If Sey was pushed into gymnastics by her parents, or not protected from the excesses, then she was abused as a child and is right to be angry about it - at those who abused her.

If Sey went into it and pursued it by choice, and now regrets it, then she has no one to be angry at but herself.

If "the system" focuses too much on victory and too little on sportsmanship, then "the system" is corrupt and needs to change, or simply be abandoned.

She has no right to be angry at fans.

"I love sports. I love athletes. I hate fans."

WHY?

Without the fans, your sport would not exist the way it does. Or, to put it another way - would you have done the sport if there were no fans? If there were no chance at fame or fortune outside your immediate friends and family?

"Mommy swam the 400-meter freestyle in high school."

No, you didn't."

YES, SHE DID.

She just didn't do it at the same level as elite athletes.

"I was a gymnast too!"

No, you weren't."

YES, SHE WAS. Just not at the same level.

There's elite, and there's elitist.

"I was practicing 12 hours a week by the time I was 7, traveling up and down the New Jersey Turnpike each weekend for competitions. I moved away from home when I was 14, trained 40 hours a week while attending high school, endured untold abuses by overenthusiastic coaches who weighed me twice a day to make sure I didn't inadvertently get fat during my seven-hour practice."

Was it by choice or were you pushed into it? And who paid for all that?

"I'm not convinced that those who haven't ever endured the trials and brutal training regimen required to compete at the Olympic level really understand what is entailed."

They don't. They can't - just as you apparently cannot understand that most people simply do not have the resources to even dream of becoming an elite athlete.

"in sports like swimming or track, where the athletes are engaged in activities that regular people do all the time, I think there are many who believe it's simply a little extra commitment that sets these athletes apart from the hoi polloi."

Nope. We know that it takes a combination of talent, dedication, training, resources and just plain luck even to get to the starting line.

"I get the feeling that regular folks believe that if they just had the heart to stick with it through 10th grade, they too would be celebrating on the medal stand in Beijing along with Michael Phelps and Dara Torres. But maybe I'm defensively projecting."

You are. Yes, some "fans" just don't get it. They are the tiny minority.

"Do Olympic fans understand how unimaginably hard it is to overcome fear, persevere through injury, come through in the clutch, give up one's entire life in the name of a few possible yet unlikely moments of glory?"

Oh puh-leaze.

Anybody who goes into "elite" sports with any sense at all knows the changes of success are small, and the risks huge. But so are the potential rewards. They are not 'giving up their entire life', they're pursuing a dream, *their* dream, supported by many others who make it possible.

Some people, like police and firefighters, confront far greater risks every single working day, in careers that span decades. But they will never be rich or famous. They *might* achieve some recognition if they happen to be killed in the line of duty.

Consider health care professionals of all types who had to train for years just to get started, who risk dying from a whole array of communicable diseases, and whose careers - and other people's lives - could be ended by a single bad mistake. How many lives saved does it take to get a gold medal and one's face on a cereal box?

I won't even go into what military personnel face.

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What Sey doesn't understand is the enormous difference between the true amateur athlete, who has to live a "regular" life (with job, family, school, etc.), and the "elite" athlete who has all sorts of support and resources provided for them, so as to make their single-minded focus on athletics possible.

Yes I admire the accomplishments of the Olympians from developed countries like the USA. But how many of them in sports we see on TV have regular day jobs? How many are funding their own athletics? How many had to pay their own way through college?

How many die in the line of duty?

The Olympics used to be about amateur athletics. Now it's about big business.

Bill Rodgers, the marathoner, once said that the runners he admired most were those in the back of the pack, because they had to run almost twice as long as he did. They are the ones who trained for and ran the marathon with no hope of winning, no recognition, and totally self-funded.