In Praise of Fourth

With the completion of the summer Olympic Games, I can't help but think of how bad the athletes that came in 4th in their respective competitions must feel.  There's an arbitrariness to the gold, silver and bronze awards  - why not add copper and tungsten and give medals to the top five finishers ?

If you or I were were the 4th best person in the world at something, we would be champions or experts in our right. That's pretty special.   It should still be celebrated, and admired.  Sadly, the media machine that surrounds the games only counts those areas where we 'score' in the top three, where we walk away with these medals.  I guarantee that the effort required to come in 2nd, 3rd or 4th or 5th is the same.   These young people are within thousands of a second of one another, so the differences and end results are more often than not down to happenings on the day.  That's not to take way from the Michael Phelp's or Usain Bolt's of the world -they are indeed special. But for every phenom like them, there are people who names we don't know - and we should.

I think I have a solution though.  In addition to the medal awards, there ought to be an automatic Olympic qualification for the next games given to the top 5 or 6 finishers.  They'll still have to go through their heats, or qualifying rounds as with anyone else, but by virtue of doing so well, by virtue of helping make the games exciting and captivating - they are automatically invited back.  This approach is used in some sports already and isn't radical.  Ultimately it is up to the individual to participate again (not the country).

Fourth is pretty darn good - and they deserve to be acknowledged.