# It's the freakin' OLYMPICS! You don't just "quit"! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 25, 2004, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484 "2004-08-25T18:55:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/41 "2004-08-26T02:46:20Z")
My feeling is, if this woman has been willing to go through all the painful, grueling training it takes to be an Olympics-level rower, and then she just throws it all away to quit in the middle of the race, she’s got a problem. It may be a mental problem, not a physical problem, but it’s a real problem. I feel sorry for her, and her teammates. Your anger is misplaced. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/42 "2004-08-26T03:09:20Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > My feeling is, if this woman has been willing to go through all the painful, grueling training it takes to be an Olympics-level rower, and then she just throws it all away to quit in the middle of the race, she’s got a problem. It may be a mental problem, not a physical problem, but it’s a real problem. I feel sorry for her, and her teammates. She does have a problem and she should have figured it out _before_ the Olympics. I think my anger is at a chance squandered. The chance for a good time, let alone a medal, for her team mates. And that there was another woman rower who trained just as hard but just didn’t make the cut in favor of this girl. My brother was very, very close to making the national team as a lightweight about 6 years ago before he managed to mess up his back in a stupid volleyball game. And I saw exactly how hard he trained and how many sacrifices he made to stay at the top of his game. Any rower (or elite athelete) will tell you that a whole lot of the battle is mental. Sure, it takes a whole lot of physical strength, but the mental toughness to push through the pain (not talking catastrophic injuries, just the fatigue and muscle pain of sports in general) is what sets elite atheletes apart from us mere mortals. I guess it also bothers me a lot because it’s a sport I train pretty hard in. And I do OK on a local level. But I’ll never be an elite athelete unless I suddenly wake up 6 inches taller and 50 pounds heavier. So, I’m jealous that here’s someone who does have the size and strength to make it to the Olympics yet didn’t have the mental toughness to finish the race. She’s gonna regret dropping out for the rest of her life and I do feel bad for her. I just feel worse for her team mates and the girl that _didn’t_ make the eight. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/43 "2004-08-26T04:21:11Z")
> [@Terminus Est](#): > > She’s simply following the example set by Paula Radcliffe, who quit in the middle of the marathon when it became clear that she couldn’t win. With Paula threatening to run in the 10,000 metres, bookmakers have opened spreadbets on which lap she’s going to drop out on. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/44 "2004-08-26T05:02:03Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > Hmmm, the more I read, it seems that she _didn’t_ shut it down, she just ran out of gas and collapsed. It’s obvious there’s more going on then we’re currently aware of. Okay rowing is not a sport that I follow , at anytime , even during the olympics. Normally I would rather watch the Americas cup yacht racing. Having said that , I did remember catching a television documentary on the Canadian eight womes rowing team , not so long ago , and the training regime that they go through on a daily and weekly basis. If this chick was out of gas , how the heck did she make it into the team anyways ? I would have assumed that they do the max distance on a regular basis , just for this reason , so that they are conditioned for a long distance row. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/45 "2004-08-26T05:03:50Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Kerri Strugg, I believe. She had a sprain, not a broken bone. Not to diminish her gumption… ’ Yeah , she may have pranged her ankle , but she broke everyones heart that watched that , god that looked painful. Declan ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/46 "2004-08-26T05:36:05Z")
_looking at Kayeby’s link_ OK, so I underestimated how much these insane people would be remembered. But so what? What does any of it really matter? What good is a gold medal if you can’t walk right because your leg is jacked up? What good is fame if you can barely dress yourself because you slammed your shoulder into people time and time again? And what if you invest more than you really have in you and fuck yourself up for the rest of your life, but it’s still not good enough and everybody else beats you? I don’t think you’ll be much remembered then. You’ll still have a broken body to deal with though. ---
**Author:** ![roger\_thornhill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/d9b06d/32.png) [@roger\_thornhill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/roger_thornhill)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 6:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/47 "2004-08-26T06:04:09Z")
‘Years later, Fujimoto, whose knee still hurts, was asked whether he would do it all again. He said bluntly, “No, I would not”.’ This, from the nation that gave us _Endurance_, cannot be taken lightly. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/48 "2004-08-26T06:05:23Z")
