Last summer Chanelle Price wanted to quit, now thanks to God (and more mileage?) Chanelle Price is a world champion

It does seem a high proportion of runners, American and foreign, are either Christian or Muslim. For mid-20's first-world people it's especially significant. Why is this? Maybe they're less likely to ruin their athletic potential drinking and partying?

She is WIC Champion and not a world champion. WIC is not a major meet.

Observer of Religion wrote:

It does seem a high proportion of runners, American and foreign, are either Christian or Muslim. For mid-20's first-world people it's especially significant. Why is this? Maybe they're less likely to ruin their athletic potential drinking and partying?

because most people who run high mileage for years have something wrong with them

Wow, I recall in an interview where she said that she wanted to quit near the end of her college career because it was becoming "boring," but I hadn't realized she hit rock bottom.

I'd like to see her training schedule. She must do a butt-ton of sprints and lifting for that low of mileage.

I'm always amazed how few Christian athletes put their failures down to God.

ChRxist the savior.

Hey It is amazes me as well when all these athletes talk about I put my faith in God and he made me win. Let's be real, I am a christian and I pray for world peace, a better life, a better race etc, but I do not think that God really cares about who wins a race.

Always good to hedge and place your faith both in God and higher mileage.

Commuter wrote: Let's be real, I am a christian and I pray for world peace, a better life, a better race etc, but I do not think that God really cares about who wins a race.

You're on the right track but, depending upon the substance of you aforementioned prayers, you still might be going a bit far with your expectations.

I'm not a particularly religious person, but I still hold the notion of a god because I was brainwashed to "believe" as part of my upbringing. I just can't shake it.

But I think I've settled on the absolute most any of us can expect: Pray for guidance and the strength to follow it and make the right choices. I think the ugliness of this world shows us that no loving god intervenes on our behalf. Perhaps life in general is our only Devine opportunity, and it is OUR responsibility to make the best of it.

So...all these athletes giving the "glory to God" are not giving themselves enough credit. If they want to be humbly thankful for the opportunity to be on this earth and competing, so be it. But no "higher power" did the work for them, and to publically claim otherwise really diminishes everyone's achievements.

Bernard Lagasse wrote:

Perhaps life in general is our only Devine opportunity...

Devine? This guy?

I think anyone who gainsays the benefit (in terms of focus, dedication, prioritizing, and mental strength) that some people derive from their religious faith is ignoring reality.

Regardless of one's opinion about the reality of god(s) or other religious tenets, some believers are clearly strengthened by their belief. To deny that[u/] reality is unscientific.

It actually sounds like her flatlining in college and subsequent mental burnout and disappointment at nationals last year was due to insufficient training. Her resurgence has nothing to do God, part-time jobs, etc., she's now training more like a professional 800 runner. Still insufficient as she herself says. God and part-time jobs would have left her in the same boat if she'd continued training 20 miles per week.

The God thing just cracks me up. Yay for God. We prayed and he did X. You know like saving those miners a while back. Of course no one mentions all the miners that died in other events. Or why God didn't keep the collapse from happening in the first place.

Gotta love his PR team, Credit for everything good, never for anything bad.

Religious people are liberated from social pressure by their belief in a higher authority. Atheists are liberated by the knowledge that most other people are idiots.

it is all crazy wrote:

Gotta love his PR team, Credit for everything good, never for anything bad.

The Devil has his PR people out taking credit for the bad stuff.

People misunderstand when athletes babble about religion in interviews. They're not really that religious, they just can't think of anything else to say. They're on the spot so they start talking nonsense, of which religion is a popular form.

The non-religious Nick Symmonds was interviewed last year after USA's. He was asked about his 400 speed, and he started rambling about yeah, he had to improve it to get any better at 800, so he was gonna spend the offseason working on it, and blah blah blah. He didn't mean a word of it, it was just a bunch of guff. So is all the praise-god crap.

Athletes that aren't nervous in interviews, or are used to them, tend to say meaningful things instead.

The continued belief in fairy tales speaks volume about the American people and their decline.

A person who has travelled, done even a modest amount of deep searching, thought about things would realize that American-style Christianity is one of the most evil creations the world has ever known and should not even be called "Christianity."

It's something else completely. It's in the same vein as moderate Muslims who don't want people to think the Taliban are "Muslims."