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The Unknown Olympic Champion
WSJ ^ | 18 Aug 2016

Posted on 08/19/2016 9:25:39 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT

How do you manage to win a medal at six straight Olympics and remain more or less unknown? ...

. It probably doesn’t help that Mrs. Rhode is an outspoken critic of gun-control laws and a Donald Trump supporter.

...Even when the press has reported on her achievement, the tone has often been dismissive. An NBC story noted that her medal record is arguably “far less impressive than, say, a gymnast or a swimmer” because shooting “requires fewer physical attributes.” Sure, all it takes is remarkable hand-eye coordination, quick reflexes, steady nerves and dedication over 20 years.

(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Sports
KEYWORDS: banglist; noncoverage
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To: achilles2000

“This is just a rationalization for denying publicity to shooting sports. Yes, it’s harder to be a gymnast, but we also have beach volley ball and other junk sports that the MSM gives lots of attention to that don’t require the level skill needed to shoot skeet.”

You ever play beach volleyball? It is exhausting. Now if you said golf....


21 posted on 08/19/2016 10:46:06 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Common Sense, Trump and Pence. More of the same, Clinton and Kaine.)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

She’d make headlines if she’d cause an international incident like destroying a restroom.


22 posted on 08/19/2016 10:59:17 AM PDT by bgill (From the CDC site, "We don't know how people are infected with Ebola")
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To: achilles2000
This is just a rationalization for denying publicity to shooting sports. Yes, it’s harder to be a gymnast, but we also have beach volley ball and other junk sports that the MSM gives lots of attention to that don’t require the level skill needed to shoot skeet.

Compare that to the front and center coverage of the Muslim fencer - an equally unexciting sport - who even got a spot in the front of the opening ceremonies near Michael Phelps.

23 posted on 08/19/2016 11:04:31 AM PDT by Lizavetta
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To: Puppage

And when I went to the WSJ the article was either gone or expunged.

I hope lots of women are shooting and shooting well. I love to shoot and have been doing that since I was a teen and took a hunter safety course. Yay!! Yay!

Encourage your daughters to shoot. They need to know how to shoot to defend their lives and the lives of others. Besides it is fun to plunk or get good enough to shoot competitively.

Nemaste.


24 posted on 08/19/2016 11:43:22 AM PDT by Bodega
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Great quote.


25 posted on 08/19/2016 11:48:56 AM PDT by Sergio (An object at rest cannot be stopped! - The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

Sweet!


26 posted on 08/19/2016 12:01:31 PM PDT by SomeCallMeTim ( The best minds are not in government. If any were, business would hire them!)
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To: Bodega
Encourage your daughters to shoot.

Encourage your SONS to shoot.

27 posted on 08/19/2016 12:02:17 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: DUMBGRUNT

I don’t think it’s bias against shooting. I think it’s because she’s a nice-looking, middle-aged woman who is wearing sensible shooting togs. If she were a skinny young Barbie who appeared in a bikini, that would get attention, even if she were much less successful in the sport.


28 posted on 08/19/2016 12:08:47 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("From the cradle to the grave, man is unteachable." ~ Winston Churchill)
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To: Tax-chick
Sorry, but being young and pretty doesn't help.

It's the shooting that's a problem.

29 posted on 08/19/2016 12:13:26 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: NorthMountain

She still has clothes on, though.


30 posted on 08/19/2016 12:15:57 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("From the cradle to the grave, man is unteachable." ~ Winston Churchill)
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To: Tax-chick
Do you honestly think that NBC would feature shooting (any sort) if the women competed while wearing bikinis?

I think it's absurd even to suggest.

This is NBC we're talking about. Big Media. Haven of the most extreme gun-control freaks. Coverage of shooting sports doesn't support the narrative.

31 posted on 08/19/2016 12:23:40 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: NorthMountain

Although NBC is the only American television coverage, there are other media companies with print/digital reporting, as well as other countries’ media. I think that female athletes are successful in the media mainly for their looks, with less concern for performance. Consider Anna Kournikova and Danica Patrick: neither was all that in terms of winning, but very successful in a bikini (or out of it).

