WE SENT a slim team of six boxers and three athletes to the just-needed 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and did not have even a bronze medal to show for it. When Frenchman Baron Pierre D'Coubertin revived the Olympic Games in 1896, he emphasized the importance of taking part in the Games as opposed to winning.
As I have had occasion to observe, the ancient Greeks would have treated the ideal of the Baron with amusement at best and contempt at worst. The ancient Greeks engaged in the Games not only to please the dead but, even more important, to win the coveted laurel that encircled the head of the winner.
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