Oh, you're defensively projecting.

I swam for years. As hard as I might work, I was far from excellent or even good -- I was certainly never going to the Olympics.

I had many teammates and friends who were superior athletes. They worked and worked and worked and won a lot -- but none of THEM were going to the Olympics either.

Speaking as a Regular Folk, we're pretty well aware that there is phenomenal work and innate ability between even what the best of us do and what the Olympians do.

If anything those years in the pool make watching Phelps glide along with seeming effortlessness well ahead of the green line all the more amazing.

And you know what else is kind of amazing? I did IMs! Once upon a time I was young and strong enough to do that and the memory brings me joy. I can only hope that joy is not among the inherent differences between Regular Folk and Elite Athletes.

My sister got a college math scholarship for her performance on my high school math team - does that make math a sport?

I'm not saying there isn't a certain amount of physical training and skill involved in gymnastics, but it's more of a performance than a sport.

Running a race or playing a game is sports. Doing a routine that is scored by judges is entertainment, no matter how you try to dress it up with the trappings of sports.

I think Sey needs psychotherapy. I've been an attorney for 28 years. That's a lot of hard work and I know a fair amount of law. You know what? About half the population thinks they know some law and they are often wrong. You know what else? I don't cop the attitude about that that Sey does. You know what else? I know other lawyers, doctors, artists, writers, etc., all of whom have worked long and hard at their particular discipline and not one of them harbors the type of resentment Sey does. Quite the opposite in fact. I always try to encourage people in their efforts to understand legal matters. My writer friends and artist friends delight in the effort of amateurs in those areas. When I go to the doctor and talk about medical matters, she never condescends to me; she tries to help me understand.

It's simple. When you're comfortable with your mastery of your field, you don't resent the efforts of others but try to inform them and make them better.

But is it really fair for Jennifer Sey to look down on others when she never reached the pinnacle of her so-called "sport"? After all, by her bitter logic, Olympic athletes have every right to look down on her with the same kind of scorn that she reserves for high school gymnasts.

I think the point she was making, rather clumsily, is that most people have no idea of the difference between taking part in a sport recreationally and training to compete at the elite level.

Her point in her book was actually to expose how children as young as six or seven are subjected to horrifying training regimes and discipline. In some ways she sees herself as an analogue of Charles Dickens whose childhood experience of being sent to work in a blacking factory led to a torrent of words that have never been forgotten and which have launched the child abuse protection industry that is still very much with us.

When Oliver Twist asked for more and was beaten and expelled from the workhouse, he was the forerunner of the tiny gymnasts who are half starved and made to work with broken bones if they don't want to be thrown off the program. (At least that is how it was in the 1980's, according to Sey).

Whether this process also warps the personality of the "victim" is a moot point. Ms. Sey now works as an executive in a corporation, and probably her Spartan upbringing training to be a gymnastics warrior prepared her for success in that type of competitive environment.

Since Sey already identifies herself as a condescending jerk, there is not much point telling her that she is a condescending jerk.

As I say, I think her point about many people not understanding what it takes to compete at Olympic level is poorly made. This shows her limitations as a writer more than anything.

So, so sad.

My brother never made it to Nationals...he broke his neck at 13 trying to qualify. So, I mean, I guess he never "did" gymnastics...he just almost died trying. But he'd probably still get your contempt. What a wretch.

" . . . I'm a condescending former elite athlete . . ."

Which comes through in just about every post we've seen from Ms. Sey. She spends more time grinding axes than Henry VIII's executioner. Bitter washed-up jocks are dime-a-dozen.

I ride bikes with a former pro cyclist and six day racer. He could crush everyone on the ride like a grape, with one leg. Yet he manages to ride with us and have fun doing it. Food for thought?

You were a female gymnast basically just an abused child. Elite athletes are adults not teenagers who've been chemically altered to prevent puberty from happening.

It is a very lonely thing to be elite, half of my frustration as an athlete is this, the loneliness, the lack of understanding.

I myself am a competitive rock climber on the national circuit and how you practice a sport is a different expericience at different levels of skill and experience. Chess to the beginner is very different to the master who is planning ten moves ahead, who has named strategies and to whom the movement of an opponent's pawn has vastly different implications than the impression given to a novice.

The level of sacrifice has nothing to do with the author's dismay or isolation from weekend high school warriors. A high level sport is an entirely distinct activity at a fundamental level. The armchair fan will never understand and this is deeply frustrating. Thank you for attempting to express this.