Olympics Great for Occasional Refreshing Moments
Many years ago an amazing athlete named Myriam Bedard was interviewed on Canadian television and was asked whether she had won her Olympic gold medal for Canada or for Quebec and she answered, incredulous at the question, "I won it for me". Now THAT is the kind of thing I like seeing.Almost as unfiltered, one of our fine fencers, Sherraine Schalm, let loose after a disappointment, made worse in that it was at the hand or sword of an Hungarian. She was delightfully un-Canadian (i.e. direct) and turned back a couple of her interviewer's stupidest questions utterly brilliantly in this clip. Enjoy!
I especially loved:
I don't know if you have ever been a participant in the Olympic Games. [ed. she does know - he has not]
...
there are 32 other countries that are asking their athletes the same question - why haven't you translated that into a gold medal.
I also liked as a response to the exceptionally stupid question:
Can you survive this and continue this career?
Her response - wonderfully multi-part.
Of course! I love my sport.
...
all of a sudden someone tells you you can't interview people anymore - you have to go and file papers
this isn't what I'm made to do, this isn't what I love to do, and I'm good at what I do, so let me do it
The interviewer is not quite so great at what he was doing but that is a problem for the CBC.
I am a big Sherraine Schalm fan now. I wonder if she has a Paypal tip jar.
posted by Alan Adamson @ 6:53 PM
3 Comments:
Both Scott Russell (who did that interview) and Eliot Friedman (who is far more obnoxious, in our opinions) are from UWO. In fact, Russell was in a class I taught once.
And as much as you might admire her forthrightness, I don't have much sympathy for people who whine when they don't get what they want from the trough.
The irony is that the grant apparnetly enabled training in Hungary, which appears to be the core of most of the grief.
I don't know if she has a paypal jar, but I do, which I opened largely because you said you would donate to it if I did! (o:
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