Champion bashing: Is it fair?

Sport is a cruel world for athletes who have shone in previous competitions but cannot get back on track.

French swimmer Laure Manaudou is, unwillingly, the most striking example of an athlete who failed to get results in these Games.

An Olympic champion in Athens when she was just 18 years old, Laure was under incredible pressure four years later in Beijing.

It was a difficult year for the French champion: scandals caused by intimate pictures, recurrent changes of coaches and pressure from sponsors. Any of these could be a reason for a young athlete to quit, but she preferred to stay in China, painfully finishing all the individual events.

Yet a wave of criticism crashed onto her: “She is getting worse,” “She is finished.” The press, who just a couple of weeks ago saw Manaudou at the top of the podium, seemed satisfied to see her sink, maybe prematurely. But is it fair to judge our sport icons so hard when, after all, they are just men and women?

"Can we bury our icons?"

Hubert Ripoll, author of "Le Mental des Champions" ("Champions' Mentality"), offers an explanation for defeats endured by sport icons in Beijing.

The ferocity of some commentaries against sport icons is just deplorable. There was Marie-Jo Perec (triple Olympic champion in athletics) and Franck Dumoulin (Olympic champion in pistol shooting) and Laure Manaudou. How many more? Should we do that? Certainly not.

We tend to project ourselves on them, so we do not accept their weaknesses because they reveal ours. And yet, it is in these moments that they need us.

In fact, only group cohesion can help champions confront themselves and beat their opponents. Several examples illustrate this point: Laura Flessel (fencing), who won the team event at the world championships against all odds, or Alain Boghossian (football), member 1998 world cup winning team, both reckon there is a consequence to group cohesion. Our defeated icons need our support because they made us dream and resist in adversity.

Before the games, I wanted to write an article titled: "Can Manaudou really win?" I would have concluded with a firm "no".

After the women's 400-metre freestyle, I wrote on the Observers (11/08 Laure Manaudou adrift):

"The difficulty for great champions is to rise again. To do so, one needs the necessary motivation, the right coach and the strength to fight on. I fear she may struggle to recover the motivation." That is what has happened, but what's next?

Laure Manaudou now swims for her family and for the French team, not just for herself.

Can she still win a place in final? I think so. Her honour back? Maybe. A family, certainly. To learn and come back is human. Everything can be possible, far from the turmoil of the games, if only she desires it.

So, no, we cannot bury our icons without burying ourselves, too.

Champion bashing: Is it fair?

"Can we bury our icons?"

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