The Crybaby Olympics

Sports have always had sore losers. But based on this year’s Games, athletes seem to be getting worse at losing well.

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It’s not just in our head. In a 2017 survey of referees in the United States, 57 percent said that sportsmanship was getting worse. By 2023, that number had climbed to 69 percent, and half said they’d at some point feared for their safety. “I think society as a whole has moved away from good sportspersonship,” David Matsumoto, a former Olympic judo coach and a psychology professor at San Francisco State University, told me.

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Another possibility: People everywhere are becoming more selfish. Studies have shown that as countries get richer, their citizens become more individualistic. Because good sportsmanship is largely about subordinating one’s own emotions for the sake of the group, Matsumoto said, it follows that a decline in collectivist thinking could lead to more blowups.

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