The Long Win in Sport
I have met too many gold medalists who have felt empty, depressed, unfulfilled, despite crossing the line first. Why? Because their definition of success was based on a fleeting moment in time, on an inanimate object (a medal or trophy) and lacked in any greater sense of purpose or lasting success. The pursuit of excellence (and sustainability of that excellence) requires us to define success as exploring what’s possible, not simply beating others, and to connect that to a wider purpose and a community of people around us on that journey. The 3Cs framework offers us a way to set ourselves up to explore what’s possible together which I have used with athletes, coaches and sports organizations.
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This page contains references, stories and downloadable worksheets to help deepen your Long Win Thinking and develop practical ideas for how to put it into practice in your business. They accompany the Stories of Long Winners in the new Chapter of the second edition of The Long Win.
Stories:
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A Long Win story by Laurence Halsted from his interview with 2021 Canadian Olympic rowing Champion Andrea Proske.
“10 strokes for Michelle!”
“10 strokes for Kathleen!”
Those were the words of coxen of the Canadian women’s 8 rowing boat that took them over the line at the Tokyo Olympics to win the gold medal, just 0.91 seconds ahead of the New Zealand crew. This was the first time in 29 years that Canada had won that event – the previous time involved the Kathleen named in that last, heartfelt call. More about her later. This win was particularly impressive because just two years previous, right before the Covid pandemic struck, the Canadian crew were at best, outside shots for a medal at the Games. Then the world closed down, racing stopped, and everyone had to find their feet in a new world of training for an Olympics in isolation from their entire squad.
But that is only scratching the surface of the incredible journey of this crew over those two years, that led them to an historic and profound gold medal, but from a far darker starting point.
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The True Athlete Project believe in creating a more compassionate world in sport and build their programmes, projects and workshops around the interconnected pillars of Performance, Wellbeing and Social Impact. You can read more about one of their simple yet innovative and impactful projects in a gymnastics club here: Enigma Gymnastics Club – The True Athlete Project
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Most athletes want to be seen as more than ‘just an athlete’ and to use their platform and opportunity to be role models for causes they believe in.
To support and help develop this, UK Sport ran a programme ‘Powered by Purpose’ delivered by the True Athlete Project (which I am part of delivering). It’s a great start to showing the greater potential sport has to be a vehicle for positive social change. You can read more about it here.
References & Long Win Thinking materials:
I write monthly articles for The Guardian on topics of culture in sport #longwinthinking: Cath Bishop | The Guardian Some might be of particular interest, eg Looking beyond glory: rediscovering the soul of sport in front of us | Sport | The Guardian
Steve Magness, Do Hard Things Do Hard Things | Steve Magness Brad Stuhlberg, The Practice of Groundedness Books — Brad Stulberg Brad and Steve write a brilliantly weekly newsletter and share lots of resources and references that align closely with The Long Win at The Growth Equation
Laurence Halsted, Becoming a True Athlete, you can read the Prologue here: Becoming a True Athlete – Prologue (laurencehalsted.com)
Jonny Wilkinson has gone on a spiritual journey to rediscover himself beyond the medals and trophies he won as a rugby player and discusses it on his podcast: I Am… With Jonny Wilkinson on Apple Podcasts
Linda Flanagan, Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania are Ruining Kids’ Sport – and Why it Matters
Matt Hart, Win at All Costs: Inside Nike Running and its Culture of Deception
Downloads: Long Win Worksheets
See also:
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Contact Me
If you’d like to get in touch about working with me, either to discuss a ‘Long Win’ speech, workshop, book discussion or other Long Win Thinking collaboration, please let me know more.