> [@sturmhauke](#): > > _looking at Kayeby’s link_ > > OK, so I underestimated how much these insane people would be remembered. But so what? What does any of it really matter? What good is a gold medal if you can’t walk right because your leg is jacked up? What good is fame if you can barely dress yourself because you slammed your shoulder into people time and time again? And what if you invest more than you really have in you and fuck yourself up for the rest of your life, but it’s still not good enough and everybody else beats you? I don’t think you’ll be much remembered then. You’ll still have a broken body to deal with though. For most people , what you say is probably common sense. But for the olympians and other class atheletes , its what they live for , gives em a sense of closure for all those early morning , no social life , begging off the public tit (depending on what country you live in) , it all comes down to what you personally can live with. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Terminus\_Est](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terminus_est/32/3087_2.png) [@Terminus\_Est](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terminus_Est)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/49 "2004-08-26T06:06:03Z")
> [@Lamar Mundane](#): > > Anyone who saw that race knows what complete BS that statement is. That woman was completely shot physically and emotionally and tried several times to get back in the race. I was watching the race when she dropped out. She was running well behind the leaders. Her face broke and she stopped. She did a few more half-hearted steps then stopped again. Then she sat down on the side of the road and wept. I’ll grant you emotional, but she sure didn’t look physically spent to me. And it seems to me that her emotion was more about not being able to win any medals, and not about being unable to finish the race. ---
**Author:** ![calm\_kiwi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9fc348/32.png) [@calm\_kiwi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/calm_kiwi)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/50 "2004-08-26T06:21:39Z")
I feel sorry for Sally and the team. Whatever the reason was that she stopped rowing, she had worked as hard as her team mates to get there. I’m sure she didn’t want this to happen anymore then they did. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/51 "2004-08-26T10:48:27Z")
Regardless of what happened during the race, she was part of a team and the team should have presented as a united unit until they got behind closed doors. The fact that they slagged her of on national TV immediately after the race is inexcuseable, it is even worse that the words came from the team captain. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 10:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/52 "2004-08-26T10:56:57Z")
IMO of course, and yeah, I understand that they are sportswomen, not public relations experts. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/53 "2004-08-26T11:44:48Z")
Ahhh well… no use arguing about opinions on a messageboard. I think we all agree that THAT is a flogging to nothing. Interestingly, no one’s picked up on my salient point about Robbins dragging her oar. For mine, that’s the sacrilige part - everything else is just people buying into the personality conflict kinda stuff. But to drag one’s oar is a technical breach which, in effect, is a career killer. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/54 "2004-08-26T12:19:40Z")
Definitely a good point **Boo Boo Foo** , what was she thinking?:rhetoricalsmilie: The only thing for sure is that she was not fit (be it mentally or physically) for the race and probably shouldn’t have been there. Obviously no one knew that before hand though. It is unfortunate that it has happened considering all of the other successes that Australia has had so far in the Olympics. [off topic]Some of those cycling events are pretty bizarre. Most sports you can get the gist of what’s going on even if you have no prior knowledge of the sport. If the commentators hadn’t been providing information I would have been completely lost watching the Madison. And just when I had the individual race sorted in my head, along comes the teams event, how the heck do the officials score these things?[/off topic] ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/55 "2004-08-26T13:43:15Z")
