Tarmoh: "I'm always going to remember my first Olympics as the year when my 100-meter spot was taken away from me.''

Harry--

Give me a break. Stick to the point.

The name-calling is obviously not the "reasoned" part, in case you missed it, which it appears that you have--unless it is YOU who is trying to be merely vexatious.

The name-calling is, however, an elegant encapsulation of the spirit of the opinion.

And, as an adult, I have no problem whatsoever understanding that an individual's development can be retarded in the emotional, mental, or physical dimensions. I gave Tard-mo' the benefit of the doubt early on, that in fact she was no different from a normal American of her age in her mental development--it is all there in the posts.

However, her subsequent conduct, combined with what I know of other Americans her age, leads me to conclude that her mental development lags that of her peers. Assuming that she is in fact capable of similar ultimate mental development, but that hers merely lags in time, would indicate that her mental development would be retarded, relative to that of her peers.

Hence, Tard-mo'. Even if it is emotional rather than mental development that is reflected through her actions and words, it still, to me, appears to be lagging, and again assuming that she has the same potential, therefore retarded.

Does it rise to the level of occasioning a greater social duty to guard her welfare? I don't know. I asked this question in the abstract on another thread that you can look up yourself this time. The reponses were generally that if neither the athlete herself nor anyone else in an appropriate position suggests that there is any such deficit, then the ordinary level of care should apply.

I brought it up because I believed, and still do, that if she was in need of help, then the USATF should be held to a higher standard of care to ensure that she gets a full and fair opportunity, and that she understands as best she can what the situation is--or, if she isn't capable of a sufficient level of understanding herself, then those acting in a guardianship or representative capacity understand sufficiently well.

So don't give me any of your sanctimonious, hypocritical PC garbage. If you actually gave a crap, since you do frequent this board, you would have either posted something independently as I did, or responded to my inquiries directed at her best interests.

On second thought, here's ONE of those threads:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4670506

Read it, find the others, and get back to me when you have something worthwhile to contribute, be it genuine, humorous, sarcastic, whatever. So far your posts do not appear to have had ANY redeeming qualities.

Do people really expect her to just get over what she’s been through?I remember reading something about Hilary Stellingwerff (Canadian Olympian) that stated it took her over a YEAR to get past not making the Olympics in 2008. And I don’t think there was any controversy there, unlike here.It’s not like the controversy in question happened at the Olympics, whereas if controversy arose there, once the Olympics were over, she could immediately take a break from running and regroup for the next Olympic cycle. Tarmoh has to be reminded of what happened everyday. Not only is the Olympics all that everyone cares about during an Olympic year, but the Games are about to start, and she has to train with the very athlete who has the spot she believes should be hers.I agree that talking to the media probably isn’t a good idea (as they’ll do anything for drama), but you can’t really fault her for being upset.

lost credibility wrote:

I was neutral on this. Now I see Tarmoh and someone I would not support as an athlete. You win or you lose and that is it. She refused to play by the rules and now has second thoughts.

My guess is she knew Felix would blow her away in round 2.

Tarmoh is not an athlete I will support at the Olympics if is she manages to take someone's 100m spot, or in any way as part of the 4x100.

I hope Tarmoh is not selected to run the final of the 4x100. Expect the complaining about being robbed to be tremendous if that happens to her.

"What she's been through"?

Exactly WHAT has she been through that was so egregious and personally damaging that it could not be remediated, other than her own bad personal decisions?

"Reminded of what happened"?

What "happened" was that she declined a fair opportunity to compete for a spot in the 100m. What happened was that she DECIDED that she would not be a member of the 100m team.

"Can't fault her for being upset"?

If by "upset" you mean dissatisfied with, or regretful of, her past actions, including her voluntary declining of a competitive opportunity and then continuing to complain about the predictable results of that voluntary decision, then yes, that is certainly understandable.

Again, what insecurities are you compensating for with these sort of posts?

Well wrote:

Do people really expect her to just get over what she’s been through?

