Never. Give. Up. Even If It's Easier To Come Second.

The Paris Olympics saw a lot of success shared out amongst some outstanding British athletes.

There are those who lament the introduction of lottery funding into British sport. But it should be remembered that no matter how much investment is made, winners can never be manufactured and gold medals cannot be bought.

Sporting achievement lies within the heart and mind of the winner and is measurable only in terms of effort, determination and self belief.

Not in pounds and pence.

One of the British teams winners in Paris was Tom Pidcock who competed in the Men’s Cross Country Mountain Bike competition.

He looked all set to win the silver medal in the race as it drew to a close, trailing to Victor Koretzky of France who? also had, of course, the noisy support of a huge home crowd.

But Pidcock wasn’t happy to finish second; he decided to take a risk and go for the gold medal instead.

A decision that reaped a spectacular reward as he overtook his astonished opponent with less than a minute of the race to go.

You’ve all heard the famous saying, synonymous with the SAS.

‘Who dares wins’.

Pidcock dared.

He put everything on the line.

He was guaranteed a silver medal. By making that final push, he knew there was a danger of contact with either the opposing rider or going too near the boundaries of an unforgiving track, a fall not only meaning he might not have finished the race but also, quite possibly, injured himself in the process.

Neither possibility even entered his head.

‘Suddenly I was coming really fast back to Victor but I couldn't get rid of him and I knew how fast he was on the last lap. In the end, I just had to go for a gap. Racing is what I've always done and the Olympics is not different’

‘I'm sorry for him, the support for him was incredible but it's the Olympics so you've got to go all in.'

'The Olympics is so special and you need to never give up’.

If you take just one thing from Pidcock’s post-race interview, it’s those last three words.

Read them aloud.

‘Never give up.’

Never. Give. Up.

That famous line between success and failure isn’t as well defined as most people think.

It's positively blurry.

Take the case of Thomas Edison for example.

Edison turned perceived failure into the stuff of legend. He invented the light bulb but his moment of triumph only came after numerous previous attempts had yielded nothing but near misses.

Silver medals a ’plenty infact.

‘How does it feel to have failed a thousand times?’ is the question a reporter asked him.

Edison’s reply was lightly gilded with genius.

‘I didn’t fail a thousand times. The light bulb was an invention that took a thousand steps.’

Edison was no failure and history sees him as anything but.

And Tom Pidcock didn’t fail either. Indeed, come 2028, he’ll probably win a gold medal in Los Angeles

Another gold medal won as the result of his inbuilt personal ethos, one that burns more fiercely than a hundred Olympic flames.

Never give up.

Make sure you don’t either.

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