There is a very modern sporting habit that increasingly makes elite athletes look less like competitors and more like overtired toddlers at a birthday party who didn’t win pass the parcel. The moment the runner-up medal gets out on, off it comes as soon as the player walks off, and I mean straight away. No pause or reflection, just an immediate removal, usually accompanied by the thousand-yard stare of a man who isn’t happy with being a runner up in a major European competition.
Today’s EPCR final saw several Leinster Rugby players remove their runners-up medals almost instantly after presentation, something I’ve seen happening across elite sport. I can recall one England national rugby union team players doing it after the 2019 Rugby World Cup final. Cameras catch it every single time because broadcasters know exactly what viewers will feel: sympathy, frustration, discomfort, or occasionally second-hand embarrassment.
And yes, heartbreak is real. – nobody expects athletes who have just lost a major final to beam like game show hosts. They are devastated because these matches define careers. Some players spend years chasing one trophy and fall short by inches. Emotion belongs in sport; without it, none of us would care, but professionalism matters too.
A runners-up medal is not an insult. It is recognition that you reached the final of a major competition while the vast majority of professional players never get close. The silver medal represents achievement, sacrifice, resilience, and excellence at an elite level. Removing it immediately can easily come across as treating the occasion beneath you and that comes across as disrespectful to me. Because once athletes become professionals representing clubs, countries, and supporters, their behaviour stops being entirely personal. Sport is theatre, symbolism, and public conduct all rolled together. Young supporters watch those ceremonies. Grassroots players watch them. Kids who lost county finals last weekend watch them.
And what message does it send? “That only winning matters.” – a dangerous idea in sport. Not because ambition is bad, but because contempt for anything short of perfection eventually poisons perspective. There is a huge difference between disappointment and disrespect.
One response I heard today summed up the common defence: “Happens a lot… not ideal… but in heartbreak understandable. It’s the world over I’m afraid.” That is probably true. But “everyone does it” has never been a particularly brilliant moral standard. If anything, widespread behaviour is exactly why sport needs people willing to say, “Actually, maybe this isn’t great.” Calling something understandable is not the same as calling it right.
And this is where rugby traditionally held itself slightly differently. The sport built much of its identity around respect: for officials, opponents, supporters, and the game itself. Rugby has long sold itself as the sport where players batter each other senseless for eighty minutes, then share a drink afterwards without behaving like reality TV contestants – in my opinion, this image matters, so seeing players visibly reject medals on the podium chips away at that culture a little each time. Not catastrophically. Not permanently, but noticeably.
As one of my SA rugby mates added when I brought this up in group chat: “that’s one of the things that p***ed me off during the 2019 WC final when it came to the English side… There are so many countries who would love to play in the WC but who can’t and then you get teams who make it to the final and come second. I know it hurts at the time, but f**k, other countries can only wish to be there,”
Ironically, accepting defeat well is often what cements greatness in public memory. Sport is full of champions. Far fewer people carry themselves with composure when things go wrong, but this is is usually where character becomes visible. Nobody is asking defeated finalists to smile through heartbreak like they’ve just won a raffle hamper at the village fête. But there is something quietly admirable about standing there, taking the medal, accepting the pain, and respecting the occasion anyway.
That is not weakness; that’s professionalism.
