The Almost-Olympian's Guide to Surviving the Games:
Hello, my name is Eva, and I am a two-time Almost-Olympian. I'm here to share my reasons for not buying into the propaganda of the Olympic Games.
Consider the following statements from a 2002 Olympic Gold Medalist:
"To athletes, I say dream big. There's not a dream that you can't obtain, it's all about putting in the work."
"It's important to play fair because, if you play fair then I think the right things will happen. Once you start cheating, everything starts to go down. If you play fair you can only have the best outcome."
-from an interview with bobsledder Vonetta Flowers
How many times have you heard the empty cliches about the hardest workers being rewarded for their effort? About a person's success in sport being about the goodness of their character? About the athletes who "have the tremendous ability to suffer," and apparently win because they can take the most pain (as if we can really measure that)?
Life doesn't always fit into a neat little box. Not everyone can be inspired by successful Olympians, and the ideas they promote. Who is hurt by such ideas? It isn't the kids who are young enough to still have a chance in their sport, or the athletes who follow this example and it actually works for them, or the people who admit that they lack the guts to even try. No, the ones who are hurt are those of us who try really hard and fail.
The Olympic Games are hardest on someone like the figure skater whose parents ran out of money, or the moguls skier whose career ended in a doctor's office when he found out his knees were worn out, or the speedskater who spent years fighting a losing battle against her own federation.
Throughout the two upcoming weeks of the Olympic Games, you are going to be bombarded by the stories of people who have lived according to the equation of "EFFORT = REWARD," and it just so happens that their own life experiences have proven them right. But there is no reason why you have to swallow this "narrow slice of pie" and internalize it as The Meaning of Life. Remember: The Olympics are nothing more than the world's largest corporate-sponsored party, and "they" have to market it somehow.
Through my experiences in speedskating, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes people don't get what they seem to deserve, either in terms of effort, or in terms of character and playing fair. What I have found is that even in sports like speedskating, a lot of people - not just a few - have the "ability to suffer."
The Master's skater doing a 1500 at the age group Nationals has the ability to suffer. The woman on schedule to skate a personal best in the 5K, holding 34-35 second laps for the first time ever, suffers every bit as much as the champion who skates the race holding her typical 30-31 second laps. Many can suffer. What the rare few have is the genetics and the resources to develop their natural talent.
As we humans get closer and closer to our maximum physical potential, genetic differences between individuals become more significant. The good old days, when differences in performance were determined primarily by differences in athletes' motivation and willingness to suffer pain, passed a long time ago.
In sports like speedskating, our performance is measured by time, not by a "Pain-O-Meter." So, consider that before you let people tell you that you failed because you didn't try hard enough; before you start beating yourself up over believing that you just couldn't take the pain.
(As a side note, I don't believe it was my genetic limitations that prevented me from achieving success in this sport. Rather, it was my unreasonable fight for my rights as an athlete, and the unpleasantness that resulted. It wasn't my lack of talent, but the inability to sustain my anger-driven motivation over five years of training and competition. I burned out long before I had a chance to reach my full potential. In fact, several foreign coaches told me I had the physical potential to take this sport all the way to the top.)
Do you believe that your "character" and your "sense of fair play" has anything to do with your success in sports? Trust me: There are a lot of A-holes out there who are very successful in sports. I believe that the only way your character can make a difference in your athletic performance is in how your own feelings about your character affect your brain chemistry before and during competition.
As much as I believe in science, I was naive enough to use the concept of "reward and punishment" to motivate myself before the Olympic Trials. I honestly believed that, in the end, favoritism would not triumph over what I had worked to accomplish on my own. In consequence, once the results of the women's 500 meters came in on the first day of competition, the view of life and of metric speedskating that I had constructed for myself came crashing down, and I was so demoralized that I could hardly skate in my 1000 meter race the next day.
There are a lot of good people out there who tried hard and failed to achieve in sports, for whatever reason. But you won't be seeing any of them in the next two weeks. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the narrow, one-sided view of sports presented by the Olympics, you must find a way of silencing those voices.
To get through the Games, I might recommend trying to avoid Olympic TV coverage and occupying your mind with other things. Another helpful suggestion would be to balance out the Olympic stories by reading books about the other side of sports; on topics such as the Salt Lake bribery scandal, the figure skating judging scandal, doping in sports, or sports and genetics.
I've found that learning about some of the injustices and atrocities happening around the world can put things into perspective. Read about what's happening in the Middle East, and then see if you can convince yourself that God really doesn't care about the outcome of somebody's ice skating race.
In the end, even though the Olympics are going to be "in your face" for the next two weeks, they really aren't that important.
