It was commented today that today’s winner has had to sacrifice alot to be a winner, OK so it wasn’t a comment from the athlete themselves but the word sacrifice is bandied about alot in sports.
If you like cycling, you cycle. It is something you’ve chosen in place of other things.

If you feel that you’re giving something up that you’d rather be doing, ie sacrifice, then do the thing you’d rather do and shut up.

Am I the only one who can’t see where the sacrifice is?

you sacrifice a lot socially.

I have a couple of guys on my uni course who are aiming to represent Scotland at the Commonwealth Games in 2014. The training they are doing is immense. They miss out on their social life because of it. For a couple of fit good looking 20yr old guys that must be a big sacrifice.

it’s all about superstition

you start off wearing lucky pants but soon enough you’re out at full moon with your full voodoo shit – dagger and a local virgin

Even training to compete at an amateur level involves effort and time and I would say sacrifice.

To do it professionally takes that to the max, do you think just because you like riding your bike that it would all be great fun?

I see where don is coming from on this one. It’s not a sacrifice, it’s a choice. In the example about, do they want to trail or do they want to go out drinking and getting laid? Is it a sacrifice if they have to choose between the two? Some people only get one of those as an option. Some people I knew at Uni couldn’t even manage one of those. I’m pretty sure they’d love to be in a position where they have to make such a sacrifice. WE all have to make choices in life, some times we get to do fun stuff, some times we don’t.

I expect you sacrifice a normal career, possibly a family too. You just don’t have a normal life. Pretty big sacrifice if you ask me.

Onzadog’s got it, it’s a choice not a sacrifice.

what exactly is a normal life? a normal career? normal family???
it’s all life isn’t it???
and one way of life isn’t necessary better or worse than another.

If you say it can’t be a sacrifice because it was a choice then the word sacrifice has no meaning?

I thought it was to do with the damage all the drugs did to you.

To use a painfully obvious and seasonally appropriate example, Christ had a choice, he could have just left everyone to it and been a happy carpenter. But, he made a choice – which was also a sacrifice.

Just because you choose to sacrifice something doesn’t mean its any less of a sacrifice?

They have to give up a lot of what most people take for granted.

If you say it can’t be a sacrifice because it was a choice then the word sacrifice has no meaning?

No, because if someone does something that they don’t want to do, we have a sacrifice. So what they’re saying is that they’d rather go for a pint with their mates and don’t really want to train.

I sacrificed a top sporting career* for the sake of beers and inertia and then family life

* yeah, I could’ve been ..

I enjoy cycling and I do it a lot. However I don’t spend every waking hour preparing myself for competition.

I don’t stick to strict diets
I don’t have to watch any medication I take
I havn’t been doing this from the age of 12
My parents didn’t give up on any kind of normal life to ferry me to competitions or put all their money into my skill/talent/sport

Perhaps they enjoy riding their bike, so that’s not a sacrifice. But giving up alcohol, friends, family, travelling constantly, verging on malnourished etc are all sacrifices.

I think this is a daft thread, I think everyone makes sacrifices. I could live off dole money, or work 3 days a week in a bike shop and do more riding, for that I’d sacrifice a nice flat, holidays and disposable income. Instead I sacrifice spare time to have a proper job! If you don’t see that as sacrifice then fair enough, but it’s naive to think that a pro athlete hasnt had to give up anything they love for their career.

If you can’t see the sacrifice it only means you have no idea what it take to be a top athlete.

njee, I agree – but that is the point – everyone can only live 1 life and they sacrifice other possibilities to do so. Hence we all agree here, whether or not we recognise it

If you can’t see the sacrifice it only means you have no idea what it take to be a top athlete.

You are, of course, 100% correct. Do I know you?

everybody makes sacrifices in life…how much does a professional athlete train a week, 35-40hours, how is that different to anyone elses working life?

If I gave up work to help starving orphans in Africa for no reward, I would expect people to consider that I’d made a sacrifice. If I gave up my 40 hrs a week job to train full time and reap the accolades and financial rewards of a pro footballer. I would not expect people to give my thought to my sacrifices.

Its a soundbite for the media. They don’t mean it, its just the only answer to some of the vapid questions from some brainless turnip writing for their rag.

the truth would be a far less interesting answer..

If you like cycling, you cycle. It is something you’ve chosen in place of other things.

Forgetting the loss of social life etc which applies to anyone who is successful in any field…

Cyclists tend to die early. That’s a fair sacrifice. Gymnasts end up pubescent midgets. Motorcyclists end their careers full of metal with missing fingers, if they’re lucky. Rugby players end up with no teeth and comedy ears.

The list is endless. Being fit is really bad for your health.

I think that to do the amount of training required to be an endurance athlete takes alot out of your body. You may like cycling to start with but I expect in the volumes done to compete internationally it looses its shine.

