When I was in high school, I ran on the track team. I was a sprinter. Ours was a small school, and the girls' team was not well populated. As it happened, we had three sprinters on our team - myself and two of my good friends. These friends were Carolyn and Debbie, and the three of us were inseparable and each others biggest cheerleaders.
We did pretty well for ourselves, gathering a pile of ribbons between us. We also did all of the sprint relays together, the main hitch being that relays consist of four runners, not three. But we were okay with the fact that we would not be finishing near the top in the relays. Coach would find a 4th participant - a distance runner or shot putter or something - and we'd go do our thing.
In fact, I enjoyed the relays the most - the excitement of the baton exchanges. It turned out that I was the fastest of us, so I always had the anchor position. Debbie always ran first, Carolyn ran third, and the [insert 4th runner here] ran second. By the time the baton got to me, we were inevitably behind, but not necessarily last. This was extremely motivating for me. I always had at least one other girl to chase down.
One race was at the state qualifying meet. The three top teams would go on to compete with the best in the state. We NEVER went to state in a relay nor had any expectations of it. In that particular race, we finished fourth.
As we hugged and congratulated ourselves at our decent showing, Debbie suddenly stopped and said, "Omigod, we got fourth. Just think if one of the teams that beat us dropped their baton or did something else to get disqualified..."
Carolyn and I pondered, realizing, "Omigod, we would go on to compete at state".
Then we all heaved a great sigh of relief over the fact that we would NOT be progressing to the state track meet to be shamed by the best relay teams in the state. Yikes, that was close!
I'm thinking about that because of all the hype about Raygun, the Olympic b-girl from Australia. Clips of her breakdancing performance have been all over the internet. She earned a grand total of zero points through 3 rounds of competition.
I'm just curious, was she truly excited about being selected to compete at the Olympics? Did she realize how embarrassing her "dance" was? Or did she really think she belonged there? Her showing was truly bad, and a bit upsetting, but I'm starting to feel sorry for her for the viral backlash. As such, I will not post one of the many many many related memes to decorate this post.
But really. What WAS she thinking?
7 comments:
I think at some levels locally, any Athlete can look and seem like a Star... but then, at an Olympic Event or on the Pro Circuit, well, it's competing at a whole other level. It's like the Homecoming Queen of a Small School in a Rural area who may have been the prettiest and most popular... she goes to Hollywood and she's not all that exceptional among a much larger Pool of Talent and Beauty. It's better to be a Big Fish in a small Pond than a Minnow in a huge one... where your chances of getting eaten alive are high.
Bless her heart. The best Australia had to offer.
I have to be honest - I did not hear about this. But I'd like to believe she was happy she was there.
She claims she wanted to bring happiness to everyone. Head scratcher to me. but my biggest question is how the hell did she qualify to get to the Olympics. And now because of her I believe is the reason breaking is no longer going to be an Olympic sport (well should it ever have been?)
Bohemian, yep, she was a minnow in a HUGE lake. And I wonder if/how she didn't realize how big the Olympics are and how underqualified she was.
Linda Sue, she certainly highlighted Austrailia's place on the map. I expect a bumper crop of Rayguns for Halloween!
Chatty, I didn't watch much Olympic coverage, but Raygun's "performance" became viral all over social media afterwards. I wonder if she's happy now?
Peggy, I feel a bit sorry for serious breakdancers, because it really does require a lot of training and skill. She has a PhD. in breakdancing? WTF even is that?
I wonder if she saw this as a way to make money from all the attention. Olivia
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