Hard work does not equal results

I love to watch the gymnastics event of the Olympics, especially the women’s event. The event just draw me. Though each routine takes only a few minutes or even seconds to finish, I know that they put in a lot of hard work into it, maybe even their whole life.

The other I was watching the Men’s Artistic Gymnastics - Individual Apparatus finals. It was the floor exercise. One of the competitor was a gymnast from Brazil, Diego Hypolito. The commentator said he’s a World Champion on floor exercise. During the whole routine, Diego was doing good. During the last tumble, he unexpectedly sat down. Normally, when an athletic did not do well in their event, they would mask their disappointments, sadness and emotions very well with a straight face. Sometimes the closest they showed something would be to give a shrug of the shoulders. This Diego, when he sat down, he gave a face of, "I can’t believe I did that" look. When he climbed up to leave the stage, his face slowly crumpled up and he was tearing. When he went to sit on the chairs, he was holding his face and head in his hands and shaking his head form time to time. During the rest of the competition, when others are doing the routine, I would see this Diego sitting there, with his face crumpled up, even crying a bit. He would even mumble to himself, maybe going through in his head what went wrong. He was so inconsolable.

Till now, I still can’t forget the look of despair and unbelief of this Diego. My heart goes all out to him for his mistake. Maybe in the end even if he did everything well in the routine, he won’t get a medal. But I believe to every athletic, doing his/her best is the best form of answer to their hard work. When you did something well, you have answered to yourself. The results rest on the judges and if they think you are not good enough, you accept it. However, when you made a mistake, there’s always the question in your mind of, "What if?" Maybe if I didn’t make the mistake, I would get a medal.

I really keep thinking of this Diego’s face. Really hope he can pick himself up again and see him in London Olympics in 2012.