Im-Media-te Re-Media-L

From an article by Polly Hui:

HONG KONG (AFP) – US swim legend Mark Spitz won’t be on hand in Beijing if Michael Phelps breaks his record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics—because, he says, no one bothered to invite him.

Spitz said the International Olympic Committee, a US television network or FINA—the international body that governs world swimming—should have brought him to the Games this year, with Phelps making a go at his record.

“I never got invited. You don’t go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am,” Spitz told AFP in Hong Kong.

“I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That’s almost demeaning to me. It is not almost—it is.”

Spitz became one of the most famous athletes in the world at the 1972 Munich Olympics, winning seven gold medals—with seven world records—in what many consider to be one of the greatest achievements in all of sport.

Now, I’m not a big fan of calling most people heroes. People who do heroic things do so because it’s in their nature. And even those people aren’t perfect. I certainly wouldn’t consider most Olympians to be heroes. Yes, they’re good at their sports. And yeah, I root for the Americans, but do I do think an Olympian’s performance has anything to do with patriotism? Nope.

Mark Spitz is an Olympian with an impressive performance record. I know a lot of people who train and work hard in non-sporting events who are just as (or more) heroic or amazing.

But let’s say you think Olympians are heroes or even worthy of respect just for being an Olympian. I give them respect for their hard work, but I don’t think they deserve any more respect for their athletic ability than a person who performs to his or her mental ability with years of training for whatever mental task they achieve. But I digress. Suppose you consider Olympians or major sports figures to be heroes. Don’t we include modesty, the ability to win and lose with class, and graciousness in the criteria for being a hero? I mean, seriously.

“Because of who I am” he says. He balks at going anonymously. If seeing the sport was important to Mark Spitz, he’d go. If “supporting” Michael Phelps was important to Spitz he’d go. And if he did pay his own way, support Phelps with no accolades for himself, well then maybe that’d be kind of heroic. It would at least be gracious. It would at least be a sign that Spitz is more about the Olympics, the sport, and sportsmanship than he is about his big swimmer’s head. What an ass. No wonder he wasn’t invited. He wanted to go for Spitz–not for Phelps, which is the dude people should be paying attention to if they’re into that sort of thing. Personally, I am embracing patriotism and my right to not care about the sports that don’t intrigue me. But I can’t help rooting for Phelps and hoping he takes Spitz’s place. It wouldn’t take much to do it with it a bit more modesty and grace, that’s for sure.

Spitz: congratulations on your achievements, but it must be pretty sad to have more honor in even one of your medals than in your own heart, what with your ego filling up the place.