mollywheezy: (Default)
[personal profile] mollywheezy
Top Five Things to Say to Olympics People

5. To the haters of the Opening Ceremonies: Stop gasping, clutching your pearls, being offended and get a hobby. Some weird French artist did something you didn’t like? Move on with your life. Certainly do not boycott watching the Olympics. The athletes had nothing to do with planning the opening ceremonies and they deserve our support. Do you want to know what offended me? They skipped countries in the Parade of Nations for commercials! Since 1996 Latvia has been skipped during every Olympics except one. What do they have against Latvia?! I went to Latvia for the first time in 1995 which is why I noticed. My friend D noticed they skipped Denmark, because that is where his family is from. Stop skipping countries. All of the athletes and their nations deserve to be celebrated.

4. To both male and female athletes: Please stop adjusting your junk or fixing your wedgie on world-wide television. We don’t need to see that. My husband Peter blames the camera operators for filming it. I will agree both are equally culpable. I will allow this diver to remain anonymous, but after his dive, he got out of the pool and immediately stuck his hand down the front of his swimsuit to adjust himself.

I said, “Dude! Seriously?!”

Peter said, “Maybe diving dislodged things and he’s really uncomfortable?”

“He could go to the restroom or at least get a teammate to stand in front of him.”

“Neither of us has dived before. It might have been an emergency.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

3. To all the athletes: I have been moved by the displays of sportsmanship I have witnessed. The three medal winners from three different countries hugging each other and jumping up and down in celebration together, thrilled to be on the podium. Or seeing the losers of a heat hugging their winning competitors and truly congratulating them. Y’all are very classy.

2. To Caeleb Dressel: It was one of my favorite Olympic moments of all time when you said you were so excited that your son was there to see you win a gold medal. It was adorable because he’s five months old and the camera operators had just shown him sleeping in your wife’s arms. He did not actually see you win, but he did wake up for a daddy cuddle. And then I was moved again when you took the gold medal you just won and put it around your younger teammate’s neck telling him he would have his own soon.

To Simone Biles: You did not make the top of my list for being the G.O.A.T. of women’s gymnastics but because you openly shared your struggles with mental illness and took the time you needed for self-care and healing in the face of a great deal of criticism. I admire your courage to admit you needed help and your tenacity to work your way back up to the top. I also struggled with mental illness, but I did not have the courage to share my story until years after the fact even though it could have helped others. I applaud you!

Date: 2024-09-30 11:33 am (UTC)
siglinde999: (Default)
From: [personal profile] siglinde999
I 100% blame the camera operators and the people who make decisions about what to show. But also, I don’t much care anymore. I’m not a competitive athlete, but I’m enough of an athlete to have needed to adjust things. Sometimes there is no private place or time to get there. And I’m totally used to being around other athletes who don’t care about my body - we get dressed together, we talk about our bodies, and we work really hard to not be self-conscious because that detracts from our sport performance. Multiply that by a gajillion for Olympic athletes on TV in front of thousands of other people. I think we do way too much body shaming as a society, but also way too much objectifying. As examples, we wouldn’t fuss nearly as much about those wedgies if American and Canadian women could wear bottoms that covered their rear ends properly for beach volleyball, athletics and gymnastics. Some other countries do have seat-covering uniforms, often at the insistence of the women themselves.

Man do I still manage to froth at the mouth about this, no matter how many times it comes up! LOL.

Date: 2024-10-10 02:14 pm (UTC)
siglinde999: (Default)
From: [personal profile] siglinde999
I think the standards in dance are weird for so many things, but I understand the aesthetic aspect that keeps adjustments off the stage. Dancers are also expected to dance injured, and keep smiling, where many athletes would pull out for their own health.

One of the wildest costume adjustments I ever saw was at a performance in Strasbourg when I was in high school. I don’t even remember the ballet any more, but during a pas de deux the zipper on the ballerina’s tutu slid open. Her partner switched her from a pirouette sequence to circling her in an arabesque while zipping up her tutu with his free hand.

Profile

mollywheezy: (Default)
mollywheezy

September 2024

S M T W T F S
123 4567
89 1011121314
1516171819 2021
222324252627 28
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 19th, 2025 10:11 pm
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios