Medals Per Program:
Chad's gold medal on the first day of competition gave me an idea for another statistic worth keeping. I'll update this post as more results come in. So far, the FAST Program has one gold, and U.S. Speedskating has zero.
(After all, since the U.S. Speedskating administrators were the first ones to insist on this separation, why don't we just keep it going?)
By the end of the Games, we'll be able to calculate exactly how many medals were won by athletes who'd have gotten their hands smacked if they reached into the tubs of Clif Bars and Accelerade that were so prominently on display throughout the high performance sessions at the Utah Olympic Oval all season long!
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2/12/06: Day 2 has come and gone, and so far, Cushman's long distance program is getting an "F" for "Failure." Both days, his skaters finished last among the Americans; in each case, they were outdone by athletes from the dreaded "alternative programs." I'm just sorry that this had to happen to K.C. Boutiette and Kristine Holzer. Neither of them skated up to their potential, and a lot of that has to come down to season planning and when to taper.
When I wrote about how angry I was that when I trained with the U.S. Allround program, half our team's seasons were trashed "for the purpose of data collection on overtraining," one thing I said was that I didn't believe that the coach had the ability to analyze that data and put it to use. Now, my friends are not skating well in Torino, and I barely have the heart to say, "I told you so."
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2/13/06: Congratulations to Joey Cheek on winning the gold in the 500 meters today! Score one gold medal for U.S. Speedskating's sprint team. Good for Joey, good for his coach, Ryan Shimabukuro, and good for that whole team of guys who worked so well together for the past two seasons.
Joey's victory shows that a skater from an Allround background can be trained not just to be a decent sprinter, but to actually win an Olympic gold medal in the shortest event. As the 2006 World Sprint Champion, Joey also shows that you don't have to treat the World Sprints as a write-off in order to perform well a few weeks later at the Olympic Games.
And, in the unlikely case that Harvard didn't want to accept Joey before, they'll surely want him now that he's an Olympic gold medalist!
---
2/14/06: "INDIFFERENCE" is the word of the day. I don't think anybody really cares what I have to say right now, but I'm going to say it anyway. I also don't think anybody cares that the USA hasn't had a women's 500 meter skater since Bonnie Blair.
It's just too easy to say, "Well, the 500 isn't Jen's best event, anyway." It's true, but why does it have to be up to Jen? Jen is a strong medal contender in the 1000 and 1500. But that is not the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team.
We don't have a women's sprint team because of the toxic, team-wrecking friendship between the program director and one of his athletes.
Oh, yes, my friends; the results of my "Not Worth Protecting" experiment are coming in. With a 17th-place finish in today's 500 meter event, Amy Sannes has proven that despite all of the special favors and attention paid to her by U.S. Speedskating over the years, she has never risen above middle-of-the-pack mediocrity. According to the criteria I posted on February 8th, Sannes finds herself well within the range of NWP, or "Not Worth Protecting."
After all the years of sticking her nose in the air about being so much better than everybody else; of not wanting to skate in a group with anyone other than Jen and Witty; the result of this 2006 Olympic 500 meter race is just a speck in a huge body of "NWP" data collected over the years.
Don't take my word for it, if you think I'm just a sore loser. Skaters have been leaving Crowe's team since the late 1990's because of favoritism towards Sannes. Ask those who have been around since that time.
I'm not saying that I or another skater could have done better at these Olympics! All I'm saying is that for the effort and expense involved, 17th place wasn't worth it. Creating such animosity in the team dynamic was not worth it. But, again, I don't think anybody cares! U.S. Speedskating doesn't care. I don't think the USOC cares. I don't think the American people care. I don't even think the people at the Home Depot OJOB program care that they paid somebody $20,000 to mix a few cans of paint between attending 6 weeks' worth of out-of-town training camps, working volunteer hours at a veterinary clinic, and, finally, skating like this.
The funniest thing about favoritism is that by wielding his power to give Sannes so much protection, Crowe was admitting that he didn't believe she would be able to make it on her own.
The saddest thing about favoritism is that it destroyed any possibility of building a strong women's sprint team. And the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team has just gone out there and proven that all of their destruction has gone in pursuit of failure.
