This Wednesday I was able to participate the talk given by the Honorary Secretary of the Achilles Club, Mr. Paul Willcox. To be honest, I do not have much knowledge about sports. I was pleasantly surprised to learn about the history of transatlantic series, which started two years before the Olympics Games.

Every year, athletes in the U.S. go to England to compete as well as experience their cultures; and athletes from Oxford and Cambridge come to U.S. colleges to do the same. As a matter of fact, the athletes are in Cornell right now.

There are two things that Mr. Willcox mentioned that I find very interesting. First of all, the athletes coming from England to compete are also under the pressure of studying for their finals, which will take place right after they go back to England. While the U.S. athletes will go to England in June, they will be more relaxed, since they have already finished their finals. But athletes in England might be in a disadvantageous situation because they will be out of school for a while, which means they will not be in training for sometime. I have always wonder how do athletes balance their academics and training. For me, I do not join too many clubs or extracurricular activities simply because homework takes up too much of my time. I cannot imagine how much pressure athletes have from both school work and sports. Second of all, Mr. Willcox mentioned that the funding provided for athletes to come to the U.S. is rather limited. While in the U.S., the culture of giving is very prevalent and alumni make big donations, in England, donation is quite difficult. Mr. Willcox explained that this is due to cultural differences. In England, people are more low key about their lives and tend to hide their wealth; whereas in the U.S., success is more acknowledged and celebrated, which justify the act of donating. This difference is also discernible from daily conversations. When being asked ‘how’s it going’, in England, people tend to reply with ‘could be worse’, whereas people in t he U.S. tend to reply with ‘I’m good’. It is very interesting to see that even though we speak the same language, cultural differences have a profound impact on the institutions and systems of particular regions.

In short, this talk was very insightful as it went beyond the history of sports and touched the social and cultural aspects beneath it.