There, I said it. Wanna hear it again? Michelle Kwan is a quitter.
Peter Ueberroth and the rest of the IOC may be in awe of her record, but Kwan disgraced herself yesterday. Not because she has a legitimate injury and can’t compete in the Olympics, but how she handled it. If an NFL player had pulled this stunt the week of the Super Bowl he wouldn’t be under contract next year, for any team. Kwan is being canonized for her ‘bravery’ and the ‘body of her work.’ She should get on the phone to Dan Marino and ask what that ‘body of work’ feels like years later when you never won the big prize.
All the posturing she did about the Olympics not being about the gold medal, but being about the ‘experience of being there’ was bullshit. Pure, old fashioned bullshit. That press conference was nothing more than a quitter trying to rationalize quitting, and making it worse by doing so in public. An athlete with an Olympic sized heart would have been fighting to stay on the ice. The coaches or doctors would have had to pull her from the line-up. That’s what someone that really wanted to win would have done.
If the Olympics weren’t about winning they would give everybody that shows up a gold medal, just like in Pop Warner football. Come to the games, eat ice cream with the team, get a prize, and go home happy.
The Olympics is all about winning the gold medal. That’s the reason little kids get up at 0430 to skate three hours before going off to school. It’s why people from every nation in the world tune in to watch sports they know nothing about. The gold medal proves that you are better than everyone else, and no one can contest that for four years. It’s like holding the Super Bowl on during a leap year. The Olympic gold medal is everything. And even more so in a pseudo-sport like ice skating. To say that the experience of being in Turing means more than the medal is marginalizing the meaning of the games.
Kwan should have just stood up and said that she was hurt too badly to compete, and then for good measure, admit it was a mistake to petition for a spot on this Olympic team. Which is really the proof that Kwan is full of bull shit, because if the games were more about being there than winning a medal; then she would have bought a ticket and watched the games from the stands.
Kwan could have gone home with some dignity intact. Now, she’s just one more quitter in a long line of quitters who shouldn’t be mentioned in the same breath as the Olympic gold medal.
There, I said it. Michelle Kwan is a quitter.
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