Let's get to the bottom of why so many of you seem to dislike Gwen Jorgensen

I found here reasonably humble.

If you're junior/HS runner you're entitled to say "I'm breaking the world record someday".

Now that she had Olympic triathlon medal and now a bit of the sport, she knows that to say "I'm gonna get olympic medal for marathon" is as far as she can boast while still humble.

Only when you have become the like of Kipchoge that you are allowed to say "I'm going to improve my PB." She knows she can not say that yet.

I don't mind her, but her supporters seem to keep posting nasty ad hominem attacks attempting to browbeat everyone else into thinking like them; this thread is rife with examples thereof.

joalturn wrote:

She’s a shameless self promoter who hasn’t done anything in the running world to justify her lofty goal of Olympic gold in the Tokyo marathon in 2020. This woman isn’t even the best marathoner in America. Hell, she may not even be in the top 5, or top 10 for that matter. Yet she thinks she can beat American world major marathon champs, American Olympic medalists, as well as doped up East Africans in less than two years in a race she’s run one time, finishing in a time over 20 minutes slower than what would be needed to sniff a medal at the olympics. That’s why LRCers find her so irksome.

^^ +1. Well put.

lets-name-the-real-annoyance wrote:

I don't mind her, but her supporters seem to keep posting nasty ad hominem attacks attempting to browbeat everyone else into thinking like them; this thread is rife with examples thereof.

^^ +1. This too. I always get the feeling that Jorgenson herself is writing some of the comments.

Banana Bread wrote:

Because she is literally a women and brakes there ego that they were a former D1 runner in a big school which ran slower then she does now.

0/10

Literally?

Brakes?

There?

Then?

You’re trying way too hard now, and you’ve outed yourself as an amateur troll.

I think any good triathlete knows they can't measure up to a pure athlete. At best they are pretty good at 3, usually only 2.

joalturn wrote:

She’s a shameless self promoter who hasn’t done anything in the running world to justify her lofty goal of Olympic gold in the Tokyo marathon in 2020. This woman isn’t even the best marathoner in America. Hell, she may not even be in the top 5, or top 10 for that matter. Yet she thinks she can beat American world major marathon champs, American Olympic medalists, as well as doped up East Africans in less than two years in a race she’s run one time, finishing in a time over 20 minutes slower than what would be needed to sniff a medal at the olympics. That’s why LRCers find her so irksome.

Exactly! She should hide and have easy goals instead. That's good for American distance running. How dare she market herself/her sponsors and have lofty goals! Where did that ever get anyone?!

slober wrote:

I think any good triathlete knows they can't measure up to a pure athlete. At best they are pretty good at 3, usually only 2.

Isn't that true for most any sport outside of maybe swimming or running? Basketball players aren't the fastest. My mother can shoot better than Shaq. etc., etc. etc. Most sports are a combination of skills.

lets-name-the-real-annoyance wrote:

I don't mind her, but her supporters seem to keep posting nasty ad hominem attacks attempting to browbeat everyone else into thinking like them; this thread is rife with examples thereof.

That doesn't seem to be one-sided though, considering the ad hominem attacks of "attention whore", "annoying", "dumb", etc. used here to describe Jorgensen.

attaboy wrote:

joalturn wrote:

She’s a shameless self promoter who hasn’t done anything in the running world to justify her lofty goal of Olympic gold in the Tokyo marathon in 2020. This woman isn’t even the best marathoner in America. Hell, she may not even be in the top 5, or top 10 for that matter. Yet she thinks she can beat American world major marathon champs, American Olympic medalists, as well as doped up East Africans in less than two years in a race she’s run one time, finishing in a time over 20 minutes slower than what would be needed to sniff a medal at the olympics. That’s why LRCers find her so irksome.

^^ +1. Well put.

You have to justify your goals? I didn't know that.

Her only motive for announcing her "goal" publicly was to garner attention.

Her stated "goal" indicates one of two things, 1 she doesn't know anything about the sport or 2 she doesn't respect it.