Hello, my name is Eva, and I am a two-time Almost-Olympian. I'm here to share my reasons for not buying into the propaganda of the Olympic Games.
Consider the following statements from a 2002 Olympic Gold Medalist:
"To athletes, I say dream big. There's not a dream that you can't obtain, it's all about putting in the work."
"It's important to play fair because, if you play fair then I think the right things will happen. Once you start cheating, everything starts to go down. If you play fair you can only have the best outcome."
-from an interview with bobsledder Vonetta Flowers
How many times have you heard the empty cliches about the hardest workers being rewarded for their effort? About a person's success in sport being about the goodness of their character? About the athletes who "have the tremendous ability to suffer," and apparently win because they can take the most pain (as if we can really measure that)?
Life doesn't always fit into a neat little box. Not everyone can be inspired by successful Olympians, and the ideas they promote. Who is hurt by such ideas? It isn't the kids who are young enough to still have a chance in their sport, or the athletes who follow this example and it actually works for them, or the people who admit that they lack the guts to even try. No, the ones who are hurt are those of us who try really hard and fail.
The Olympic Games are hardest on someone like the figure skater whose parents ran out of money, or the moguls skier whose career ended in a doctor's office when he found out his knees were worn out, or the speedskater who spent years fighting a losing battle against her own federation.
Throughout the two upcoming weeks of the Olympic Games, you are going to be bombarded by the stories of people who have lived according to the equation of "EFFORT = REWARD," and it just so happens that their own life experiences have proven them right. But there is no reason why you have to swallow this "narrow slice of pie" and internalize it as The Meaning of Life. Remember: The Olympics are nothing more than the world's largest corporate-sponsored party, and "they" have to market it somehow.
Through my experiences in speedskating, I have come to the conclusion that sometimes people don't get what they seem to deserve, either in terms of effort, or in terms of character and playing fair. What I have found is that even in sports like speedskating, a lot of people - not just a few - have the "ability to suffer."
The Master's skater doing a 1500 at the age group Nationals has the ability to suffer. The woman on schedule to skate a personal best in the 5K, holding 34-35 second laps for the first time ever, suffers every bit as much as the champion who skates the race holding her typical 30-31 second laps. Many can suffer. What the rare few have is the genetics and the resources to develop their natural talent.
As we humans get closer and closer to our maximum physical potential, genetic differences between individuals become more significant. The good old days, when differences in performance were determined primarily by differences in athletes' motivation and willingness to suffer pain, passed a long time ago.
In sports like speedskating, our performance is measured by time, not by a "Pain-O-Meter." So, consider that before you let people tell you that you failed because you didn't try hard enough; before you start beating yourself up over believing that you just couldn't take the pain.
(As a side note, I don't believe it was my genetic limitations that prevented me from achieving success in this sport. Rather, it was my unreasonable fight for my rights as an athlete, and the unpleasantness that resulted. It wasn't my lack of talent, but the inability to sustain my anger-driven motivation over five years of training and competition. I burned out long before I had a chance to reach my full potential. In fact, several foreign coaches told me I had the physical potential to take this sport all the way to the top.)
Do you believe that your "character" and your "sense of fair play" has anything to do with your success in sports? Trust me: There are a lot of A-holes out there who are very successful in sports. I believe that the only way your character can make a difference in your athletic performance is in how your own feelings about your character affect your brain chemistry before and during competition.
As much as I believe in science, I was naive enough to use the concept of "reward and punishment" to motivate myself before the Olympic Trials. I honestly believed that, in the end, favoritism would not triumph over what I had worked to accomplish on my own. In consequence, once the results of the women's 500 meters came in on the first day of competition, the view of life and of metric speedskating that I had constructed for myself came crashing down, and I was so demoralized that I could hardly skate in my 1000 meter race the next day.
There are a lot of good people out there who tried hard and failed to achieve in sports, for whatever reason. But you won't be seeing any of them in the next two weeks. If you're feeling overwhelmed by the narrow, one-sided view of sports presented by the Olympics, you must find a way of silencing those voices.
To get through the Games, I might recommend trying to avoid Olympic TV coverage and occupying your mind with other things. Another helpful suggestion would be to balance out the Olympic stories by reading books about the other side of sports; on topics such as the Salt Lake bribery scandal, the figure skating judging scandal, doping in sports, or sports and genetics.
I've found that learning about some of the injustices and atrocities happening around the world can put things into perspective. Read about what's happening in the Middle East, and then see if you can convince yourself that God really doesn't care about the outcome of somebody's ice skating race.
In the end, even though the Olympics are going to be "in your face" for the next two weeks, they really aren't that important.
posted by Eva at 9:19 AM
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