Olympic fever has hit the nation. We are currently 3rd in the medal tables and we keep on winning! Super Saturday saw team GB win six Olympic gold medals, making it Britain’s most successful Olympic day in over 100 years! But the weekend also saw some GB Olympians narrowly miss out on the chance of achieving a gold medal on home ground. There were tears, there were apologies to the nation. But why? A medal of any colour is a great achievement and when the nation is behind them and proud of them for getting silver, why were there so many sad faces amongst the Olympians?
Let’s look at some examples of our silver medallists….In the athletics, after the women’s 400m race, Christine Ohuruogu, a previous gold medal Olympic champion, was visibly disappointed having come in second and losing her Olympic title. In the rowing, Mark Hunter and Zac Purchase, competing in the men’s lightweight double sculls were overtaken in the last 250 metres, also losing their Olympic title and ending the race in silver position. In the sailing, the Men’s Star team of Ian Percy and Andrew Simpson similarly lost their previous Olympic gold title in the last 200m or so of the final leg of their race. The TV coverage of the rowing and sailing showed these Olympians looking distraught and apologising to the nation as they felt they let everyone down.
Compare these to the reactions of those achieving bronze medals. The GB’s Men’s gymnastics team initially thought they had achieved silver before a Japanese appeal left them with bronze medals. Instead of seeing a team of upset men, we instead saw the complete contrast with an all-round sense of pride in the team winning Great Britain’s first medal in team gymnastics since 1912!
So what is it about getting silver that brings about these negative reactions for some? They’ve still got a medal and are second best in the world at their sport – it seems unusual that those getting silver seem more disappointed than those getting bronze?
Researchers (such as Medvec and colleagues and McGraw and colleagues) have looked into previous Olympians' reactions immediately after the competitions and while on the medal stands. They suggest that the reason why bronze medalists seem happier than silver medalists is due to expectations - the higher people’s expectations, the bigger the let down if they fall short of those expectations. Silver medalists tend to be more disappointed because they have a tendency to set themselves higher expectations than bronze medalists, comparing themselves to the winners and the close call of what could have been. In contrast, bronze medalists are more likely to have lower expectations, and instead recognise that they were so close to coming 4th and going home medal-less. These expectations have been informed by an individual’s personal expectations, how they’ve performed previously as well as media exposure.
Consider this in the case of some of our silver medallists such as Ohuruogu, Hunter and Purhase, and Percy and Simpson. As previous champions they and the public had high expectations going into the competition, which is why they felt more disappointed and a sense that they had let everyone down when getting silver. On the other hand, for our men’s gymnastics team their bronze medal result was beyond their expectations, and their positive reactions reflected this.
So it seems that Olympians are weighing up their medal position against their expectations, and these comparisons are affecting how happy they are with their medals. Linked to Amandeep’s recent post (How employees and employers can learn from world class athletes..), for me what this highlights is that when we set goals for ourselves, like the Olympians, we need to ensure that these are realistic. Setting them too high means we will forever be disappointed and too low means we’re not pushing ourselves to achieve the best of our capability.
