As much as I have loved watching the Olympics, I’ve come to dread the post race interviews.
I guess when you’ve just finished a race, the last thing you want to do is to have to give a coherent, well thought out interview. At the end of a race, all the emotions come to the fore, especially when the stakes are as high as the Olympics. For most athletes, it is either agony or ecstasy. The fulfilment of 4-8 years work, or the bitter disappointment of narrowly missing out. In an ideal world, maybe athletes would be full of yogic detachment concentrating on the the old clichés like. “Well it’s not the winning which is important, it’s the taking part. ”
Anyway, you don’t expect much from athletes after a race, which is why the interviewer usually asks a question and then answers it themselves.
“You’ve won the Olympic gold. How do you feel? You must be very happy and proud.”
“Yes!”
“So what was going through your mind, as you crossed the finishing line? You must have been thinking – I’ve just won the Olympic Gold”
“Yes!..”
But, because the question has already been answered anyway, the athlete is obliged to think of something else to say. Usually some old cliché like thanking his mother, trainer, friends, cat, postman and all the support back home. – ‘Never thought dream would come true’. “I’ll never forget this moment” “Proudest moment of life…”
I’ve heard some pretty torturous post race intereviews in my time, but, yesterday was a new low.
A British swimmer had just finished 7th (or second to last) in the qualifying heats (she had won a silver medal at last world championships)
This is not an exact transcript, but, it conveys the general tone of the interview, I will keep the names anonymous:
Interviewer: “You’ve swum a lot faster in the past, you must be pretty disappointed with your swim?”
“Er, yes, it was dissappointing”
Interviewer: “Why do think you swam so slowly?”
“Er, I don’t know.” (now on the verge of tears)
Interviewer: “So what are your plans now?” I’m only surprised the interviewer didn’t answer the question them for them saying something like – “well, you might as well give up hadn’t you?”
I couldn’t watch any more and switched over channels, I could see the poor swimmer becoming tearful, it was too much public humiliation at a time when the athlete should have been left alone. The last thing you want to do after coming 2nd to last in qualifying heats is to have to think up of your plans for the next 4 years and explain why you went slowly.
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