Lars Møller Larsen's Blog: Competition

The will to win is important, but the will to prepare is vital - Joe Paterno

There are tough players and nice guys, and I am a tough player – Bobby Fisher

I am in the process of reading a book called ”Outliers: The Story of Success”. In the book Malcolm Gladwell examines the factors that contribute to high levels of success. It is not solely our smarts, ambition, hustle and hard work that make us successful. A lot more variables are apparently involved in an individual's success. Gladwell wants people to move away from the notion that everything that happens to a person is up to that person. When asked what message he wanted people to take away after reading Outliers, Gladwell responded, "What we do as a community, as a society, for each other, matters as much as what we do for ourselves. It sounds a little trite, but there's a powerful amount of truth in that, I think."

This week Thea and me participated in two competitions: my ambassador’s monthly chess tournament and Thea’s first swimming competition.

I, in all modesty, usually win the chess tournaments in Ghana that I participate in – but not this Thursday night where I lost two games and only came second after the Danish/Italian filmmaker Michele Melega. He is also the son-in-law of the late founding father of Ghana: Kwame Nkrumah. As Peter Heine Nielsen, the Danish Grand Master in Chess ones said: “It is a well known fact that nobody has ever won a game against an opponent who was in a good health condition” and I was in fact down with flu…

More interesting was it to see Thea in action. We know that she is a good swimmer but she was the youngest competitor and was contesting for the first time. The competition was hard but Thea managed to win a bronze medal in 25-metre free style. The backstroke race also went very well until Thea stopped just before touching the wall – and therefore lost. There were high hopes for the breaststroke race but just as the start whistle sounded Thea slipped and fell in the water instead of a proper dive and thus came last. Better luck next time.

It was good fun and Thea is very proud of her medal!