You gotta be good enough to win it in the face of adversity. It’s as simple as that.

Hayden Wilde (who I’ve met before 🙂 ) is a New Zealand triathlete who made headlines in NZ for his sportsmanship recently. Penalised for a 50/50 call that cost him a gold medal, Hayden took it on the chin, and congratulated his competitor gracefully, even opting to high five him right before the end of the race.

Hayden knows that if he hadn’t gotten that penalty, it is very likely that he would have won (well, it was a ten second penalty, and he lost by 13 seconds, but I don’t know). However, he took it gracefully and was lauded for his sportsmanship, as he knows that getting fussy about it would only make matters worse.

There’s something we could all learn from this. There is such a thing as losing gracefully, and while disappointing in the moment, Hayden showed us how it’s done.