A guy I work with trains seriuosly as a runner. He holds down a demanding full time job and sticks to a strcit training regime, stopped only but ill health. For example he had to travel to a relatives funeral on the day he was sceduled for a long run. So he got up at 4 in the morning

Whether you choose to call it sacrifice is upto you. I think its different from the way most people excercise in that you have to train when you don’t feel like it to get to where you need to be.

how is that different to anyone elses working life?

If you have ever ran 80 mpw (very modest by elite running standards) then you will know the diference. You go to bed exhausted and wake up tired, then start again!
You have no time to socialise outside of family and running mates, if you have a job then it becomes even more difficult and tiring.

So he got up at 4 in the morning

Whether you choose to call it sacrifice is upto you. I think its different from the way most people excercise in that you have to train when you don’t feel like it to get to where you need to be.

Nobody put a gun to his head to make him get up at 4am, so it’s his choice and therefore something he would prefer to do other things as the rewards of success are worth the effort. Where’s the sacrifice? I think some folks are putting their values onto others and come up with sacrifice… 😀

But that’s the point. No one puts a gun to your head and makes you go to work. Are you honestly saying you don’t sacrifice anything to work? Would you not enjoy the extra time if you didn’t?

I made a change and a choice and as a result enjoy my work. I suppose I’m lucky in that respect. My choice, no sacrifice. Would I want to work for idiots, giving up my principles, flogging my guts for a huge salary. That would be rather stupid, no?
But I wasn’t talking about me, if I were an athlete and wanted to win races, I would do the appropriate training and wouldn’t consider it a sacrifice
Many top level athletes have fame, wealth, friends and families so don’t appear to have sacrificed much, do they?
If you consider that you are making sacrifices, might I suggest that you make some changes. 🙂

@ don s – would you continue in yr job if you, say, won ten million on the lottery ?

Maybe, and that is an honest answer, more towards a yes. 10 million would allow for new and untried opportunities to be tried. It doesn’t mean I’m making sacrifices though.

I’d kind of agree with the OP..

If you’re obsesed enough to get to the top level of something in your mind you’re not making any sacrafices.

I made it to world championsip level without making many sacrifices.
i wanted to ride so that’s what i did.

As soon as my priorities changed i was no longer good enough for that level of competition so i could do other stuff without any worries about it.

don you don’t call it sacrifice thats fine

don simon – Member

“No, because if someone does something that they don’t want to do, we have a sacrifice. So what they’re saying is that they’d rather go for a pint with their mates and don’t really want to train.”

Absolutely that’s what they’re saying. Now if someone says “I never had any mates and didn’t want a normal social life so I took up running” that’s no sacrifice, but if they made the choice and know what they’ve lost and wish they hadn’t had to do it, that’s a sacrifice.

but if they made the choice and know what they’ve lost and wish they hadn’t had to do it, that’s a sacrifice.

The thing is though they did make that choice and wouldn’t have if they didn’t think it was better than the run of the mill stuff that other people were doing.

Eh? I’m sitting here working, I could be in a bar getting shedfaced, but I’m not. I could be doing any number of things that I know exist but because I’m not doing them I don’t feel I’m making any form of sacrifice, I’m simply doing what I want to do and happy to do that, as Singlespeedstu said. If you feel that I should be down the local bar, I guess you would think I’m making a sacrifice.

OK, I am fully aware that posting dictionary definitions of a word makes you a knob, and I apologise in advance but it’s obviously needed if this thread’s going to make any sense at all. So here it is.

“sac·ri·fice (skr-fs)
n.
1.
a. The act of offering something to a deity in propitiation or homage, especially the ritual slaughter of an animal or a person.
b. A victim offered in this way.
2.
a. Forfeiture of something highly valued for the sake of one considered to have a greater value or claim.
b. Something so forfeited.
3.
a. Relinquishment of something at less than its presumed value.
b. Something so relinquished.
c. A loss so sustained.
4. Baseball A sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.
v. sac·ri·ficed, sac·ri·fic·ing, sac·ri·fic·es
v.tr.
1. To offer as a sacrifice to a deity.
2. To forfeit (one thing) for another thing considered to be of greater value.
3. To sell or give away at a loss.
v.intr.
1. To make or offer a sacrifice.
2. Baseball To make a sacrifice bunt or sacrifice fly.”

Northwind wins, yay!!! My hero.

So I have to give up something which I value to do something of a higher value? And if I don’t value the thing I’m supposed to be giving up. I do understand the definition of sacrifice, thanks.

If I’m working because I want to and don’t want to go to the pub, there is NO sacrifice. 🙄

Of course. But if you want to go to the pub and you don’t, then there is.

The thing is though at least as far as I was concerned.
I wasn’t missing out on anything by not doing normal run of the mill stuff because i got to ride world championship events without it costing me anything.

What might have been highly valued to you wasn’t to me. So I felt no loss or sacrifice. 8)

Don seems like he’s missing out though working at this time on a saturday night. 😉

Though he might be “working” as a porn star for all we know and in that case it’s everyone else that’s losing out. 😆