“Oops,” there goes one of the biggest blunders in sporting history. As the world watched the nearly unprecedented mistake committed by Sven Kramer of Dutch in men’s 10,000-meter speedskating on 2/23/2010, we were absorbed for a moment by utter be-wilderness, disbelief and then a sad feeling of loss for this world-record holder.

Kramer, when he heard his coach crying “inside lane,” most stupidly switched to the inner lane instead of the outer lane just past the midway point of the race and was thus disqualified for lane violation, gracefully leaving gold medal to Korea’s Lee Seung-Hoon and enabling Russia’s Ivan Skobrev to be promoted to the silver.

The 23-year-old Kramer’s explanation — “I’m furious. Usually, I don’t want to blame anyone else, but this time I can’t do anything else,” “I wanted to go on the outer lane then just before the cone, Gerard KEMKERS shouted ‘inner lane,’ I thought he’s probably right and went to the inner lane.” “At first I thought my skates passed the cone on the wrong side, I will be disqualified. Then I noticed in the stadium something was wrong.” “You have to decide in a split second. Afterwards I should have gone with my own thoughts, but I was brought into doubt. This really sucks – it’s a really expensive mistake.”

“It is pretty hard now,” Kramer said. “I was on my way to make the right decision and right before the corner I changed my decision because of the advice from the (coach). At the end of the day, it is my responsibility. I am the skater on the ice, I have to do it.” There’s his courage!

Event in sports where physical quality is of top importance, a good head is still the key to making a wise judgment. As Ivan Skobrev of Russia put it, “It is not only about how strong you are. It is how your head is in the race. He made a mistake. That’s his fault.”

As with everything in our lives, if we mess up and make a mistake, blame no one else but ourselves. Pick yourself up, learn a lesson and move on.