Falling on the biggest stage of your life ...

RASNAYA POLYANA, Russia -- Here's the first difference between watching the Olympics on television and watching them in person: It is devastating when someone falls down.
When a competitor crashes in an event you're watching at home, you're so removed from it that it barely registers; taken in the context of regular everyday channel flipping, you're one channel removed from a renovation project that has been overtaken by termites, or a man pretending to choose his wife on camera, or some shirtless, screaming Floridian being dragged away by cops. It's all just another FAIL.
But in person, to see someone who has worked every second of his or her life for this one moment, who has traveled across the world to achieve the only thing they've ever considered to have any larger meaning … to see it snuffed out in a half-second … well, I've just never experienced anything like it. I've seen Super Bowls and World Series and NCAA tournament games and NBA playoff games and beer softball games played by people whose lives have gone wrong, and nothing can compare to how rough it is to see losing here. The stakes are too high. There is no get 'em next year. There is only now. It just breaks your goddamned heart.

Defying Gravity from Sports on Earth