If you are the second best athlete in the world in your event but the best athlete in the world can beat you in her sleep, does that mean you actually have a rivalry?
If you are the second best athlete in the world in your event but the best athlete in the world can beat you in her sleep, does that mean you actually have a rivalry?
What seperated first from second at World Indoors? One miss.
If you watched the European feed, you'd know that Stuczynski got screwed at the end, when they made her jump with 2min down instead of 3min. They gave her another attempt but by that time she had probably shot her wad.
What rivalry??? wrote:
If you are the second best athlete in the world in your event but the best athlete in the world can beat you in her sleep, does that mean you actually have a rivalry?
No, back in the early 70's it makes you Steve Prefontaine.
You dinks bashing JS make me laugh. Pre got fourth and ran his mouth all the time and you deify him.
Wow, Pre has guts, Pre has moxy, pre is not afraid to speak his mind. blah-blah-blah!
did anyone see the piece on the Russian pole vaulter where she was "glamorous and wanted to be in movies".
She is not pretty in the least bit.
You weren't listening very carefully. She said: "glamorous? That's not me; that's for people in hollywood movies..."
Only a self-centered person would assume that "kick some Russian butt" referred exclusively to her.
How hard is this?
1. Three Russians, one of whom is a lock for Gold, the other two are threats for the other medals.
2. One American who says she's going to "kick some Russian butt."
3. One Russian assumes this refers to her and her only.
4. The American kicks 2/3 of the Russian butts in the competition, who were also the only serious competition.
Look, "some butt" as used in current US common speech is either plural or used to refer to undefined numbers. "Kick a Russian butt" or "kick her Russian butt" is pretty clear. But that's not what Jen said.
This is neither anti-Russian nor pro-American, but it pro-try-to-understand-what-people-are-really-saying, which is always a Good Thing.
swingster wrote:
What rivalry??? wrote:If you are the second best athlete in the world in your event but the best athlete in the world can beat you in her sleep, does that mean you actually have a rivalry?
No, back in the early 70's it makes you Steve Prefontaine.
You dinks bashing JS make me laugh. Pre got fourth and ran his mouth all the time and you deify him.
Wow, Pre has guts, Pre has moxy, pre is not afraid to speak his mind. blah-blah-blah!
Hey genius, I'm not a Pre fan either. In fact, I'm not a fan of anyone that runs their mouth and can't back it up during competition.
What rivalry??? wrote:
Hey genius, I'm not a Pre fan either. In fact, I'm not a fan of anyone that runs their mouth and can't back it up during competition.
That whooshing sound going over your head was the sound of me AGREEING with YOU.
plurals wrote:
Only a self-centered person would assume that "kick some Russian butt" referred exclusively to her.
Oh come on, it's completely obvious exactly who she was talking about.
Having said that, she could have been talking about the planned table football match they had planned against Russian weightlifters later that evening.
What rivalry??? wrote:
Hey genius, I'm not a Pre fan either.
C'mon, how could anyone not be a Pre fan? Seriously what is there not to like?
Anyways, I have no problem with trash talking (and there is no other way to categorize this as anything other than talking smack) but, and this is a big butt, if you get your ass handed to you then you need to own up. Don't ignore the comments you made, don't keep talking smack, don’t give excuses, just do as Yelena says and show her some respect.
Now that is out of the way, hopefully Jenn won’t ever “know your place”. When she does eventually beat her, and she will, it will be so sweet to just give her that little jab right back at her. This has the potential to be a great rivalry.
Oh and one other thing, don’t give these uber athletes a reason to beat you because they will. When you are Olympic Champion and World Record Holder the Olympics by themselves aren’t enough. They need a reason to beat people. Phelps and Yelena are proof that when you are trying to take them down it is best to sneak up on them.
swingster wrote:
What rivalry??? wrote:If you are the second best athlete in the world in your event but the best athlete in the world can beat you in her sleep, does that mean you actually have a rivalry?
No, back in the early 70's it makes you Steve Prefontaine.
You dinks bashing JS make me laugh. Pre got fourth and ran his mouth all the time and you deify him.
Wow, Pre has guts, Pre has moxy, pre is not afraid to speak his mind. blah-blah-blah!
Agreed.
"“I hope we do some damage,” she had said, “and, you know, kick some Russian butt.”"
THAT's trash talk? If she were a guy, you'd be calling her out for being a wimp.
Well, we'll never know, of course.
You might be right, but in my experience with that kind of talk, I'd expect "her Russian butt" if it were directly aimed at Elena but "some Russian butt" if aimed at the Russian team.
But maybe I'm just into close reading of the text.
plurals wrote:
Only a self-centered person would assume that "kick some Russian butt" referred exclusively to her.
How hard is this?
1. Three Russians, one of whom is a lock for Gold, the other two are threats for the other medals.
2. One American who says she's going to "kick some Russian butt."
3. One Russian assumes this refers to her and her only.
4. The American kicks 2/3 of the Russian butts in the competition, who were also the only serious competition.
Look, "some butt" as used in current US common speech is either plural or used to refer to undefined numbers. "Kick a Russian butt" or "kick her Russian butt" is pretty clear. But that's not what Jen said.
This is neither anti-Russian nor pro-American, but it pro-try-to-understand-what-people-are-really-saying, which is always a Good Thing.
damn you really special
in an Irish sort of way
The difference between the French trash talking the Americans and Jenn trash talking Yelena is in reality the French actually had a chance and some can say they blew it. The French team only lost by .08 sec. That's not a lot of time considering 4 people swam a leg. Some would say that the French guy that swam the anchor coast just before hitting the wall. I am not taking anything away from the Americans. They swam a great race and put in on the line, but winning by that small of a margin, it could have possibly went the other way. Jenn on the other hand never had a chance in beating Yelena. She used the word "Hope" in her comments meaning she wasn't sure that it would happen. Yes, she beat everyone else on the field, but I think she really wanted Gold and it really wasn't going to happen.
Granted, Yelena was kind of a hard ass about the situation, but I don't fell sorry for Jen. She poured gas on the fire so of course she was going to get burned by her own words. I understand she was trying to motivate herself and her teammates, but Yelena might have been in shape to jump a 5.25 just t o shut her up. She beat her by .25M but if they had let her, she could have gotten her ass kicked even worse.
irony? wrote:
You weren't listening very carefully. She said: "glamorous? That's not me; that's for people in hollywood movies..."
I don't remember her exact words on NBC, but I do know that she has made statements in the past about wanting to be in Hollywood movies.
I was at the press conference at the Olympic Trials when Jenn made the comment about kicking some Russian butt and it has since been taken out of context and blown out of proportion by the press.
Here is the audio of the whole quote, in context:
http://www.treemo.com/users/polevaultpower/channel/item/451148/
Short transcript:
"You know the people that are representing the U.S.
I'm very happy for Erica and April
and for us to go over there
I hope we do some damage
and, you know, kick some Russian butt"
[laughter]
What a heat here, really. You are funny.
American gal shoots her mouth off and then the Russian gal dares to enjoy a little making the counterpart to eat her words.
What does it matter how serious was JS? She mocked, got a slap for it, probably serves her good, end of story. She can come back next time and stand up if she can.
Because she did beat two Russians. If you had seen the quote hopefully you'd be able to distinguish between something that's playful and something that's disrespectful.