WHOSE BACK IS AGAINST THE WALL NOW, U.S. SPEEDSKATING???
These are the American women's results from the 1000 meters today:
10th: Jen Rodriguez
25th: Amy Sannes
27th: Chris Witty
32nd: Elli Ochowicz
No medals.
For anyone who has been wondering whether my gripes about problems within USS are just "sour grapes," here is your answer. Barring a miracle, Tom Cushman's USS Allround team will go home without a single Olympic medal. Barring a miracle, the entire U.S. women's long track speedskating contingent will go home without a medal.
For the longest time, U.S. Speedskating has managed to hide behind its medalists. Sometimes, they can get away with hiding a lot of crap on the back end of the team, as long as someone is holding up the front end and getting on the podium. But what happens when their one and only medal hopeful isn't skating well, and they have no depth in their team because they have failed to develop it?
Tell me now that the USS administrators and coaches know how to determine who has talent and who doesn't. Tell me they made good decisions. Tell me they know whom to protect and which way to throw their support.
I'm so glad I'm not one of the American female middle distance skaters competing in the Olympics right now, and I'll tell you why. It has to do with a phenomenon that I'll call "Skating for the Enemy:" (I wonder if Shani knows what I mean?)
Ever since I came back to this sport, U.S. Speedskating has been trying to weed me out. At various times, they saw me as an experimental guinea pig, a waste of resources, a threat to their favorites, and a no-talent. Some people say that metric speedskating is an absolute, and that things people say, think, or believe about you do not influence the final result. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case. It makes a concrete difference whether I'm working 30 hours a week because I only get paid for the hours I'm punched in on the clock, while a "teammate" of mine gets a paycheck whether she works or not. It makes a difference, mentally, when it's hammered into you by your own federation that you are a worthless piece of shit.
Peter Mueller and Boris Vasilkovsky thought I had the talent to take this sport as far as I wanted, but I had to deal instead with the reality of having my potential rejected by the likes of Mike Crowe, Tom Cushman, and Andy Gabel. Their rejection had real consequences on the sustainability of my speedskating career.
Now, in terms of how the American women are doing, you can't convince me that these people are capable of building a strong women's team. They have failed utterly and miserably, and I hope they will be held accountable for their failure.
When you rig the fight between skaters within a country, you end up with some people who get undeserved favors, and others who keep getting backstabbed and stomped on. Eventually, it no longer matters who ends up going to an international competition -- whether it's the undeserving favorite or the backstabbed "whipping girl," NEITHER ONE WILL BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE REST OF THE WORLD.
I'm glad I'm not in Torino right now. I WOULD HAVE SUCKED THERE MYSELF!!! I'm not sitting here wishing I were racing. I'm not raring to go. I feel worn out, defeated, and FED UP!!! If I had somehow squeaked by and gone 0.09 faster in the 1000 meter at the Olympic Trials, U.S. Speedskating would have wrapped me up in the latest Nike spandex, and I would have gone to the starting line feeling like I had a knife in my back and a lingering voice in my mind saying,
"I will not perform for my own destroyers.
I will not perform for my own destroyers."
Let other people answer the media's questions about why the American women aren't winning. Let Sannes answer why she is competing in her 3rd Olympics and placing ELEVEN spots lower than she did in her 2nd Olympics, and why U.S. Speedskating went so far out of their way to make it so damn easy for her to stick around for the last four years.
You people think you're fighting ME, when all of a sudden you're broadsided by the likes of Marianne Timmer, Cindy Klassen, Anni Freisinger, Irene Wust....and you stand there looking shocked, saying, "Where did that come from???"
Open wide, U.S. Speedskating, and take a giant gulp of your own rotten medicine.
These are the American women's results from the 1000 meters today:
10th: Jen Rodriguez
25th: Amy Sannes
27th: Chris Witty
32nd: Elli Ochowicz
No medals.
For anyone who has been wondering whether my gripes about problems within USS are just "sour grapes," here is your answer. Barring a miracle, Tom Cushman's USS Allround team will go home without a single Olympic medal. Barring a miracle, the entire U.S. women's long track speedskating contingent will go home without a medal.
For the longest time, U.S. Speedskating has managed to hide behind its medalists. Sometimes, they can get away with hiding a lot of crap on the back end of the team, as long as someone is holding up the front end and getting on the podium. But what happens when their one and only medal hopeful isn't skating well, and they have no depth in their team because they have failed to develop it?
Tell me now that the USS administrators and coaches know how to determine who has talent and who doesn't. Tell me they made good decisions. Tell me they know whom to protect and which way to throw their support.
I'm so glad I'm not one of the American female middle distance skaters competing in the Olympics right now, and I'll tell you why. It has to do with a phenomenon that I'll call "Skating for the Enemy:" (I wonder if Shani knows what I mean?)
Ever since I came back to this sport, U.S. Speedskating has been trying to weed me out. At various times, they saw me as an experimental guinea pig, a waste of resources, a threat to their favorites, and a no-talent. Some people say that metric speedskating is an absolute, and that things people say, think, or believe about you do not influence the final result. I'm sorry, but that just isn't the case. It makes a concrete difference whether I'm working 30 hours a week because I only get paid for the hours I'm punched in on the clock, while a "teammate" of mine gets a paycheck whether she works or not. It makes a difference, mentally, when it's hammered into you by your own federation that you are a worthless piece of shit.
Peter Mueller and Boris Vasilkovsky thought I had the talent to take this sport as far as I wanted, but I had to deal instead with the reality of having my potential rejected by the likes of Mike Crowe, Tom Cushman, and Andy Gabel. Their rejection had real consequences on the sustainability of my speedskating career.
Now, in terms of how the American women are doing, you can't convince me that these people are capable of building a strong women's team. They have failed utterly and miserably, and I hope they will be held accountable for their failure.
When you rig the fight between skaters within a country, you end up with some people who get undeserved favors, and others who keep getting backstabbed and stomped on. Eventually, it no longer matters who ends up going to an international competition -- whether it's the undeserving favorite or the backstabbed "whipping girl," NEITHER ONE WILL BE ABLE TO WITHSTAND THE REST OF THE WORLD.
I'm glad I'm not in Torino right now. I WOULD HAVE SUCKED THERE MYSELF!!! I'm not sitting here wishing I were racing. I'm not raring to go. I feel worn out, defeated, and FED UP!!! If I had somehow squeaked by and gone 0.09 faster in the 1000 meter at the Olympic Trials, U.S. Speedskating would have wrapped me up in the latest Nike spandex, and I would have gone to the starting line feeling like I had a knife in my back and a lingering voice in my mind saying,
"I will not perform for my own destroyers.
I will not perform for my own destroyers."
Let other people answer the media's questions about why the American women aren't winning. Let Sannes answer why she is competing in her 3rd Olympics and placing ELEVEN spots lower than she did in her 2nd Olympics, and why U.S. Speedskating went so far out of their way to make it so damn easy for her to stick around for the last four years.
You people think you're fighting ME, when all of a sudden you're broadsided by the likes of Marianne Timmer, Cindy Klassen, Anni Freisinger, Irene Wust....and you stand there looking shocked, saying, "Where did that come from???"
Open wide, U.S. Speedskating, and take a giant gulp of your own rotten medicine.
posted by Eva at 12:49 PM
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