Maybe elite athletes just don't have proper upbringing.

Rather than spending their youth hanging out with friends, sneaking beer from their parent's fridge, and trying to figure out how to get that cutie to notice them, they were all down at the gym 24-7.

This is the case with the highly-paid "professional" athletes we love so much, too.

It's not their fault they tend to be assholes. It's just that, rather than "growing up," they were "approaching their physical peak."

So, let's all just pat them on their heads and comfort them a bit. It must be rough to have everything "important" in your personal life end by the age of 25.

Well done. You've shown an olympic level ability to miss points, misunderstand text and contort arguments in defense of the indefensible.

I'll certainly never claim to have done any of those things around you. You're far more of an idiot than I could ever hope to be. I promise I won't be your fan though, I know how you'd hate that.

I'm glad to know that, then, and I stand corrected. And this makes Ms. Sey look better how?

The way I see it, it's even more damning to athletes in general. Feh, who needs 'em.

The point is, the woman dismisses others without any further question.

Yes we all do it, yes we all are assholes from time to time.

Most of us however do not write a long article called, I'm an asshole, please forgive, but you don't need to because I'm perfectly justified in my assholetry.

O.k. that's not the title of the article, but it could have just as easily been.

Ms. Sey doesn't probe, doesn't find out about these people she dismisses as beneath her and other "elite" atheletes (funny how she still puts herself in this group even though she obviously is nolonger one).

It isn't her point that people object to. It's her being a bear bones nacacissitic self agrandizing jerk that people take exception to.

Now granted, we don't know that much about Ms. Sey, and are probably guilty of a very similar activity to Ms. Sey herself. The differnce is, we are basing our statments on her published statments to this effect, and she makes her statement based on a single sentence mentioned to someone other than herself, at a party.

Likewise, on a personal level I really don't like people turning an issue back to themselves for further agrandizment. This seems to have been intended as an article about the pressure on young atheletes and the often unrealistic expectations of fans.

That's a great idea for a story, but then why are we subjected to an article that is at best 10% the offical purpose and 90% faux confessional and look at me assholetry of Ms. Sey?

The woman seems to just want to associate herself with these elite atheletes, likely because she never got to that level herself.

Ironic huh?

KStone said: "Also, your "reversal" echos what I said in my letter about whose Ox is gored and how people often don't hesitate to condescend when they are the "betters". I guess I should thank you for the example so thanks."

hahahahahahahahaha

That's called sarcasm, dunce.

The bottom line is your girl Jenny has taken some small quantitive differences and attempted to inflate them into gigantic yawning chasms of qualitative difference.

EVERYONE knows what it is like to know more about something than someone else. jenny and KStone are not alone in carrying that dreadful burden.

He's known for arrogance and a bad attitude. He's mad that he didn't get invited to the Olympics to pass the torch to Phelps (http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080811/en_afp/oly2008swimusaspitz_080811062625) He's a regular guy trapped in an elite athlete's body. Just like all the rest of them. I know more than one elite athlete and they're as complex as the rest of us. They have good days and bad days. They're nice and mean, dark and light. They get jealous, insecure, tired, bummed out. They're PEOPLE who happen to be really good at something.

Why is that so hard to understand?

"NO. It's the point exactly. Sey denies that we even did it. That's the problem."

NO. Here's what Sey said:

"Watching the women's 400-meter individual medley with some friends, one lesser-known acquaintance gently whispered to her daughter, "Mommy swam the 400-meter freestyle in high school."

No, you didn't.

See? I'm horrible. But she didn't. Technically, she stayed afloat. She swam back and forth in the pool. But her interpretation of this flywheel-type movement surely had nothing to do with what Britain's Rebecca Adlington brought to bear on that pool in Beijing."

Sey mocked the person's attempt to "me too". The mother told her kid that she swam the 400 free in HS while they were watching the 400 IM race. Sey's internal "No, you didn't" wasn't a denial that the person literally swam, it was a mocking of the me tooism. Whether you agree or like it is another matter but it wasn't a denial the person "even did it" as you say.

"There are cheetahs that can outrun you and apes that can outlift you and dolphins that can outswim you."

There are machines that go faster than any animal, lift far more than any animal, and swim faster and farther than any animal. And when it comes to flying...

Those machines were all designed and built by humans.

"But there are no mere animals that can outperform a philosopher at philosophy or a mathematician at mathematics etc. etc."

There are machines that can do calculations (not theoretical math) far faster than any human. But those machines were designed and built by humans.

There are machines that are better at playing chess than all but the very best humans. There may soon exist chess-playing machines that no humans can beat - if they don't exist already.

Shoot, of all the animals on this planet, only humans use fire. A few animals use very basic tools but they're the exception that proves the rule.

"No, the distinctively superior human qualities have to do with intelligence, not athletics."

I would not say "superior human qualities" but rather "uniquely human qualities".

Intelligence alone achieves little; it has to be matched with action. Which is what humans do.

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I find it interesting that so many people place so much emphasis on sports and entertainment figures, yet are so ignorant of those who made modern society possible through technology. Imagine the Olympics without TV....