Posted by alexandra_k on February 28, 2022, at 15:23:22
I feel bad about what I said. I mean to say, I have been thinking on it.
She is admirable in so many ways. I don't mean to deny or undervalue that. I don't know anything about her as a person. I know she's had a hard time of it with respect to coaching... I mean to say, I don't know that she's had quality coaching, particularly really early on. And none of that is her fault, of course.
New Zealand gives titles (Dame and Sir and Knighthood and so on) to sporting people.
INSTEAD of giving them tutors and coaches etc so they may come out with physiology, personal training, athletic coaching, management etc etc kinds of qualifications... So that they may have fair wages for fair work that they do in the name of and for the sport.
They just won't do it. They just won't pay the workers.
That's the thing about College Sports in the US.
I guess there are 2 aspects to that.
One aspect is that you take College Athletes and in exchange for playing for the School... The revenue the School gets from people turning out to watch your performance... Etc... The kids come out with College Degrees. So they can become qualified physiotherapists or whatever. Be employed in College athletics training programmes for the next generation of athletes or whatever.
So if the Pros don't work out (or after the Pros) you might have a career.
We just won't pay our workers in New Zealand.
And there's the forced compliance thing. And people love to control. So there is no shorage of people wanting to tell other people (particularly athletes) what to do (in ways that ruin them).
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Once an athlete is performing to... I don't know.. National Level? I don't know.
At some point you go 'not going to f*ck with the technique too much because whatever it is that they are doing ITS WORKING'.
I do understand that.
So you end up with a fitness trap.
We have it in the power versions of the Olympic Lifts. When athletes can powerclean and powersnatch more weight than they can do with the technique for the full lifts (because they don't have the technique yet or then). So the coaches... Encourage them to power the lifts. In the training build up for the competition. Because teh competition is the short-sighted competition and they want the maximum weight to be lifted. So they end up doing the power versions only.
And we know it's a fitness trap -- because they are massively outclassed in the international competitions.
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But maybe that isn't the case, then, with shot put.
Hmm. Apparently both 'glide' and 'spin' techniques are used by elite male athletes and the sport is as old as hammer etc, so...
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My point still stands about us not looking after our athletes.
Still, why would we? I mean a nation that abuses it's kids so, isn't likely to treat the athlete kids any better.
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It is interesting to see... The dynamics between the coaches and the athletes. At the Olympics. Of course there is a bit of theatre... But there are also aspects of genuine.
You can see that some athletes really don't seem to like their coaches. Sometimes they have a support person with them who obviously is part of the coaching team who plays the role of support who coddles them etc... While the relationship between the athlete and the head coach is somewhat antagonistic...
Hard to know what is going on with that... It can help to feel a bit annoyed, motivationally. Sometimes.
But it is interesting the tender relationships you see, too.
And it is really interesting to see how China is developing in how the athletes are treated. At least, if the relationship between the coaches and the athletes is any indicator.
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I don't remember the name of the film...
Nadia, maybe.
?
It was about a Russian Gymnast.Who was very very very very young.
The cruel training practices. Overstretching them and so on.
The ideology that cruelty was necessary or important or needed for elite performance.
A few youtube film clilps have been surfacing about Mark Todd (eventing) hitting a horse from behind until it decided it would rather go into the water jump than stay there and be hit until it went into the water jump.
Etc.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1118795
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20220213/msgs/1118795.html