Medal-less Olympians to Receive Consolation Trophies

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Olympic Parents of America (OPA) has succeeded in pleading the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to award trophies to the their sweetie-pie Olympians who came back from the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics without a medal, according to a statement released by the IOC on Monday.

The petition was submitted when parents of medal-less Olympians began to notice how demoralized their little pumpkins appeared once the Games were over and everyone went back to not caring about winter sports. The petition’s authors lamented that there was nothing shiny to remind their children of their inherent brilliance and uniqueness because the honor of being selected to compete with the world’s top athletes “ain’t worth shit” and has the demeaning implication that some people are better than others at certain things, whether due to genetics or hard work.

“I have enough proof that my Johnny is special and deserves a reward for participation regardless of the outcome,” said Theresa Marlow, one of the petition’s initiators, whose son John Marlow placed 38th in 500-meter speed skating.  “Here’s a trophy for showing up to a soccer game in 8th grade, and here’s an honors student plaque that everyone in his high school received. And now these foreign idiots are telling me that he didn’t deserve even a ten-dollar generic trophy for flying all the way over to Sochi and trying his very very best? Like, what the hell do they know about parenting and motivation? I, as a mother, am offended.”

“The pigheaded IOC seems to operate based on an outdated understanding of the human mind,” said Richard Kotley, PhD, BA, BS, cognitive psychologist at the University of Totesville, Lakeside High School valedictorian, marching band’s clarinet section’s MVP, Dean’s List Nominee, Ms. Brown’s Class’ Best Backpack Award Recipient. “But it’s rather simple. High self-esteem, in addition to being the ultimate goal of education and work, is the most honorable of human achievements; winning boosts it. Research shows that in real life you win much more often than lose at things you’re told you’re good at, so why not make all competitions realistic by calling everybody a winner and giving them a trophy? Isn’t that the point of competing – to have fun and see how precious you are? Too bad the folks at IOC haven’t caught up with cutting-edge science yet.”

The IOC will send out the trophies, paid for and chosen by the OPA, in the first week of July. Each medal-less Olympian will also receive an OPA-designed, mass-produced card containing reassurances that he or she is unique and has exerted the most effort out of the whole team. The OPA declined to name the number of exclamation points used per card.

OPA’s president Michelle Perlett also said that a new petition to the IOC is in the final stages of drafting. It will plead for the abolition of hurtful ancient systems of ranking, timing, and awarding points across all Olympic sports, Perlett said.