Paradox - May 2012

Every time we read the sports magazines. There is always a recently well-performed athlete on the cover page. One of the reasons is very obvious, to attract potential buyers. Another reason is that the athlete was really in a superb condition and that why he or she performed outstandingly; make him or her to become a famous star. Most of you only focus on their past success but how many of you noticed that they may be a shooting star only?

Curse of the Cover Page?

There is a mystery about the cover of the sports magazines, whenever there is someone was been put on the cover page, his or her performance will drop eventually. Does it mean that the existence of curse of the cover page is true?

Photo: GettyImages

 

Of course there is no any curse in the real world, but it is the fact that the performance of the athletes was dropped. It can be explained by the variation of performance. The performance of an individual vary all the time, from normal to below standard, then swing to top level and back to normal, no one can predict what will be the next. The variation happen in students, drivers, fathers, mothers and athletes too so everyone will have a chance to reach their top performance. For the athletes selected to be put on the cover page, it is a great honor to them as they will become famous all over the world. The selection must be very careful in order to choose the right person to put on the cover, the one who did perform the most outstanding, probably reached top level within his or her athletic life. After being shown on the cover, with the variation of performance the athlete back to the normal level and this normal swing is labeled as a drop in the performance. It is because people perceptibly think that the athlete should perform at top level throughout his or her whole athletic life while they did not notice that every human will experience the swing of performance. That is, the curse of the cover page, busted.

Anthony Chan