Risk

I love watching the Olympics. I love watching people dare to do things humans were not meant to do. It's like watching someone launch into space, where there's no air or gravitational pull or protection against the forces of the universe. It's like people diving to the bottom of the sea in tin cans (except that one idiot who didn't listen to scientists and became an additional exhibit to the wreck of the Titanic). Sport's essential element, when you strip it down to the metal, is risk.

Like in a good book, the risks, or stakes, provide the dramatic elements that captivate society. Risk is why we watch. Not to see space shuttles explode on re-entry, nor to see athletes lose a limb, but because we want to see them enter that rarefied place where the potential failure carries those possibilities, and yet the human spirit and daring of the individuals triumph in feats that push back the boundaries of what our bodies can do.

Risk is what separates a sport from a game. Games may require incredible skill, but safety is more or less an assumption. Sport carries the threat of injury, death, and disability.

Today in Cortina, Skiing legend Lindsey Vonn dared to race with a ruptured ACL. I'm sure her doctors said no way, I'm sure her coach and teammates said maybe don't do it. But they didn't stop her, because she dared to try. A comeback for the ages at the end of her incredible career would have been the ultimate accomplishment. Instead, not four gates into her downhill race, she lost balance and flew into a crumpled wreck, screaming in pain as medics called for the air-ambulance helicopter. She had previously placed reasonable times (especially given the severity of her injury) in determined qualifying runs on prior days.

Is this all a mistake?

Should, as some will claim from the comfort of their armchairs and their keyboards at home, that she should never have been allowed to race with such an injury? Should the sport be reformed to eliminate all danger? All risk? Of note is that at these Games, for the first time in fifty years, it is now legal again for figure skaters to perform a backflip in their routines, a move that was previously deemed too dangerous and banned. When every athlete on the roster can flawlessly perform the top-scoring skills, there is no longer competition. The ceiling of risk need be lifted, and the IOC saw fit to do so for skating.

I believe Vonn's attempt, though surely not the career send-off she wanted, will leave her with no regrets for having given her all in one final try. To me, this is the spirit of sport, and while it may not make logical sense if one prioritizes personal safety above all else, her choice to compete, to dare to try, represents a shining example of defying odds and putting willpower, determination ahead of personal safety. Vonn raced injured, but two other skiers were air lifted today off the slope. I believe it was Ben Franklin who said, "if you give up liberty for security, you deserve neither."

In my estimation, while she will not win any medals, Vonn's campaign is a success in how she refused to give up despite all she faced. Her story can and should be looked upon not just in skiing or even sport at large, but in all social causes for which the odds are difficult and success seems out of reach. We are only surely defeated if we refuse to try.

Bravo Lindsey for getting up and saying "yes, I'll do it anyway."