Posted on 08/19/2016 6:46:58 AM PDT by McGarrett
I have to admit Usain Bolt is an amazing athlete. He looked like a man running against boys in 200 meter final yesterday. Still, his constant showboating turns me off. His total lack of respect for his competitors and post-race antics make me want to gag. I suppose I could stomach those a bit better if he was an American, but I can't say it would greatly change my opinion either. What really chaps my a** is the way NBC and the commentators fall all over this guy. We get these extended segments on him crammed down our throats instead of seeing other competitors or competitions. Why would your average American be a big fan of this foreign blowhard?
Thanks for posting those links.
He definitively flirts with the line between fun and brash, and if you just tune in to one event, I agree, it looks bad. That type of celebration is common in the sport and when you watch Bolt in his totality, it’s clearly for fun, and he has a great relationship with his competitors.
I thought he was fun to watch. You ought to lighten up. :-)
Yes
Bingo. I’m having problems trying to watch all “sports” these days. Too many touchy feely sob stories and not enough sports. I went from being a total NASCAR fanatic to being a casual observer only interested in who won the race. I don’t even watch any of the races anymore. AS you said, they’ve “Oprah-fied” all sports. To heck with them. I’ve got better things to do.
Michael Johnson was the guy with the golden shoes in 1996 Olympics.
You just accept it as part of the schtick.
I’m usually the first to condemn the showboats in the NFL etc but Bolt makes it clear that he doesn’t take himself all that seriously. He also knows that track is 20 seconds of excitement between hours of nothing so he does his best to alleviate some of that and crowds respond in kind.
Anyone with a large following has a chicken-and-egg situation: are they playing to the crowd or the crowd wildly appreciative no matter what? Was Elvis talented? Yes. Do we accept his now-iconic peacock act in all phases of his career? Yes again. Was most of it cheesy and over the top? Yes again. Time usually softens contemporary objections. Not saying Bolt isn’t a self-promoter but when you are unique among all humans walking the earth you’re entitled to a bit of it.
NBC, on the other hand, are irredeemable. We should thank our stars that Bolt is a Jamaican and not an American, else NBC would be insufferable as they are amidst all the other flag-waving and jingoism. There are great competitors from all nations. Not all of them win medals. If you’re stuck watching NBC you might never know this since they will ignore a champion from another nation in order to shoehorn in footage of a US winner in any sport eg women’s wrestling (!?!?). American finishes 25th? Full coverage anyway and to hell with the Italian or Canadian who won silver or bronze.
To watch foreign coverage, especially the BBC, is to believe you are watching a different Olympics entirely with all nations and entrants given a fair crack of the whip.
NBC wants walking, talking Wheaties boxes. The promotional engine must be fed even if it ultimately feeds on itself - the competition is almost an afterthought.
Bolt’s stature is such that not even NBC can pretend otherwise. With great effort, they turn off the Stars And Stripes hagiography for a few minutes and rightly so.
He’s on TV a few times every 4 years. What he has done pales in comparison to the average dose of demonstrations we get in a Sunday lineup of NFL games.
In his case, though, I think he’s just being playful. The NFL athletes are making sure they get another advertising client, I suppose, because they sure do sicken me.
“What really chaps my a** is the way NBC and the commentators fall all over this guy.”
” Me too. It’s almost as though they are proponents of black supremacy.”
I had the same problem - then I found a thing called the off button on my remote and now I feel better.
“So, am I just an old curmudgeon?”
-—No. I too find it hard to like Bolt, but I have found it hard to like any of the athletes outside of Danielle Biles. This Olympics really didn’t have a lot of people you really wanted to pull/root for like in past Olympics. The London games were so much better - to me
Would you rather go back to the days of Carl Lewis?
Lol, it's a good thing you weren't watching the BBC coverage of the men's 100 meter race. Their slobbering over Bolt was so over the top, and went on for so many minutes, I had to mute it until a new event started.
I don't know that there is anything objectionable about Bolt himself, but the slobbering coverage is beyond ridiculous.
NASCAR is quickly losing me as well.
More for their horrid TV contract. I refuse to put cable TV in my house and now most races are on cable, where they suffer dismal ratings.
C’mon, the Bristol night race on NBCSN? Unforgivable.
We elected him twice and I still don't understand it.
Wait....
really he is a nice guy very talented and even keeled
i think he handles post race sportsmanlike...
he encourages younger competitiors like blake and the canadian guy
i love to know what his training program consists of
HE ADMITTED HE IS OVER THE HILL
SPORTS EXPERTS SAY HIS 19.58 will last a LONG TIME
look at cassius clay if you want to see an asshole perform
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktCZBiEK408
That has got to be the weirdest t-shirt I’ve ever seen. I don’t get the joke.
Stop looking at sprinting as a “sport.” Another FReeper pointed out how they don’t do actual training. Bolt said he trains for like an hour a week. Sprinters have all the training they need by age 6. You are either faster than everyone else, or you’re not. They are ROCK STARS, not “athletes.”
He gets props for this.
I detest preening athlete prima donnas as much as anyone, but Usain Bolt never struck me as one of these. He always seemed polite and unassuming in interviews and public appearances. If the US media fawn over him for racial and ideological reasons, that’s the fault of the media, not of Bolt.
I didn’t like Carl Lewis either. I thought he was also a showboat, but what really bothered me about him was that he didn’t really seem to try to realize his full potential. I particularly remember the 1988 games when he won the long jump with one jump and called it a day. I think it’s fitting that he never set the world record despite being able to consistently jump farther than anyone else. I was and am a Micheal Johnson fan. His 400 meter record was broken the other night, but I believe he would have put it even lower if he’d ever been challenged.
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