I bet the same claim about failure will be made in other sports... like if certain brit players don't WIN Wimbledon, only get to the semi-final or whatever... or ronnie o'sullivan in snooker... who's 'taking a year out' just because he didn't get to the embassy world final.... or ferrari if they don't win the f1 championship (people complain whatever they do though coz they aren't a british team, even though theres a brit at the heart of it)...
ALL will be called 'failures' regardless... even though it won't be true in many if any of these cases.