The Olympic Creed

Rowland Croucher wrote: A Uniting Church magazine asked me to write something about the Olympic Creed (below). Feel free, my preaching-friends, to steal it if you want!

Who was the American football coach who said: 'Winning or losing is not just a matter of life and death: it's more important than that'? Addiction to winning is not only a capitalist phenomenon, either. Remember past East German and Chinese drug scandals?

The Olympic Creed says: 'The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.' Google tells me Pierre de Coubertin got the idea from a speech given by the Bishop of Pennsylvania, Ethelbert Talbot, at a service for Olympic champions during the 1908 London Games.

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