> [@Declan](#): > > If this chick was out of gas , how the heck did she make it into the team anyways ? I would have assumed that they do the max distance on a regular basis , just for this reason , so that they are conditioned for a long distance row. I don’t follow rowing, either, but I have seen it happen in other endurance-type sports that someone just unexpectedly runs out of gas. One example from not too long ago happened in last year’s Nordic skiing world championship. The Swedish men’s cross-country relay team appeared to have a solid shot at the gold - until the last leg, when Jørgen Brink just… evaporated. The camera was waiting for him to come over the crest of a hill, and he didn’t come and didn’t come, and when he finally made it he looked just awful. Not only was he going much too slow, he looked like he was struggling. It wasn’t even a particularly long race, each leg is 10km which is the shortest regular distance in men’s cross-country. I don’t think anyone, including Brink, really knows what happened - did he get too eager and forget to pace himself? Did he have a mild cold or other virus without realizing it? Or did the universe just decide that, once again, the Swedish team should not be allowed to catch a break? Of course, Brink did not just quit. He kept going (and, let’s be honest, even at his “slow” pace he would have whipped my sorry butt from here to Tuesday) and managed to save the bronze for Sweden. This might explain why he was allowed back in the country 😉 ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/56 "2004-08-26T14:11:10Z")
> [@Terminus Est](#): > > I was watching the race when she dropped out. She was running well behind the leaders. Her face broke and she stopped. She did a few more half-hearted steps then stopped again. Then she sat down on the side of the road and wept. I’ll grant you emotional, but she sure didn’t look physically spent to me. And it seems to me that her emotion was more about not being able to win any medals, and not about being unable to finish the race. You some kind of psychic dodctor? ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/57 "2004-08-26T16:25:59Z")
> [@Boo Boo Foo](#): > > Interestingly, no one’s picked up on my salient point about Robbins dragging her oar. For mine, that’s the sacrilige part - everything else is just people buying into the personality conflict kinda stuff. But to drag one’s oar is a technical breach which, in effect, is a career killer. Well, there’s really not a whole lot you can do if a rower stops rowing. You can sit at half-slide (knees halfway bent) with the oar perpendicular to the boat, but you still may be hit in the kidneys by the rower behind you and the rower in front of you may hit your oar. ([Here’s](http://www.row2k.com/olympics/photo.cfm?action=slideshow&dir=2004summer/OlympicGames/OlympicM8ss&label=Mens%20Eight%20Slideshow) a really neat slideshow of the US men’s eight were you can see how the rower changes position) It’s true you’ll increase drag with the oar on the water but your set (the boat’s balance) is going to be so incredibly messed up with only seven people rowing that it’d be tough to hold it off the water. (it’s pretty tough to keep all the oars off the water even when all eight people are rowing) In really close competitions, when a rower has a catastrophic equipment failure, he’ll release the oar, throw it off the boat, and then jump (making sure to stay under water long enough to avoid getting hit by oars passing over him). That way, the rower isn’t in the way, the oar isn’t dragging, and the boat is lighter. But that’s kind of dangerous and pretty rare. (and some races say you must cross the finish line with all rowers, I don’t know what the Olympic rules are off-hand) The real career killer is that she’s now done this _twice_. The latest [article](http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,10558990%255E11088,00.html) is interesting. They’re trying to make it sound like the other rower’s have reconciled with her but it sounds pretty forced to me. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/58 "2004-08-26T16:33:35Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > In really close competitions, when a rower has a catastrophic equipment failure, he’ll release the oar, throw it off the boat, and then jump (making sure to stay under water long enough to avoid getting hit by oars passing over him). That seems like an insane move to pull off successfully. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/59 "2004-08-26T17:06:15Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > The real career killer is that she’s now done this _twice_. The latest [article](http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5478,10558990%255E11088,00.html) is interesting. They’re trying to make it sound like the other rower’s have reconciled with her but it sounds pretty forced to me. OK, if this is the second time and she’s still not lifting her oar and whatever else she should be doing if she can’t row, then I can see why her teammates are pissed. But she still doesn’t deserve the level of scorn she’s getting. ---
**Author:** ![tremorviolet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@tremorviolet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tremorviolet)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2004, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484/60 "2004-08-26T17:08:44Z")
> [@World Eater](#): > > That seems like an insane move to pull off successfully. Yeah, it’s really rare. But catastrophic equipment failures (like an oar snapping or a rigger breaking) are also rare. (an aside, if you’ve seen the cheesy movie, _The Skulls_ with Dawson’s Creek’s Joshua Jackson, they show this happening in a race - which is also interesting because the boats the star is competeing with are actually Princeton and Yale.) Stopping in the middle of a race is _unheard of_ so there really aren’t any plans for it. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-the-freakin-olympics-you-dont-just-quit/261484.md?page=4)