Losing

The deliberate losing by some of the Olympic 'competitors' today is interesting. It was a blatant version of something that is surprisingly common. Nobody was making these remarks of tragedy and woe when in the Cycling Road Race team members were 'disrupting' the following pack to enable their leading cyclist to prosper. That was called tactics (even though it was deliberately doing less than their best). When in the heats a swimmer or rower or runner saves themselves for a later heat or the final that too is tactics. The idea that everyone in every sporting encounter is doing their very best is very far from the truth. Football fans experience this in pre-season friendlies where fitness is far more the goal than the goal is

.

In a nutshell, the word is 'ultimate'.  Those badminton players were thinking ahead, not of the money that the crowd paid to watch them but of the gold medal.  They frustrated officials who wanted to not only award a medal but control a method.

This brings me to the wonderful Christian chestnut question.  What Would Jesus Do?

I think he'd lose.  Sure, the crowd jeered.  But for the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.  I suppose this is not a truth about Jesus that made it into many English Public School assemblies over the years but it is a reminder that the route to victory is not the route of popularity and that popularity is not victory.