芝生化奮闘記

トリノオリンピックでの日本選手の不振が続く毎日です。僕はオリンピックに出るだけでも凄いと思うから、本大会での成績がある意味ではおまけのようなものと思っています。皆が尊敬に値する人間だと思いますし、マスコミが素直に全員を誉めるべきだと思います。

でも、事前に「金メダル間違い無し」と言わんばかりの報道をしたが故に、必死にその「失敗」を納得できる原因を探りまくっています。

ある選手の場合は、走る直前に氷を掃除しなければいけなくなったので、タイミングが少し狂ったでしょうとのこと。

でもね、一緒に走る選手もその後走る選手も皆同じ条件だったよね。でも、彼等がメダルを取ったりしていましたよね。

皆が一生懸命に頑張ったがたまたまその日は他の選手の方が出来が良かっただけのことです。特に可哀想のは先の「金間違い無し」選手群です。期待が大きすぎた部分もあるでしょうし、その過大期待を作り出したのはマスコミですよね。

そういう意味では、我が鳥取からで多ボブスレー代表の小林君が気楽なもんです。誰も期待していないので、気分良く走れる。かえって、このような選手が活躍する可能生があるような気がします。

言い訳は聞きたくないです。誉めてほしいです。

Every day we are saturated with reports on how badly the Japanese are performing at the Turin Olympics. I personally think that every athlete making it to the Olympics is incredible and that their performance once there is like icing on the cake. They have all earned our utmost respect and I would like to see the media offer genuine commendation to them all, regardless of the individual results.

Instead, we are exposed to an eternal search for reasons when one of the so-called shoo-ins for a gold medal, or so the media had us believing, "failed" to win the gold.

The reason in one case was a delay in staging the race immediately prior to the Japanese skater's appearance due to the need to fix the ice surface. Apparently this put his timing out of balance.

But surely the same applied to his race partner and to all athletes in subsequent races. But some of them managed to win medals, you know.

Every athlete from Japan did his or her best, but someone else was slightly better on the day. I feel particularly sorry for the so-called "definite gold medalists", who suffered under the burden of excessive expectations in which the media played a major role generating.

In one sense, guys like Ryuichi Kobayashi from my hometown of Tottori are lucky. No-one expects them to do anything at all, so he can just go out and have fun. It is athletes in this situation who tend to bring home the bacon.

I do not want to hear excuses. All I want to hear is praise for all participants. Please!