Watching the Olympics you can be forgiven for thinking it is one big medal chase but – of course – most of those competing in Rio won’t get near the podium.
Are they all losers? Of course not. Although Equatorial Guinea’s Eric Moussambani took being a gallant loser to an extreme level when he swam at the 2000 Games in Sydney, despite having never previously been in an Olympic pool.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone that he was pretty rubbish in the pool.
He had only taken up the sport eight months earlier and had practised in lakes and hotel swimming pools.
Determined: Tolworth's Kieran Behan has battled adversity his entire career
But that didn’t stop him being hailed as the embodiment of the Olympic spirit and used by Speedo to sell swimsuits as they exploited his cult status.
Surely a more fitting poster boy about what those five rings means comes in the shape of Tolworth Gymnastics Club’s Kieran Behan.
His Olympic dream may be over, after finishing 38th in the weekend’s all-around event and missing out on a place in the finals, but the 27-year-old still managed to add to his own remarkable story.
Despite being a local lad, Behan’s celebrity status here is nothing like that enjoyed by the likes of Britain’s Louis Smith and Max Whitlock, but he has been hailed as Ireland’s bravest Olympian after swimming for his parents’ birthplace.
Against the odds: Kieran Behan, who was once told he would never walk again as a child, dislocated his knee in Rio, but still managed completed his floor routine
Told as a 10-year-old he would never walk again after doctors found a tumour in his leg and having suffered a catalogue of injuries throughout his career, he is no stranger to adversity on his way to appearing at two Olympic Games.
So when he felt his knee go at the start of his floor routine it wasn’t in the 27-year-old’s nature to give up.
At a time when he could have been forgiven for rolling around like a Premier League footballer, he gritted his teeth and ignored his dislocated knee, only collapsing in agony when he had completed his routine.
The may not have won, but he completed his event. That, even more than world records, national anthems and gold medals, is what the Olympic spirit is all about.
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