There is practically no Swede on Gupshup, so probably no one will share this irony.
In the 2002 Winter Olympics, the only gold medal hope for Sweden was in Men’s Ice Hockey. They were the fancied team, who shot past every opponent in their group in spectacular fashion. In Quarter-Finals they were matched up with Bilarus, the not-so-fancied-team from the other group. Swedes were already focusing on meeting US in the semis, but then…
Bilarus defeated Swedes in the quarter-finals, in what is being called the biggest Upset in the sport since “Miracle on Ice” (US defeated USSR in 1980 Olympics).
There is a Swede in my office, and when I told him about this defeat, he was at loss for words “Impossible.. totally impossible… I don’t believe it… How can we lose … !”. I almost felt sorry for him.
Reminded me of the fateful day in 1987, when Pakistan got knocked out of Cricket World Cup by Australia in Lahore. We were the fancied team, we were playing at home, 40,000 fans cheering the team all day. And Aussies were just some outsiders. A distraction. We were already planning to fly to Calcutta and play the finals in “The Eden Gardens”. We were hoping to play India infront of 90,000 of their own. The Cup was ours to take… and we lost! 
A loss is not always painful. I never felt such a loss in 1996 or 1999. It was as if we were destined to lose anyway. It always felt to me (personally) that we are winning on a fluke. That this will end soon. Frankly, I didn’t think I trusted our team. They were so many scandals surrounding them. But 1987 was a dream which came crashing down. We had Imran Khan, and Miandad and Qadir and we all believed they will be able to turn things around. And nothing worked.
Some losses are much closer to heart.
[This message has been edited by Pristine (edited February 21, 2002).]