Name 3 Olympians Who Never Should Have Been Olympians

Pappas

Why would you start a thread like this? How insulting and obnoxious do you want to be?

Des Linden when she went to Olympics hurt and DNF'd quickly. Give up the spot for a healthy athlete.

Lame Fake Name wrote:

Why would you start a thread like this? How insulting and obnoxious do you want to be?

I figure this is punching up instead of punching down...but I can see your point. These are mostly amateur, unpaid athletes. If they were all NBA or NFL players, I'm sure you wouldn't have a problem with it.

I’d stick to the US because tons of athletes from other countries were placed on their team without hitting any standard.

Any golfer.

Should never have become an Olympic event.

freeidea wrote:

Des Linden when she went to Olympics hurt and DNF'd quickly. Give up the spot for a healthy athlete.

I will never forget that moment. It was the most selfish thing I’ve ever witnessed. That was 8 years ago and there is a large group of us that still can’t forget it.

i know what you mean, but i'm going to stretch the definition a bit.

I vote for Ron Dawes and my reasoning is this:

The dude never went sub-5 for a mile in high school. He didn't have as much talent as other runners, but he made up for it with smart training and real dedication. He dissected Lydiard's books and applied the knowledge carefully. He ran to work, found ways to train when the weather wouldn't allow it, and trained in multiple layers of clothing to get used to excessive heat.

All of his hard, smart work paid off on the day of a hot marathon trials. He was not a favorite to make top 3, but the accumulation of his dedication - along with a little bit of luck - paid off.

Ron Dawes by all accounts should have never been an olympian, but he f*cking did it. He was a real blue collar runner who didn't make excuses. He got to work and made $hit happen. He was, and still is, an inspiration to me.

a lot of younger runners would do well to follow in his footsteps.

I disagree that they should follow his footsteps in the age of African dominance. Only our best athletes should devote that much time and effort to running, ones who legitimately have a shot to not get completely embarassed in the Olympics. Otherwise, it's an exercise in futility. You can't get away with being half-arsed at running in this day and age when you have to line up against the East Africans.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

I disagree that they should follow his footsteps in the age of African dominance. Only our best athletes should devote that much time and effort to running, ones who legitimately have a shot to not get completely embarassed in the Olympics. Otherwise, it's an exercise in futility.

You can't get away with being half-arsed at running in this day and age when you have to line up against the East Africans.

with that logic, i hope you have a career that you're good at, because you're a bad troll.

Alexi Pappas

Except I is not was attempting to troll. im just thought it interesting thought exercise.

:D wrote:

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

I disagree that they should follow his footsteps in the age of African dominance. Only our best athletes should devote that much time and effort to running, ones who legitimately have a shot to not get completely embarassed in the Olympics. Otherwise, it's an exercise in futility.

You can't get away with being half-arsed at running in this day and age when you have to line up against the East Africans.

with that logic, i hope you have a career that you're good at, because you're a bad troll.

Christian Laettner

Alexi Pappas, Ben Johnson, and Rashid Ramzi. I consider all 3 to be cheaters of equal magnitude.

Elizabeth Swaney in the halfpipe. She didn’t do a single trick, but figured out she could become an Olympian by accumulating any points at all in certain competitions around the world as long as she paid her way. US born, she competed for Hungary. I do give her credit however for being smart enough to figure out the loopholes she could exploit.

Any doper. There are a lot more than 3 of them, so pick the worst offenders.

As far as performance goes, this one is arguably the worst in recent times:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Moussambani

streak wrote:

Elizabeth Swaney in the halfpipe. She didn’t do a single trick, but figured out she could become an Olympian by accumulating any points at all in certain competitions around the world as long as she paid her way. US born, she competed for Hungary. I do give her credit however for being smart enough to figure out the loopholes she could exploit.

This is the one I was thinking of as well. There was another one I remember. Some guy that got in on a technicality. Could barely swim, but somehow got in as a swimmer, and then was celebrated when he barely finished the 50m freestyle. I think every Olympics they let people like this in to try to broaden the appeal to nations that have little to no participation. And maybe that's a good enough reason, and they do deserve to be there just to participate. It's not like they are taking medals away from anyone.

bartholomew_maxwell wrote:

Can you name 3 "undeserving" Olympians? This one will be a challenge because people hardly remember you were an Olympian if you don't medal.

I'd guess an obvious start would be any 3 members from a sport that America finishes near the bottom of in the Olympics. Maybe in weightlifting or something.

If it's too difficult to limit it to Americans, pick someone from other countries.

Alexi Pappas

Aisha Praught-Leer

The entire 1992 United States men's Olympic basketball team

I got his book in 1986 when l was 13.