UKC

Poor bugger - just absolutely gutted for her, and heartbreaking to see her so distressed. It really does appear that the Fates seem determined to conspire against her. Just keeping everything crossed that she can somehow focus in time for her next event, but...  

In reply to John Ww:

Poor kid - if she didn’t have bad luck she’d have no luck at all. 

Hope she gets a medal in one of the other events.

 

In reply to Yanis Nayu:

She really needs to catch a break. Is she perhaps trying a tiny bit too hard? Four DNFs in four finals.

Would be lovely for her to taste victory finally.

In reply to John Ww:

I was so sad for her

In reply to John Ww:

Maybe the idea of 'it's not the winning but the taking part' might cheer her up.

In reply to John Ww:

Calamitous. Multi world champ but it just falls apart come Olympics. Still two chances for her and I hope for her sanity's sake that she pulls it together.

In reply to baron:

That idea was always a lie, almost as crass and hypocritical as "dulce et decorum est....". You train and sacrifice large parts of your time not for participating, but for competing and winning. 

In reply to baron:

I always found that statement to come from those not good enough to compete with the best. High level sport is hard work, takes significant sacrifice and exerts a huge emotional toll on you when you're not doing as well as you know you're capable of. Nothing wrong with doing sport for a bit of fun, but turning round to someone who takes it seriously and saying 'pah, it's just a bit of fun' is somewhat missing the point.

In reply to Cloverleaf:

Aye. It's not the taking part, it's the winning that counts (at that level, at least)!

In reply to cb294:

I don't think that 'it's not the winning ............' quote means that you shouldn't be trying to win just that you have to accept that for most participants in an event there will only be one winner and you have to accept that losing could happen.

In reply to Cloverleaf:

My quote doesn't mention that it's just a bit of fun.

Millions of people take their sport extremely seriously and work really hard with no chance of ever winning.

In reply to Max Hangs:

I thought the best speed skater was the one having the most fun...

In reply to Max Hangs:

I ended up watching the final of the mens half pipe snow boarding till 3am this morning. I know nothing about actual snow boarding but what an absolutely phenomenal and thrilling  bit of all or nothing competition requiring all caution to be thrown to the wind. Only the Olympics can produce stuff like thus. Amazingly, they all seemed to be greatly enjoying it......... Apart from the guy who got carted off on a stretcher and the Japanese guy who lost Gold on the very last run - he looked absolutely desolate.

In reply to John Ww:

All the cynics who are claiming that it is only the winning that matters and not the taking part are guilty, I think, of simultaneously idolising and infantilising the elite. Both the winning and the taking part are important, and both exist as motivations and pleasures in all of us - in fact, both are really one and the same. Bad losers/spoilt brats may only focus on the latest defeat, while good losers are better at considering the entire process.

And in looking back on the entire process Elise Christie should be able to see all sorts of victories: she won a place in a squad, she won her place in the final, she likely won all sorts of small training goals on the way, she won some sort of moral victory, and a lot of sympathy and attention. Can you doubt that she took pleasure in these smaller victories at the time? So why now try to re-write history in black and white? 

I guess the cynics must be viewing it as a kind of double or quits game, where each loss amounts to a total destruction of your stake. If winning at sport were like that it just might be fair to claim that the winning is everything. But sport simply isn't like that. All the effort and training - all the smaller victories - to get Christie to the final is investment in herself. She is not back to square one.

And that is how almost all our personal struggles work - two steps forward one step back (or one forward and two back if we are less lucky). And isn't it naive to imagine that a naturally selected animal would evolve, psychologically, in a way that meant the process were not important, that there was no reward for the taking part? If we thought that the forward steps were insignificant and that only the backward steps mattered we wouldn't get very far, and certainly not to an Olympic final.

In reply to Robert Durran:

It was a superb competition with an absolutely sensational standard of performance. I've trained with Jenny Jones (Olympic Bronze medal winner in Sochi) so, without anything like that level of talent, I have some idea of the skill and commitment required. The teenagers are taking over the sport of snowboarding and there are world-class athletes forbidden from competing in the Olympics on grounds of age. Some are only 13. Yet Sean White can pull out a run like that in his 4th Olympic Games at TWICE their age!!

And yes, the poor silver medallist was disconsolate.

