Losing Lyrics:Ten Things Athletes and Coaches Say When They Lose (and what it tells you about them).

Published by Wayne Goldsmith on March 1, 2024

Know what I really love about high performance sport….what you learn a lot about people.

You see people at their very best when they are happy, excited and jubilant about performing well.

You see people at their very worst when they lose, are disappointed and have experienced failure.

And it is on these moments, when people are at their low point, after experiencing failure that this post is focused…Losing Lyrics: What athletes and coaches say when they lose (and what it tells you about them).

Someone has to win and someone has to lose:

We’ve all seen them – the dressing rooms of the losing team, the miserable press conference from the runner up, the interview with the fourth place getter….

Now high performance sport is a brutal, unforgiving environment where someone has to win and someone has to lose.

But there is a right way and a wrong way to do both……..

Ten Things Athletes and Coaches Say When They Lose

1. I was only here to enjoy the experience.
2. The conditions were really tough out there.
3. This injury has been causing me a lot of trouble in the lead up to this competition.
4. I haven’t had the best preparation.
5. I think I had some sort of problem with my equipment.
6. I have struggling with some sort of virus the past few days.
7. It’s been really noisy in the hotel and I haven’t had a lot of sleep lately.
8. I think the referee made some bad decisions today and they all went against me.

Now….this is what you would hope they would say:

1. I wasn’t good enough to win today. I have learnt some valuable lessons, will go back to training and work harder and smarter than ever before and I can’t wait to test myself again at this level.
2. I gave everything I had today and it wasn’t good enough to win this competition. But it has made me hungrier than ever to succeed and I am going to re-focus, give it everything I’ve got, leave no stone unturned in my next preparation and come back better prepared than any athlete in the world.
3. The opponents were better than me today. I am going to spend some time with my coach and my support team analysing how I can improve and commit to improving my planning, preparation and performance.

Summary:

Win or lose: you chose – how you will deal with it, how you will respond to it and what actions you will take as a result.

Losing teaches lessons but only if you stop singing “losing-lyrics” long enough to learn them.

Moregold works with athletes, coaches and teams to help them achieve professional planning, passionate preparation and peak performance. 

Wayne Goldsmith