Employee 1.1 originally had the following quote up as QOD. I loved the quote but wanted to get talk of Bekele up there so I removed it,, but wanted to make sure people saw it.
from:
"Televised Olympic coverage tends to gloss over the inherent masochism of elite athletes, infusing talk of self-sacrifice with nostalgic, frothy prose that hints at a borderline sexual fixation on youth, strength and beauty. While Olympic commentators might inquire about the details of Usain Bolt's diet or Michael Phelps's workout regimen, they do so with a casual levity that attempts to lighten up the somewhat depressing realities of Olympic training, as if eating hundreds of grams of protein and then swimming for five hours a day is just the sort of wacky shenanigans that whippersnappers get up to these days in pursuit of gold."
"... Even as we lean into the brutality of the Olympic spectacle as a means of heightening the stakes and building suspense, we ultimately recognize these athletes as almost a different life-form. While elite athletes once may have represented some ideal embodiment of dedication and tenacity, after decades of higher and higher standards, they now seem more like creatures from a distant galaxy. Of course we can't relate to human beings who have essentially dropped out of life to train around the clock since they were little kids, or to run hundreds of miles straight through the night while eating entire cheesecakes. But that still sounds better than sitting right here, growing steadily older and playing Words With Friends until the 2016 Olympics."
- New York Times writer Heather Havrilesky in an article titled, "The Loneliness of the Person Watching the Long-Distance Runner" about how the general public looks at elite endurance athletes.