American “scams” her way into the Olympics: terrible or admirable?

Methuser wrote:

However, watch the video of her run. I guarantee over 99% of the world population could not throw on some skis and do exactly what she did.

1% of the population still leaves about 35 million women capable of this feat.

All it's going to do is drive up competition if more people try to do the same thing. It could be worse, some rich person paying their way into the Olympics and then a DNS and a fake illness shortly after a race started

Selby Avenue wrote:

If you were the tenth best curler in the US and you had European grandparents, would you curl for another country? Most likely.

Here lies the problem. You should only be allowed to compete for the nation in which you gave citizenship. Just because you have a relative from some other country should not allow you to compete under their flag. Hey, if my father graduated from the University of Nebraska and I attend the University of Colorado, why shouldn't I be able to play sports as part of U of N? After all, my relatives went there.

If it was that bad then they should chose a better way to pick a team. The issue is that this "sport" is Dixie Cup deep so they just kinda take whoever.

hammer meet nail wrote:

Selby Avenue wrote:

If you were the tenth best curler in the US and you had European grandparents, would you curl for another country? Most likely.

Here lies the problem. You should only be allowed to compete for the nation in which you gave citizenship. Just because you have a relative from some other country should not allow you to compete under their flag.

Yes. The problem is that nations like Qatar and Bahrain want to be able to buy an Olympic team and will oppose any reform. These countries write big checks to the Olympics.

A local runner from my city went to Worlds to run the marathon one year. Her mom was from Central America. She ran for that country as she was 30+ min away from the US standard. She had a 3:0X pr, but ran just under 4 hrs at a hot summer race. She had no business going to Worlds, but had a website and sponsors.

I don't blame athletes for competing for other countries as long as they meet the performance qualification standards. People may think that it means nothing to the citizens of these countries, but it can actually start spurring interest into the sport and help the countries sports federation raise funds/awareness for the sport.

Now athletes that cannot meet the minimum performance qualifications getting "inclusion berths" strictly for country representation is a completely different story. While it looks like this skier should fit into this category, she actually hit the minimum performance qualification standards to compete. She qualified for the Olympics because they had substandard qualification standards that stated she just had to place in the top 30 of so many major competitions. The problem is that the major competitions she went to typically only had 15 people competing. Don't blame her, blame the weak minimum qualifying standards for this event. It is really not that different from Eddie the Eagle back in the day.

People are upset because she is a white American girl doing this. If it were a Jamacian or Tonga athlete that grew up in America and did the same thing just to be able to compete at the Olympics, it would be celebrated.

Methuser wrote:

I get it, she is not an Olympic level halfpipe skier. Not denying that.

However, watch the video of her run. I guarantee over 99% of the world population could not throw on some skis and do exactly what she did.

In fact I guarantee that any normal person who attempted to imitate her supposedly "easy" run would injure themselves.

Don't need to respect her at all, but don't act like anybody could do what she did. This is not the equivalent of joe schmoe running in the Olympic 800.

Trust me I'm not a fan, just injecting some reality into the discussion

Have you ever been skiing before?

jSKI wrote:

People are upset because she is a white American girl doing this. If it were a Jamacian or Tonga athlete that grew up in America and did the same thing just to be able to compete at the Olympics, it would be celebrated.

No it wouldn't, the narrative would be why are we supposed to celebrate some novice level skier with no talent who exposed a loophole so that she could enter the Olympics ahead of other far more deserving American athletes.

Competitive Ducker wrote:

Another example of why it is a Scam. Pappas will always refer to herself as an Olympian. Never as an Olympian representing Greece.

She will be talking to a group of Americans which makes it appear that she is a USA Olympian. This is intentional and deceiving as hell.

None of this is true.

Sara Palin wrote:

Women's half pipe on skis maybe shouldn't be a sport. She was ranked the 34th best in the world, regardless of nationality. That's "world class" in any endeavor.

I like what she did, because she showed the emperor has no clothes.

The thing is, no normal person would do what she did. It takes a lot of money to fly around the world to “compete” in all of the World Cup events. How many people would spend that much money to show up at all of the events and instead of actually competing just treat it like a ski run and ski back and forth to the bottom? She was always last unless someone crashed.

It’s a new sport that they were obviously trying to make inclusive to all so that the sport could grow. She’s spoiled that by making a mockery of it. She wasn’t there to compete. You shouldnt need to make a rule to prevent people from doing what she did, but clearly they need to create a minimum qualifying standard to compete in a World Cup event.

Kinda seems like a sociopath to me.

Same In The summer Olympics wrote:

This stuff happens all the time. David Torrence went to Peru. Nobody threw a fit.

Every Olympics there’s 11.5 second 100 guys who make it and 2:20 800 women who make it. They will forever be olympians.

Keep the envy and jealousy strong.

Actually, a lot of idiots on here threw a lot of fits.

running commenter wrote:

Competitive Ducker wrote:

Another example of why it is a Scam. Pappas will always refer to herself as an Olympian. Never as an Olympian representing Greece.

She will be talking to a group of Americans which makes it appear that she is a USA Olympian. This is intentional and deceiving as hell.

None of this is true.

Every sentence of that post was true.

I'm pretty sure the thread title wouldn't be questioning how admirable it was if Hall, Rupp, Ritz, and Meb were all in their marathon prime at the same time and a five hour marathon runner exposed a loophole that allowed them to compete instead ... could just be me

I read an article on this girl...she is very odd. She actually tried to run for Governor of California against Arnold when she was 19 years old...she is delusional.

Yep and where did she get all that money?? It was raised online from crowd sourced websites. Idiots probably donated money cause she was a blonde American. If she was from Tonga or wherever I doubt they would have donated!

I really don't think any kick-ass halfpipe skier that didn't make the Olympics is going to be jealous of this woman.

I'm sure everyone complaining about this will immediately become an activist to change the rules and close these loopholes instead of forgetting about it in 2 days. Since you are so passionate about women's halfpipe.

Everyone is just mad that she's a clever white girl. If Swaziland sent somebody who couldn't even competently ride down the center of the halfpipe without crashing they would be celebrated.

Petermatgesrb wrote:

I really don't think any kick-ass halfpipe skier that didn't make the Olympics is going to be jealous of this woman

.

Of course not, she has no talent and is a joke

Sara Palin wrote:

Women's half pipe on skis maybe shouldn't be a sport. She was ranked the 34th best in the world, regardless of nationality. That's "world class" in any endeavor.

I like what she did, because she showed the emperor has no clothes.

She went to competitions where there were less than 30 competitors, and made sure she did not fall. The Olympic rules require you finish in the top 30 in X number of global competitions.

What she did requires a lot of...MONEY. She is obviously of means - flying at the last minute to a halfpipe competition in China? I wish I could do that.

FelonDJT wrote:

What she did requires a lot of...MONEY. She is obviously of means - flying at the last minute to a halfpipe competition in China? I wish I could do that.

I believe she crowdfunded the majority of her costs, so people who were clearly aware of what she was doing voluntarily helped her with their own money. Something anyone else could have attempted to organize, even you.

Dumb? Probably. Scam? No.

Not admirable wrote:

The guy who could barely swim was worse.

Landing in the swimming pool from the half-pipe has to get SOME respect.