We watched the Olympics in Bath this weekend. We watched as Ryan Lochte beat Phelps and won his gold medal. For months the media have been circulating around Lochte. Many of us were cheering for Lochte and were ecstatic when he won. A year ago none of us knew who he was, and last night we were excited he won. The media really set the agenda on the Olympics and who gets what coverage. Usually athletes win and then become well known but the media completely reversed the process. Even though Lochte has won medals in the past he was overshadowed by Phelps. Now we pull for athletes because the media tells us to. I knew the media was powerful but out of thousands of athletes they choose which ones become legacy Olympians.
Another great example of this is Gabby Douglas. Just this morning she won the gold medal in Gymnastics all around. Even before she competed though, she had became the face of USA gymnastics in London. She was one of five Olympians on the cover of Time and was on the cover the Sports Illustrated's Olympics preview issue.
ReplyDeleteAfter winning, Kellog announced that she was to become the next Wheaties box cover athlete. They had been preparing for her to win and made the announcement almost instantly. Just another example of the media telling us which Americans to watch for.
I was talking to one of the Franklin students the other day about Lochte and Phelps. Many people think they are jerks and/or not the brightest. After seeing some of the interviews with both of them I realized that there is definitely evidence for these theories, but my friend pointed out something I had never thought about before. He said that to be that good in any sport you have to be a type A personality and very confident. He said you have to constantly be telling yourself you are better than everyone else in the race/game, and the media feeds into this ego boast. Think Tiger Woods, he is definitely arguably one of the most infamous golfers of all time, but he has been told since he was a kid that he was the best at golf and he had to think that way in order to perform at the top. The psychology of sports is just very interesting to me. There are definitely athletes who seem like great guys, but they get ragged on by the media, Tim Tebow for example. So it just makes me wonder what we really want out of our athletes. Do we want them to be good people, or good athletes and can you be both?
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