IT CAN BE difficult to assess failure accurately.
Months of training, hours of strategising, a dogged commitment to emotional discipline: it all counts for little if any of a number of more arbitrary factors– the substandard performance of an official, say, or the untimely emergence of an injury– assume centre stage at a decisive moment.
This is why a compassionate appraisal of defeat is usually the best policy. Unless, of course, you’re dealing with any of the individuals included in our retrospective of sporting FAIL below.
In that case, you’ve carte blanche to point and laugh.