In reply to Wicamoi:

Even though I never made it to the Olympics, I have competed internationally in my sport. I know exactly what is involved, how much I had invested before each tournament, and how I would have reacted to someone telling me to focus on how nice participating alone must have been. 

I am sure that looking back participation at Olympic games alone must be a great memory (at least that is what my friends who participated in Barcelona and Atlanta tell me), but for the ones who went in with a realistic hope of a medal reaching that perspective took years. 

CB

 

In reply to BnB:

I still find it hard to watch without thinking they should smarten themselves up a bit. All those baggy clothes and headphones - it's like they're actually enjoying the proceedings or something

In reply to nufkin:

Is the baggy clothing a hangover from the days when snowboarding was sort of rebellious, or is the extra air resistance worth it for a parachute effect in the tricks. It amazes me that you can see their bare backs when their clothing rides up.

Highlights of the utterly incredible mens half pipe on the telly right now!

In reply to Robert Durran:

It's easier to flex your body into the required positions with really baggy pants. The basic stance is not far off that required for a visit to an old-style French crapper so there's plenty of give required around the buttocks and thighs. Spandex just pulls you out of shape.

In reply to Robert Durran:

Probably partly to distance themselves from the skiers! Same thing was going on with Downhill MTB around 08 when they banned skinsuits and removing peaks from helmets. The majority of riders didn't like how it looked but were forced into 'going bullet' and skinsuit when the rest of the completion did as it was worth c8secs on a then 4m15 run down Fort William. Simple answer was to ban skin tight clothing.

In reply to cb294: different people, different perspectives .  I also competed internationally, know a lot of people who've been to the Olympics and world champs, and some of them have medals.   However most people know they are not going to get a medal , certainly I did.

I could have won a lot of local races, and been happy with that, but personally chose to go into bigger races to see where I stood.  So I can very much see where just being there is a source of great satisfaction

In reply to BnB:

The boarder-crossers wear shiny tights though. When speed is the main requirement it makes sense. I like a bit of padding when I go airborne though. I'm not good at landings.

In reply to John Ww:

Oh f*ck!!! Poor sod, I hope she’s ok, fingers crossed

In reply to John Ww:

Potential for a really great story though if she wins the last one...... or crashes out.

In reply to John Ww:

The more I watch this speed skating, the more it looks like a bit of a lottery.

She's been given the all clear from the hospital tho so hopefully seh can get though the 1000 without falling

In reply to John Ww:

Her partner crashed out too in his race. Poor buggers.

 

In reply to John Ww:

Deja vu. Such a shame. 

In reply to becauseitsthere:

DQ’d from the 1,000 not sure why yet. To be honest, she looked in pain.

In reply to The New NickB:

Fingers crossed that the curlers have more luck 

In reply to John Ww:

Well that's one way of looking at it. Another is that 4 disqualifications and 2 crashes is more than just bad luck. The Asafa Powell of Speed Skating.

 

In reply to planetmarshall:

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry when I heard it confirmed that she had gone 0 for 3 again. Beyond belief.

Bad luck once or twice, but not 6 times. I hope she bounces back again.

In reply to nathan79:

Maybe but that last disqualification seemed really harsh to me. Not an expert obviously, but by the nature of this event, the skater has to be quite aggressive with all the jostling and fighting for position. I really can’t see how she slowed any of the others down by her actions.

In reply to planetmarshall:

She didn't get to be world champion and world record holder by not being very good.

Brave of her to commit to 2022 staright away.

 

In reply to nathan79:

She is the current world champion over the two longer distances, a world record holder at 500m, 10 times euro gold medallist and informed commentators (not GB) have been saying she has been unlucky with decisions so maybe........ she has been a bit unlucky.

In reply to mountain.martin:

That was £4,764,006 down the drain! http://www.uksport.gov.uk/sports/olympic/short-track-speed-skating

Will they get continued funding seeing as they've come back empty handed?

In reply to Lusk:you could pay for a lot of youth/ community projects with that. 

 

In reply to Lusk:

That Olympic pressure missing from a World Championship must be the problem

 

In reply to mountain.martin:

That's why I made the Powell comparison. Powell has run more sub 10 second 100m times than anyone else in history, even Bolt. Yet time and again, he failed to match his obvious capabilities to achievement on the world stage.

Christie should be justifiably proud of her world championship, but that occurs every year, not every four. Psychologically it's a very different kind of pressure.