Chad's gold medal on the first day of competition gave me an idea for another statistic worth keeping. I'll update this post as more results come in. So far, the FAST Program has one gold, and U.S. Speedskating has zero.
(After all, since the U.S. Speedskating administrators were the first ones to insist on this separation, why don't we just keep it going?)
By the end of the Games, we'll be able to calculate exactly how many medals were won by athletes who'd have gotten their hands smacked if they reached into the tubs of Clif Bars and Accelerade that were so prominently on display throughout the high performance sessions at the Utah Olympic Oval all season long!
---
2/12/06: Day 2 has come and gone, and so far, Cushman's long distance program is getting an "F" for "Failure." Both days, his skaters finished last among the Americans; in each case, they were outdone by athletes from the dreaded "alternative programs." I'm just sorry that this had to happen to K.C. Boutiette and Kristine Holzer. Neither of them skated up to their potential, and a lot of that has to come down to season planning and when to taper.
When I wrote about how angry I was that when I trained with the U.S. Allround program, half our team's seasons were trashed "for the purpose of data collection on overtraining," one thing I said was that I didn't believe that the coach had the ability to analyze that data and put it to use. Now, my friends are not skating well in Torino, and I barely have the heart to say, "I told you so."
---
2/13/06: Congratulations to Joey Cheek on winning the gold in the 500 meters today! Score one gold medal for U.S. Speedskating's sprint team. Good for Joey, good for his coach, Ryan Shimabukuro, and good for that whole team of guys who worked so well together for the past two seasons.
Joey's victory shows that a skater from an Allround background can be trained not just to be a decent sprinter, but to actually win an Olympic gold medal in the shortest event. As the 2006 World Sprint Champion, Joey also shows that you don't have to treat the World Sprints as a write-off in order to perform well a few weeks later at the Olympic Games.
And, in the unlikely case that Harvard didn't want to accept Joey before, they'll surely want him now that he's an Olympic gold medalist!
---
2/14/06: "INDIFFERENCE" is the word of the day. I don't think anybody really cares what I have to say right now, but I'm going to say it anyway. I also don't think anybody cares that the USA hasn't had a women's 500 meter skater since Bonnie Blair.
It's just too easy to say, "Well, the 500 isn't Jen's best event, anyway." It's true, but why does it have to be up to Jen? Jen is a strong medal contender in the 1000 and 1500. But that is not the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team.
We don't have a women's sprint team because of the toxic, team-wrecking friendship between the program director and one of his athletes.
Oh, yes, my friends; the results of my "Not Worth Protecting" experiment are coming in. With a 17th-place finish in today's 500 meter event, Amy Sannes has proven that despite all of the special favors and attention paid to her by U.S. Speedskating over the years, she has never risen above middle-of-the-pack mediocrity. According to the criteria I posted on February 8th, Sannes finds herself well within the range of NWP, or "Not Worth Protecting."
After all the years of sticking her nose in the air about being so much better than everybody else; of not wanting to skate in a group with anyone other than Jen and Witty; the result of this 2006 Olympic 500 meter race is just a speck in a huge body of "NWP" data collected over the years.
Don't take my word for it, if you think I'm just a sore loser. Skaters have been leaving Crowe's team since the late 1990's because of favoritism towards Sannes. Ask those who have been around since that time.
I'm not saying that I or another skater could have done better at these Olympics! All I'm saying is that for the effort and expense involved, 17th place wasn't worth it. Creating such animosity in the team dynamic was not worth it. But, again, I don't think anybody cares! U.S. Speedskating doesn't care. I don't think the USOC cares. I don't think the American people care. I don't even think the people at the Home Depot OJOB program care that they paid somebody $20,000 to mix a few cans of paint between attending 6 weeks' worth of out-of-town training camps, working volunteer hours at a veterinary clinic, and, finally, skating like this.
The funniest thing about favoritism is that by wielding his power to give Sannes so much protection, Crowe was admitting that he didn't believe she would be able to make it on her own.
The saddest thing about favoritism is that it destroyed any possibility of building a strong women's sprint team. And the reason why we don't have a women's sprint team has just gone out there and proven that all of their destruction has gone in pursuit of failure.
posted by Eva at 8:09 PM
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