Posted on 07/10/2021 6:12:52 AM PDT by MarvinStinson
I don’t have a problem if someone smokes pot. It is their business as long as they don’t impinge on me.
I have a problem with the intelligence level of someone who is a world class athlete (supposedly) works a good part of his or her life towards the goal of competing in this often single event, and smokes pot knowing full well they test for it.
Someone like her is arrogant, insanely stupid, addicted, or all three. Why would someone do that?
Male or female, Florence Griffith Joyner is one off the greatest sprinters this world has ever seen.
Like I said before, her world 100 meters and 200 meters records from 1988 are still standing. That is 33 years and counting. Which other sprinter, male or female, has a record like that? Nobody.
I know quite well who she is. They said "...America’s most celebrated sprinter from a bygone era..." which is demonstrably false.
That would be Jesse Owens. Hands down.
If they said "America's most celebrated female sprinter" I would have no problem with the categorization.
She was great, and beautiful, so sad she died so young.
Oh, sure. She is the greatest female sprinter, I don’t disagree one iota with that. But that is not what the author said. As people like to say here, words have meaning. If one argues that the writer meant to say “female sprinter” but was inept or lazy and omitted it, I have no beef with that. If words have meaning, of course.
So it is inarguable that she is the greatest female sprinter.
But her name doesn’t generally appear in history textbooks unless they are about the Olympics or sports specifically. But Jesse Owens does appear in history books that appear in classrooms. And he competed and won gold and set records in more events
In a sport in which the winners and losers are separated by hundredths or thousandths of a second, Joyner still finishes nearly a full second behind the fastest man, and in 2016, would not have qualified to run in mens. Not even close.
Just FYI, Joyner’s time of 10.49 was first eclipsed by a man back in 1921 and has been incrementally improved on by nineteen men breaking that 10.49 record with likely hundreds of men surpassing it since 1921.
My point is that she is neither the best sprinter, nor the most celebrated unless you specify her sex, then it is completely true. And that is not even arguable.
Someone may set high school or college records of various kinds that stand for decades, but to say they are best in that category is one thing while competing against others at the same level may be true. To say they are the best overall at any level of competition against a measurable metric is quite a different thing. Completely.
Yes. My beef was not to throw shade on her. I admire her.
It was to throw shade on the author.
I agree completely… I don’t think you and I are on the wrong side of this.
I disagree on the characterization… And while this may have just been sloppy journalism, I’ve seen hundreds of other examples that were not just sloppy journalism, but completely intentional.
Hahaha
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