The paying customers want eye candy, and those women athletes who fit the Barbie mold, including wearing very little, draw the attention. The majority who are too big and strong, too lean and attenuated, short-haired, with ordinary faces, or wearing too many clothes generally aren’t what advertisers want shown.


32 posted on 08/19/2016 12:47:58 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("From the cradle to the grave, man is unteachable." ~ Winston Churchill)
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To: Tax-chick
Consider Anna Kournikova and Danica Patrick

OK. Miss Kournikova wore a tennis dress while competing, same as every other female tennis player. Short, yes, but hardly a bikini. Danica Patrick wore a Nomex firesuit and a helmet while competing. I doubt she had so much as a square millimeter of skin showing. And frankly, when she did show some skin, she wasn't 'all that'. In both cases, they went 'cheesecake' wearing attenuated costumes that they did not use while engaged in their respective sports.

aren’t what advertisers want shown.

There's your problem, right there.

33 posted on 08/19/2016 12:58:07 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: Tax-chick
I should say, that's part of the problem. There's still the extreme hatred of guns in particular and weapons in general on the part of Big Media.

You do know that there's Olympic Archery, right?

You sure wouldn't know it from NBC's "coverage" of the games ...

34 posted on 08/19/2016 12:59:42 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: NorthMountain

I do know that there is archery. It got more tv time when the actress Geena Davis was on the Olympic team. (I beat my whole den, including the teen staff and the other adult leader, at archery during Cub Scout day camp this summer.)

I think we agree, though, that there’s more than one factor involved. I understand that NBC was offering all the events live-streaming; I assume it was for a fee, but maybe not. It would be interesting to know the viewership of different events in that format. Surely that would tell us what people want to watch ... although that’s a different thing from what people are *willing* to watch of the events offered in free broadcast.


35 posted on 08/19/2016 1:12:48 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("From the cradle to the grave, man is unteachable." ~ Winston Churchill)
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To: Tax-chick
I understand that NBC was offering all the events live-streaming; I assume it was for a fee, but maybe not.

Had I known that 10 days ago, I'd have turned off their wretched excuse for Prime Time "coverage" and streamed it.

36 posted on 08/19/2016 1:17:49 PM PDT by NorthMountain (Hillary Clinton: corrupt unreliable negligent traitor)
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To: NorthMountain

I’d love to see these numbnuts try to break one! Or hand them a rifle and a benchrest and try to ring a gong at 800 yards! I was a trap/skeet competitor in college, we went through the same thing. We traveled to the National Collegiate Championships with a total funding of....$0. Every request from our group was turned down while there was plenty of money for the gay students assn, etc. The Chancellor and an Assistant to the dean of Engineering who were gun enthusiasts, paid our motel rooms, we paid for our own ammo, guns, food, and gas, drove our own cars. Even with this we managed to win the Team Trapshooting Championship once, and I was once 8th in International Trap (out of 445). The top 10 received automatic invitations to the Olympic tryouts. I didn’t attempt that. Nonetheless, shooting requires more concentration than anything I’ve done, and I played all the sports in HS, setting records in the pole vault, and also was a utility infielder on a Div 1 baseball team. Shooting is the toughest mental game of any of them. It also is more calming, and helps focus more than anything I’ve done.


37 posted on 08/19/2016 2:00:48 PM PDT by nobamanomore
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To: NorthMountain

Winchester (ammo) and Beretta (DT-11)


38 posted on 08/19/2016 2:12:56 PM PDT by Tijeras_Slim
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To: EQAndyBuzz

I’ve done a lot of sports, but nothing would be better for maintaining “energy” than playing with good looking women in bikinis...


39 posted on 08/19/2016 2:33:28 PM PDT by achilles2000 ("I'll agree to save the whales as long as we can deport the liberals")
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To: NorthMountain
Do you honestly think that NBC would feature shooting (any sort) if the women competed while wearing bikinis?

I hate to think of them getting hit by hot, just-fired brass. Not a problem with shotguns, of course, but rifle or pistol, could happen. I've often gotten some just-ejected brass down my shirt front. Ignore the burn and take the next shot.

40 posted on 08/19/2016 3:10:09 PM PDT by JoeFromSidney (,)
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