a jump-off, they asked the golden (pun intended) question: “Can we have two golds?”.

This marks the first joint Olympic podium in athletics since 1912, and a shining example of what it means to have sportsmanship: “I look at him, he looks at me, and we know it. We just look at each other and we know, that is it, it is done. There is no need,” Barshim told reporters after the event, according to Reuters.

“He is one of my best friends, not only on the track but outside the track. We work together,” he added. “This is a dream come true. It is the true spirit, the sportsman spirit, and we are here delivering this message.”

Life is too short to not have some fun

@sunisalee_

tokyo bound tmr??

♬ Dangerously In Love X The Box - rapidsongs

No surprise that Olympic athletes after hours (and sometimes before and in-between) like to let off a little steam. If you’ve been following #olympictok, you would have had a peek at the shenanigans going on in the Olympic village, and some more personal, heartfelt BTS moments.

We’re in stitches over Ilona Maher’s hunt for foreign demigods, loving that Australian diver Sam Fricker got a haircut by an actual Japanese stylist and all for Sunisa Lee’s Olympic manicure and her game day lashes. This is the backstage access we’ve really wanted!

This article was first published in Her World Online.