Sure. If a football player thinks he's scored a last second game winning touchdown in the AFC Championship Game, but the call is overturned and the game remains tied, I would expect the team to not a) refuse to play in overtime, and b) complain for weeks that they should be going to the Superbowl. Basically, Tarmoh has done both of those things.

Harry--

Do you understand how incredibly lame your posts have been, and continue to be?

I'm not the one appointing myself the arbiter of athletes' mental and emotional development and concocting vicious nicknames to reflect what unreasonably, offensively, and arbitrarily take to be a sign of 'retardation.'

Nor am I the one calling athletes POS's.

What she's been through: No, she has not been diagnosed with a terminal illness or had a loved one die, but in the world of track and field, the Olympics is a big deal. I would feel bad for anyone who thought they were on the Olympic Team, only to find out later that she wasn’t. For instance, the debacle with Ireland’s 4 x 400m relay team selection:

http://www.independent.ie/sport/other-sports/olympics-2012/irish-news/debacle-surrounding-cuddihy-and-mills-has-left-aai-with-serious-questions-to-answer-3179806.html

Reminded of what happened: Yes, I believe the situation is harder for her than it would be for most since the other athlete in question is her training partner. If the other athlete in question had been a part of another training group, at least she would have been able to turn to her training partners for support. She obviously didn’t believe there was a tie for third place. If she’d been in a different training group from the other athlete in question, her coach probably would have been much more adamant about filing a protest.

Can't fault her for being upset: "‘It would have been so different if they had called it a dead heat from the start,’ said Tarmoh. ‘When I crossed the line and saw my name on the board, it was like a dream come true.’” Yeah, I can understand that. It’s like if there was something wrong with the timing equipment at a meet during a race and everyone was asked to re-run the race after you felt you’d beaten a person you never had before. If you’d felt you’d just run the race of your life, you’d probably be upset too, even if the timing equipment issue was just an innocent mistake.

sure do wrote:

Well wrote:

Do people really expect her to just get over what she’s been through?

Sure. If a football player thinks he's scored a last second game winning touchdown in the AFC Championship Game, but the call is overturned and the game remains tied, I would expect the team to not a) refuse to play in overtime, and b) complain for weeks that they should be going to the Superbowl. Basically, Tarmoh has done both of those things.

Amen. Track athletes appear to be such weenies when they claim they're exhausted from a couple sprints spread out over several days. She's taken it several steps beyond that. It's no wonder people have trouble understanding/respecting this sport.

That type of thing happens (calls being reviewed) in football all of the time, but immediately after the play.A better analogy would be the touchdown is scored, a team is declared the winner, and during the press conference, the winning team finds out that call is being reviewed. And then the team is asked to replay the game the following week. And then the winning team finds out that the ref would have called them the winner 100 times out of 100, but, oh well!

sure do wrote:

Well wrote:

Do people really expect her to just get over what she’s been through?

Sure. If a football player thinks he's scored a last second game winning touchdown in the AFC Championship Game, but the call is overturned and the game remains tied, I would expect the team to not a) refuse to play in overtime, and b) complain for weeks that they should be going to the Superbowl. Basically, Tarmoh has done both of those things.

Well wrote:

It’s like if there was something wrong with the timing equipment at a meet during a race and everyone was asked to re-run the race after you felt you’d beaten a person you never had before. If you’d felt you’d just run the race of your life, you’d probably be upset too, even if the timing equipment issue was just an innocent mistake.

It's not like this at all. In your scenario, the runner is penalized for an equipment error. In her scenario, she wants to be rewarded for a near error.

The equipment was working and it determined a tie. No results are final until after the appeal period. This is standard protocol and is applied to every single race. It should not have came as a surprise that this was a possibility.

OK, I’ll give you that. It would still be devastating, though. Just because something is a possibility doesn’t mean you’re prepared for it. What I was trying to get across in my previous post was that even if there was no malicious intent (i.e., only reviewing the call because Felix was involved), it would still be a shock to the system. Felix’s brother/manager even told her that they wouldn’t be challenging Tarmoh’s 3rd place result. Tarmoh had to have been blindsided – who else could she have been expecting to file a challenge?

gggg wrote:

Well wrote:

It’s like if there was something wrong with the timing equipment at a meet during a race and everyone was asked to re-run the race after you felt you’d beaten a person you never had before. If you’d felt you’d just run the race of your life, you’d probably be upset too, even if the timing equipment issue was just an innocent mistake.

