Master of LolIy wrote:
Once again:
Simone Biles, the most influential athlete of the year.
For sports achievements please read sports magazines.
Then Ben Johnson should maybe have got it in '88, and Lance Armstrong after his Oprah interview.
Master of LolIy wrote:
Once again:
Simone Biles, the most influential athlete of the year.
For sports achievements please read sports magazines.
Then Ben Johnson should maybe have got it in '88, and Lance Armstrong after his Oprah interview.
Awards like this jumped the shark years ago. Only meant to influence and antagonize.
calbuffalo wrote:
Awards like this jumped the shark years ago. Only meant to influence and antagonize.
Did you think that when Time selected Trump as person of the year in 2016?
Clicks wrote:
It's obvious they chose her for the controversy, they want people to click on their article as much as possible.
I have huge respect for her. She knew as a Gymnast that she was in trouble and decided not to risk a broken neck or a concussion by trying to compete when she was not feeling well (doesn't matter if it was mental or physical). There are plenty of runners that DNS or DNF for the same reason, why risk profound injury when it's better to regroup and then try again under better circumstances? AND Gymnasts face much more severe injuries than runners do, injuries that are potentially life threatening or ones that have a high chance for mutilation or life-long disability. They are not beholden to us.
I also greatly respect her for standing up and speaking out against the evil sexual predator and pedophile Larry Nassar in what is one of the most horrifying cases of repeated, long standing sexual crimes and cover-ups in the history of sports. Period. USA Gymnastics should be shut down completely and rebuilt from scratch. They betrayed and physically and mentally/emotionally tortured these Olympic athletes. I don't have the words to describe how horrible the circumstances were that Biles and other gymnasts had to go through as children and then the added pressure of competing on a world stage for medals. All of us here on these boards would have crumbled.
Add on top of that the pressure and hype that she was getting from the media, for marketing purposes. They sold her image and success and pre-determined her glory for their own gains, and at the expense of her well-being. It was too much. None of that came from her.
She did her best under all of these circumstances and still performed well, and cheered her teammates on with a genuine smile. Many high profile runners (I'm thinking of NOP athletes in particular) hide and slink away (sometimes crying) and don't even talk to the media after a bad race.
However all of this does not mean she should have won this award. I agree with other posters on here, that athletic "performance" not controversy, not extenuating circumstances or social capital deserve this kind of recognition. Yes, her accomplishments should be applauded and recognized, but not in this category.
I will always be a fan of hers and I wish her the very best that life has to offer.
So you agree that if a man ran 3:20 in the 1500m in the Olympic trials and also won the 800m, 5000m, and 1000m at the Olympic trials that wouldn't mean he should qualify for the award, correct? People are forgetting how exceptional her performances were prior to the Olympics this year.
Wait until 2022 wrote:
SDSU Aztec wrote:
Who won last year, the year before or any year?
2020 Lebron James
2019 US Women's soccer team
That's all I can find. Sounds like they just started giving this "award" recently. Have done the Person of the Year since at least the 1930s, when they gave it to Adolf Hitler.
LMAO I looked this up on wiki and you're right....they gave person of the year to Hitler back in the 30s lolol
Armstronglivs wrote:
Master of LolIy wrote:
Once again:
Simone Biles, the most influential athlete of the year.
For sports achievements please read sports magazines.
Then Ben Johnson should maybe have got it in '88, and Lance Armstrong after his Oprah interview.
It's sad, that I have to explain it to someone your age. Infamous ≠ influential.
Master of Lolly wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Then Ben Johnson should maybe have got it in '88, and Lance Armstrong after his Oprah interview.
It's sad, that I have to explain it to someone your age. Infamous ≠ influential.
Both were infamous. And you think doping has got any less since they achieved their notoriety? So, influential, too (albeit in a negative way). Perhaps you could also explain how Simone Biles getting the yips - twisties or whatever - is "influential". Other gymnasts are following suit?
calbuffalo wrote:
Awards like this jumped the shark years ago. Only meant to influence and antagonize.
Well they succeeded. Not that it’s hard to upset the woke fearing crowd.
Armstronglivs wrote:
Both were infamous. And you think doping has got any less since they achieved their notoriety? So, influential, too (albeit in a negative way). Perhaps you could also explain how Simone Biles getting the yips - twisties or whatever - is "influential". Other gymnasts are following suit?
Ok, you are a mature and non-stupid man. How about YOU explain to me, what the difference between Simone Biles and the dopers you mentioned is.
Probably because of your age, you might have missed that Simone Biles has 7 million followers on Instagram and her message is clear: mental health and self-care is very important and often neglected. ESPECIALLY in Covid times. RIP Matt Scherer.
TMADDDHASFNE wrote:
Time mgazine hasn't been relevant in 30 years. Now it's just leftist propaganda.
Like how this website is all right wing clickbait when it's supposed to be a running website but the brojos don't care because 1) they don't have the training to moderate their forums & 2) they don't want to because they largely agree with the vitriol & only care about what drives clicks.
It's fine to give Biles Athlete of the Year from a magazine. They're not here to provide good sports takes. They're recognizing her for being an amazing athlete, who has always been under a ton of pressure & took care of her mental health this year. Her talking about that is doing more for the kids who look up to her than a bunch of cranky old white dudes spouting their hate on here.
_ wrote:
Not commenting on whether she deserved the award or not as I haven't read the criteria and it doesn't appear to be a straightforward performance award, but with regard to the other things/trolling, her teammates don't seem to agree with everyone. They are right behind her, including Sunisa Lee.