Her constant attention seeking together with her willingness to prostitute herself make her little better than gutter trash and as such will be treated accordingly

Precious Roy wrote:

Then, Gwen comes along and announces that she wants to win a gold medal in the Olympic marathon. This immediately comes off as disrespectful to distance runners who have been training their brains out since high school to get to the Olympics because Gwen makes it sound like her triathlon bona fides put her in a better position to be great at the marathon than what hundreds of athletes have been doing 24/7 for years and years. It would be like Galen Rupp quitting running and announcing that he wants to win Kona IM champs in three years. Everyone in IM would say "who the f$5k are you?"

Spot on from my opinion. I'm generally a fan and like all the social media stuff that people criticize for her. I love that she has big goals. But I would have been 100% less put-off if she just announced she was going to transition to marathon and see how great she could be at it, rather than step up after running 2:40 and say she was going to do what no other American woman has been able to do despite their years/decades of specific training. It was slightly obnoxious.

Except that she didn’t say that she was going to do that. I’ll add you to the list of the confused.

troll under a bridge wrote:

A woman named Gwen Jorgensen set an ambitious goal for herself. Whether she achieves it or fails to do so will not affect your life in anyway. I am intrigued by her pursuit but ambivalent about the results. Meanwhile, everything she says or does inevitably results in hundreds of replies on this message board.

So what's the real reason some of you yahoos are so irked by her pursuit of her goals that do not affect your life in any way what so ever?

How about a complete lack of humility? Before she even steps into the sport she sets a virtually unachievable goal. Now there is nothing wrong with setting ambitious goals, but you don't see any other runner making outlandish statements like that. They just do it. Also, she is mad she isn't in 2:19 shape? Yeah, you're mad that you aren't immediately the number 1 marathoner in the U.S. and one of the top in the world.

Honestly, I hope Chicago humbles her.

Lastly, it's intellectually lazy to just write this up to sexism. We would all be calling someone like her if it were a dude.

Slripe8 wrote:

Her only motive for announcing her "goal" publicly was to garner attention.

Her stated "goal" indicates one of two things, 1 she doesn't know anything about the sport or 2 she doesn't respect it.

Her constant attention seeking together with her willingness to prostitute herself make her little better than gutter trash and as such will be treated accordingly

Do you feel the same way with all professional athletes? Michael Jordan, Lebron, Peyton Manning, Renaldo, Phelps, etc. Do you not feel that marketing, promotion, endorsements are legitimate business practices?

Stopcecil! wrote:

Now there is nothing wrong with setting ambitious goals

Apparently, based on your posts and others, there is.

John Utah wrote:

Slripe8 wrote:

Her only motive for announcing her "goal" publicly was to garner attention.

Her stated "goal" indicates one of two things, 1 she doesn't know anything about the sport or 2 she doesn't respect it.

Her constant attention seeking together with her willingness to prostitute herself make her little better than gutter trash and as such will be treated accordingly

Do you feel the same way with all professional athletes? Michael Jordan, Lebron, Peyton Manning, Renaldo, Phelps, etc. Do you not feel that marketing, promotion, endorsements are legitimate business practices?

I would say there is a big difference between being paid to endorse or sponsor a product and not being paid to endorse yourself.

On principle, furthermore, I would say yes I feel the same way about all athletes. Any athlete who feels the need to hawk Doritos and sports drinks are to my mind sell outs.

But like you said these are "legitimate business practices", the only problem is we are talking about running as a competitive sport.

I've always thought of her more as a runner who came to dominate triathlon, which as a runner who dabbles in triathlon has always made me happy. I think she's returning to her roots now, and am definitely curious to see what she can do. The unbalanced hostility toward her is all rationalized jealously as far as I can tell.

It's the audacity to broadly announce her intentions to go from a pseudo-runner sport to a true-runner sport (east-African dominated) with the highly unrealistic primary objective of winning Olympic gold.

I think similar disdain would fall upon a top male triathlete as well if he did this.