It's not like this at all. In your scenario, the runner is penalized for an equipment error. In her scenario, she wants to be rewarded for a near error.

The equipment was working and it determined a tie. No results are final until after the appeal period. This is standard protocol and is applied to every single race. It should not have came as a surprise that this was a possibility.

1. "Stick to the point."

I fully acknowledge I was going off the point, but by making those subordinate posts separate from the main one, and by using upfront conjunctions such as "and" and "also," I think I was honestly signaling their ancillary status. That doesn't mean they aren't worth responding to.

Meanwhile, you dishonestly evade my points by trying to deflect attention away from my questions to the quality of my posts when you write, "So far your posts do not appear to have had ANY redeeming qualities."

2. If the name calling is not the 'reasoned part,' as you yourself admit, then why do it at all? It's completely vitriolic and unnecessary; yes, it 'encapsulates' your opinion, but it does more than that, too, since it reduces your opinion to the status of puerile name-calling.

If you want your opinions to be taken seriously in any forum, the way to go about it is not to reformulate them as offensive insults in the name of 'elegance' and brevity. There is a difference--and a big one--between having an opinion, even an unfavorable opinion, on someone and disparaging them. You've crossed that line--and this hardly the first time--and that is what I am objecting to most of all.

There is no reason for 'POS' and 'Tard-mo.'

If your points are in such need of elegant encapsulation, then you should revise them for brevity.

3. Are you a doctor? A psychiatrist? Psychologist? Therapist? What gives you the right to judge someone 'retarded'? You claim it is in the areas of Tarmoh's 'mental' and 'emotional' development that you find her lacking; and you claim to base this on what you've seen in other Americans her age. How old are you? What do you do? And how many 22 year old refugees from Sierra Leone do you know who know who are aspiring Olympians?

Respectfully, I think that no matter how many young Americans you know, you remain in no position whatsoever to evaluate Tarmoh's development in any capacity, and this for a number of reasons, not least of which is that this situation is so unprecedented that it is unfair to take a single athlete's reaction to it as emblematic of their mental and emotional capacities.

Moreover, you cannot use a term like 'tard' and claim your use of it to be innocent and acceptable simply because you want it to refer to something slightly different than what it conventionally refers to; the word has accrued offensive meanings, and in using that word you endorse them. Saying you are using it to refer to Tarmoh's emotional development does not in and of itself make it acceptable.

Nor does calling her a "POS," an insult you still have not made any effort to justify at all--probably because you cannot justify it, and have backed yourself into a corner.

4. "If you actually gave a crap, since you do frequent this board, you would have either posted something independently as I did, or responded to my inquiries directed at her best interests."

I do give a crap--a lot, in fact. Just because I don't post here as much as you do, or start my own threads, doesn't mean my concern, involvement, and passion for the sport of track and field is any less than yours.

There are different ways of engaging with track and field and of showing your support for the athletes who make the sport enjoyable. So I refuse to take my relative lack of posts compared to yours as some sign that my opinions do not matter.

She absolutely would be justified in being surprised, as it is not a common occurrence. Nothing was taken from her, however, as she did not earn anything. She should not feel that she beat a person she never had before, because she didn't. They tied.

I agree, nothing was taken away from her.

Time will eat at her on this I fear.

She lost her Olympic spot, after years of training, because she chose not to run. It just doesn't make sense.

If she ran the rematch and lost at least she tried.

Now she's a disaster waiting to happen in the relay.

Doesn't she have anyone that advises her? Her agent should have read her the riot act. gawd.

Sprintgeezer wrote:

The situation is inapposite.

You were talking out your a$$--you expressed an opinion without any reasonable factual foundation:

"If the rain takes the 'joie de vivre' out of watching the sport, then you are clearly too sensitive to have any say on the matter, because no conditions will make you happy."