Of course Suni Lee supported the decision of the only gymnast better than her to sit out. A lot of marathoners would support Kipchoge if he decided not to run.
I'm just here for conservatives losing their minds
She needs to go away. How is she winning any award, she’s a quitter. Boooo👎👎👎
Quitter!!
She’s annoying as that pink haired soccer dyke.
Time's Man of the Year did not go to the exemplar and model for humanity. It went to the most world changing person in the world that year, which was clearly Hitler. Hitler was not lionized in the article, which you can read at the link.
"That choice abided by the dictum of TIME founder Henry Luce, who decreed that the Man of the Year — now Person of the Year — was not an honor but instead should be a distinction applied to the newsmaker who most influenced world events for better or worse. In case that second criterion was lost on readers, the issue that named Hitler dispensed with the portrait treatment that cover subjects typically got. Instead he was depicted as a tiny figure with his back to the viewer, playing a massive organ with his murdered victims spinning on a St. Catherine’s wheel. Underneath the stark, black-and-white illustration was the caption, “From the unholy organist, a hymn of hate.”
The text of the story, which can be read by subscribers at the link below, was both clear-eyed and prescient, written at a moment in history after the Reich’s land grabs of Austria and Czechoslovakia (which TIME rendered both as Czechoslovakia and Czecho-Slovakia), but eight months almost to the day before the invasion of Poland that would trigger the full fury of a second global war. The Holocaust, surely already bubbling up in the fever swamp of Hitler’s brain, was still a crime beyond human imagining — but that would change. In a world that can sometimes seem inured to evil, may we never see the likes of the unholy organist again."
At the same time, Henry Luce, the Time founder, had fascist sympathies, as the journal article at the top of the following google search describes.
Master of LolIy wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Both were infamous. And you think doping has got any less since they achieved their notoriety? So, influential, too (albeit in a negative way). Perhaps you could also explain how Simone Biles getting the yips - twisties or whatever - is "influential". Other gymnasts are following suit?
Ok, you are a mature and non-stupid man. How about YOU explain to me, what the difference between Simone Biles and the dopers you mentioned is.
Probably because of your age, you might have missed that Simone Biles has 7 million followers on Instagram and her message is clear: mental health and self-care is very important and often neglected. ESPECIALLY in Covid times. RIP Matt Scherer.
So Biles is on the cover of Time because of her Instagram followers? I can see how that would help make her Athlete of the Year. And speaking out on health issues during a pandemic is surely unique. It appears quite a lot hinged on her losing her nerve in an Olympic competition.
Naomi Osaka might have beaten her for the Time honour, as she, too, suffered "mental health" issues this year, being temporarily unable to fulfil her contractual media obligations. She - like Biles - is young, female and a POC. All she lacked was being American. So the title goes to Simone.
It's a shame Ben Johnson and Lance never gained the honour as they were surely as controversial (more so) and indeed were infamous, but being a villain rather than a "victim" wouldn't have met Time's criteria for the ultimate athletic distinction.
Here's a picture of Jeremy in 1967, chasing down a woman doing something sport-related he didn't like, Good to see he's still fighting the good fight.
Armstronglivs wrote:
Master of LolIy wrote:
Ok, you are a mature and non-stupid man. How about YOU explain to me, what the difference between Simone Biles and the dopers you mentioned is.
Probably because of your age, you might have missed that Simone Biles has 7 million followers on Instagram and her message is clear: mental health and self-care is very important and often neglected. ESPECIALLY in Covid times. RIP Matt Scherer.
So Biles is on the cover of Time because of her Instagram followers? I can see how that would help make her Athlete of the Year. And speaking out on health issues during a pandemic is surely unique. It appears quite a lot hinged on her losing her nerve in an Olympic competition.
Naomi Osaka might have beaten her for the Time honour, as she, too, suffered "mental health" issues this year, being temporarily unable to fulfil her contractual media obligations. She - like Biles - is young, female and a POC. All she lacked was being American. So the title goes to Simone.
It's a shame Ben Johnson and Lance never gained the honour as they were surely as controversial (more so) and indeed were infamous, but being a villain rather than a "victim" wouldn't have met Time's criteria for the ultimate athletic distinction.
It is pretty disingenuous to compare Biles to two known liars and cheaters. She is neither and whatever you may think of her she was transparent about her issues and feelings.
This is only the 3rd year Time has given this award after decades of their “Person of the Year”. It was clearly an attempt to expand beyond their core audience, of which you are obviously not a member. They are not going after the SI/ESPN crowd because they will not pay attention to a Time award anyway. But there are a lot of girls/young women that don’t care much about traditional sports or Time’s political coverage. Many of them have been following Biles for years and feel like they can relate to her in some way. They are the target and Biles’ testimony in the Nasser Senate hearings only strengthens her appeal with this segment.
Time knew full well there would be this reaction. Almost certainly, they conducted market research and focus groups before announcing the selection. From a strategic marketing standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to try and tap into a segment in which they have traditionally had low awareness/penetration and are at the age when brand loyalties often formed.
European cops wrote:
Did important stuff outside of competition. Who do you think should have won instead? Some runner nobody cares about?
Ummmm. Yes. Yes. Kipchoge? Probably the most humble athlete ever who just won his second olympic title. Yes. Put him on the cover and shift some focus towards Track and Field.
Biles checked a lot of boxes.
But apparently being Athlete of the Year doesn’t have that much to do with Athletic accomplishment.