Sportsmanship

Currently happening now in Singapore is the Youth Olympics Games and speaking of YOG, it reminds me of sportsmanship. What is sportsmanship? Sportsmanship is when one enjoys an activity with proper consideration of fairness, ethnics, respect and a sense of fellowship with one’s competitors. It is regarded as a moral value in sport where it revolves around two concepts: fair play and character. Fair play refers to everyone having an equal chance to pursue victory, acting towards others in an honest and dignified manner even when others do not play fairly and respect for others including officials. Character refers to the values and habits that determine the way one would respond to desires, fears, challenges, opportunities, successes and failures. Hence good sportsmanship must be shown during competitions and friendly match.

Acts of good sportsmanship include helping up your opponents, shaking hands with them at the end of the match, accepting bad calls gracefully and acknowledging good plays made by others. The real winners in sports are those who know how to persevere and behave with dignity whether they win or lose. However, this was not the case in the rugby friendly match between Anglo-Chinese School and St. Andrew’s Secondary School. Despite winning the friendly match, one of the ACS(I) boys went to insult another St. Andrews boy’s mother which was not an action of sportsmanship as respect was not shown. This resulted in a fight where almost everyone suffered injuries. This would not have happen if the boys have shown good sportsmanship.

Sportsmanship can also be shown in online games by saying good job or nice try if that person has done his best and saying nice one if one got defeated fair and square and not insult the person just because one gets angry over the defeat. This shows that he or she does not have self-control or the correct moral values taught by the parents or teachers.

Hence, I think that everyone should have good sportsmanship and by doing so, have more self control and not be rash in their actions, resulting in wrong decision making.