It does not logically follow that because I don't like competitions held in the rain, there are no conditions that would make me happy.

It was an empty opinion, worthy of an empty response.

My opinion was based on Tard-mo's actions and statements, and was a reasoned opinion:

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4665384http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4662834&page=4

I hope that you understand the difference.

Brojos ought to outright ban you on basic principle for being an imbecile.

Brojos, please ban this fool.

I wish Tarmoh had run, too. I feel like I personally would have felt obligated to try, but I’m not Tarmoh, and I don’t believe that my way is the only right way in this case. I guess I just have a problem with people saying things like they’ll never route for her again and that hopefully she’ll never make another Olympic Team because of her decision. Maybe she will regret her decision not to do the run-off, but maybe not. Ken Davis (from the 1972 Basketball Team that refused to accept the silver medal because they felt they were robbed of the gold) put in his WILL that his wife and children are not to accept the silver medal once he’s dead: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2011/nov/16/usa-ussr-olympic-basketball-1972. And this is an actual Olympic MEDAL we’re talking about here. For some people, it’s the principle of the thing.But I do wonder who was advising her. I posted earlier that she probably didn’t get much help from her coach given that he is also Felix’s coach and was trying not to get involved so as to appear/be objective. And obviously she might not have felt comfortable discussing the issue with Felix.

Stating the obvious wrote:

I agree, nothing was taken away from her.

Time will eat at her on this I fear.

She lost her Olympic spot, after years of training, because she chose not to run. It just doesn't make sense.

If she ran the rematch and lost at least she tried.

Now she's a disaster waiting to happen in the relay.

Doesn't she have anyone that advises her? Her agent should have read her the riot act. gawd.

Brojos ought to outright ban you on basic principle for being an imbecile.[/quote]

Um, that would get most of us banned at one point or another. Bad road to go down...

I have only glanced at your post.

It's still filled with your sanctimonious pontificating:

I'm in no position to evaluate somebody based on their observable actions while expressly limiting that evaluation on the basis thereof

I cannot use a term according to its most basic definition

, whereas

You are in an exclusive position to decide what is acceptable

You have license to both parse evidence, ignore evidence, and expand scope of any statements you see fit, without justification

Right.

It's oh-so-much b.s. from you that it is one of the very first posts to which I don't feel at all compelled to respond in any meaningful fashion--which is quite an achievement, as I very much enjoy posting and arguing.

It is not the lack of posts that is the critical point, it is that they lack any sort of meaningful analysis or synthesis; they lack evidentiary basis and qualification of opinions.

Also, your saying that you actually DO give a crap is only so much hot air--it is what your actions EVIDENCE that tells the story. Anybody can claim, after-the-fact, any particular perspective--but if there is no prior-existing evidence for it, it bears the unmistakable taint of being only self-serving.

And finally, yes, there are different ways of "engaging with t&f and of showing your support"; however, there are ways of "engaging with t&f" that DO NOT involve any "showing of support", and which can be entirely legitimate, when it is felt that something cannot be reasonably supported.

Once again, you would like to be judge, jury, and executioner, reveling in your various pontifications, and you get your undies in a bundle when someone doesn't agree with your position.

Who am I to judge? Someone who has observed human behavior for years, someone who has lived through their 20's as an athlete, someone who regularly integrates with athletes in their 20's both on the track and off, including aspiring Olympians, someone who knows black and white people intimately, someone who is an immigrant, someone who actually KNOWS people from SL, etc., and someone who has observed Tarmoh's behavior and limited the basis of my judgment to those observable actions and statements.

Someone EMINENTLY qualified, notwithstanding that I am also educated and credentialed, two things which you will likely mention and which I don't place much value upon, mentioned only to short-circuit the seemingly inevitable tripe you will post.

Get a life, Harry. Do some living. Don't be so easily offended. Think about what you are writing. There are plenty of times on this very board where I have either revised my opinions, ditched them, or acknowledged myself explicitly incorrect.

This, however, is not one of those times...

...yet. Prove me wrong.