"Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing." - Vince Thomas Lombardi, two-time Super Bowl winning coach.

IT IS a phrase which was first used almost half a century ago. But in an eventful week for both foreign and Singapore sports, it is worth revisiting those words of American football coach Vince Lombardi.

On Tuesday night, as Arsenal crashed 1-3 at home to Manchester United, the tragedy was not so much the Gunners' exit from the Champions League football tournament.

Rather, it was the death of Suleiman Omondi, thousands of kilometres away in Kenya.

The Arsenal fan hanged himself after leaving a local pub - distraught that his team, which promised a spectacular show to overturn a 0-1 first-leg deficit, caved in so easily.

Indeed for him, winning was the only thing that mattered at the time - although it is an extreme act no one should ever consider.

Just 24 hours later, Chelsea, who for over 90 minutes prevented mighty Barcelona from even managing a shot at goal, fell to the Spaniards' only attempt - in injury-time.

The goal made it 1-1 for the night and on aggregate, which meant that Chelsea, who led for almost the entire match, were eliminated on the away-goals rule.

One needed to look only at the reactions of the players to realise what not winning meant to the Chelsea players.

German midfielder Michael Ballack screamed in the face of the referee after he turned down a penalty appeal.

Striker Didier Drogba had to be restrained from following the referee into the dressing room area after his claims were also ignored.

The Champions League has been the only trophy to elude Chelsea since the club were elevated to big-club status, thanks largely to Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich.

After millions spent on recruiting some of the biggest names in football, I wonder how long Abramovich and his expensive recruits can find joy in just competing, not necessarily winning.

Yet in a week when examples of how important winning in sports are so apparent, the Singapore Table Tennis Association offers us a view from the other side.

The national women's table tennis team delivered Singapore's first Olympic medal after 48 years last year. It was a historic moment in Singapore's sporting history.

The association felt it was a feat significant enough to warrant nominating the team for the Team of the Year award at this year's Singapore Sports Awards.

Yet there will be no place for the coach who helped them to Olympic success.

To the STTA, apparently, winning the medal isn't everything. The coach was not well respected and did not display the kind of integrity becoming of a national coach, and therefore, not even worthy of a nomination.

According to the STTA, coach Liu Guodong was guilty of not paying enough attention to the men's team, in particular Gao Ning, who had to play in the men's singles competition without a coach.

Yet, it would have been interesting to see what would have happened had Liu not deliver the medal - given that his charges has entered the Olympics as the second best team in the world.

One doubts he would have gotten a pat on the back and an encouraging "too bad, but better luck next time" pep talk.

We are taught as children and in schools that it's not how you finish in sport which matters, but that you compete, and play the game in a fair manner.

Rightly or wrongly, that maxim disappears at the elite level.

In the era of millionaire sportsmen and million-dollar payouts for sporting successes, winning has become paramount.

Lose a match and you could lose your job. Lose a match and sponsors and backers also lose faith in you.

Dr. Jeffrey Spencer is a former Olympic cyclist and 8-time Tour de France winning team doctor. The American medical doctor gives his views on why winning matters so much.

He says that we're born with the winning instinct. No one gets up in the morning looking forward to a day of mediocrity, of not wanting to succeed. He argues, we're born to win, or at least be associated with winning, never losing.

So, is winning really everything?

I would like to believe that it can't be, for that would diminish the very nature of sport, of teams, individuals competing to be the best, while the rest of us celebrate their acts of athletic achievement along the way.

For it to be true, it would lessen the accomplishments of the athlete who had to endure countless defeats, who then used those experiences to better himself and mould him into the champion that he now is.

For it to be true, it would make the joy we get from someone from a war-torn/impoverished background battling just to compete at the Olympic games - even if he did finish last.

But far too often, sport has become more than just about competing. Agree with it or not, as Spencer says, it's just part of our genetic make-up, of who human beings are. We love and want to be winners.

Lombardi said it 50 years ago. Former Liverpool manager Bill Shankly, in 1981, famously said: "Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I assure you, it's much more serious than that."

There are those who subscribe to similar thoughts today. And I am sure, in the future, many will live by such phrases as well

I just hope the truth lies somewhere between.