Sailing leads the way in the podium-finish movement

In these parts, when you gaze at the northern night sky, it’s hard to tell whether you’re seeing the aurora borealis or the aura of Vince Lombardi, so powerful is the spirit of the sainted savior of the Green Bay Packers. The hallowed tundra he paced in Lambeau Field is a scant 90 miles north of SAILING’s headquarters, so I must choose my words carefully when I observe that the most famous maxim attributed to Lombardi is no longer relevant. The world has changed since he said, “Winning isn’t everything; it’s the only thing.” That was a long time ago, apparently before the invention of podiums.

The idea of measuring success in competition by winning is passé. In Lombardi’s time, finishing second was like kissing your sister and third was something you wouldn’t admit to. Today, second and third are not just acceptable, they’re roughly equivalent to winning. Today, sports competitors aspire to a “podium finish.”

The term is taken seriously because it shines in the reflected glory of the Olympics, in which, as everyone with a television set knows, the top three finishers in an event get to stand on a podium while receiving their laurels. So pervasive is the Olympic spirit that even in sports that don’t use podiums competitors are announcing they will go all out to get to the podium.

Sailing, I’m pleased to say, is at the front of the podium movement. By my count, no less than six of the professional yacht racing stars competing in the Volvo Race around the world have identified their goal as a podium finish or, as several have put it, “getting on the podium.” This may be a manifestation of the noble concept that what matters more than winning is to fight the good fight regardless of the outcome. Or it could be a bow to the capitalistic reality that companies that pay millions to sponsor boats in events like the Volvo Race expect results—and equating a podium finish with victory trebles the opportunities for bragging rights.

Sailboat racing at the more down-to-earth level where us amateurs thrash around the buoys has been even more influential in the rise of the podium-finish. The roots of the phenomenon may be in the Olympics, but it came to full flower in garden-variety handicap sailboat racing. It is probably safe to say that handicap sailboat racing has the most crowded podiums of any sport. And certainly no other sport can claim to spread the glory of the podium further than sailing, in which it is not uncommon for a competitor who finishes in the bottom half of the fleet to be able to celebrate a podium finish.

This is the great advantage of handicap racing over one-design competition. In one-design, no matter how big the fleet, only three skippers get to the podium. In some handicap racing fleets, dozens get there. Such is the genius of multiple divisions.

The Chicago Yacht Club’s Race to Mackinac is typical of many popular long-distance races. Last year the fleet of 300 was divided into 15 divisions. Forty-five first, second or third place trophies were awarded. One in every seven entrants was guaranteed a podium finish. Skippers whose finishes put them far down in the largely ignored fleet standings ascended the podium for division honors. Some folks still consider yacht racing an avocation of the elite. Little do they know, few sports reward the hoi polloi as generously as yacht racing.

The primary purpose of splitting fleets into numerous divisions is not to spread the wealth, however. It’s to enable boats of like size and speed potential to compete against one another. But it also comes in handy to offset the imperfections of rating rules that are more art than science. In one-design racing, the outcome is determined by skill and luck. In handicap racing, it’s decided by skill, luck and the vicissitudes of the rating formula. This can be frustrating, but it’s balanced by the abundant opportunities for a podium finish.

There was a time—my gung-ho period, I guess—when I was naive enough to think that Lombardi’s words applied to sailing. One race finally cleared my head of that silly idea.

It was an overnight race, and judging from the boats ahead and behind us as we finished in the muted light of dawn, I figured we did pretty well. We wouldn’t know for hours, of course; the suspense as the math phase of the race plays out is another of the endearing characteristics of handicap racing. In this case, the suspense lasted longer than usual, because it was one of the first races under the IMS rule. This rating formula was thought to be a great leap forward in that it required race committees to add a host of variables besides finish times and rating numbers to their calculations. It was all quite mysterious, but I’m pretty sure the data used to determine winners included the average wind direction and strength, and probably the barometric pressure, dew point and Dow Jones Industrial Average.

I was catching up on a lost night’s sleep at home when the summons came to report to the yacht club to accept a trophy—the ultimate trophy, it turned out, the one for first place overall. The ensuing party was a raucous celebration of the joys of being the winner. At some point I might have declared, with a plastic glass of Mount Gay held high, that winning was the only thing.

Several weeks later, on the dock before another race, I was approached by a sailor I knew slightly. Wearing a cat-that-ate-the-canary look that should have tipped me off that this wasn’t going to be a pleasant meeting, he said, “Guess what? You didn’t win that race. I did. They refigured the results. I think you were second or third in your class.”

No one asked me to return the trophy, and I’ve kept it these many years as a reminder of a lesson that I probably should have engraved on it: “Winning isn’t everything; it’s getting to the podium that really matters.”

That’s one way of looking at it. But there’s also some truth to the meaning of a gift a commiserating friend gave me after the snatched-away victory. It’s a mirror, emblazoned in red letters with these words: “Winning isn’t everything, but losing sucks.”