Unbelievable!!!The French are going to lose a great athlete and I do not blame the young girl!Wouldn't common sense suggest that they held on to her as much as they could?
I wonder what he said as well. I wonder if it might have been something about a short course record not meaning as much as a long course record. I guess I'd take any world record, if I were them!
Originally posted by Fred Johnson
We'd take her here in the good ol' USA, right? Can we get the the President to make her an offer?
Hey! You guys win enough medals. The Brits would be glad to have her and anglocize her.
We would take her here in Britain in an instant.!!!!!!!I watched her swim in Athens on TV and she would be miles ahead of anyone we have at the moment in Britain.The nearest rival to her would be Rebecca Cooke,who I believe finished 8th in the Athens final.As we say here, "LES ANGLAIS L'AIMENT ".
Mark :D
There's another story on the matter on swiminfo.com, but it's in the premium news section:
www.swiminfo.com/.../8559.asp
It sounds like the French official made a stupid comment, but that the swimmer and her coach are probably overreacting. I don't know why a French official would ever minimize the accomplishment of an athlete who won an Olympic gold medal when no French swimmer had won one since 1952.
That swimmer was amazing at Athens. She has the potential to take over Janet Evans world records and her country could care less. Well, I think that she had the right idea to find a new country.
France put a fortune into ice skating a few years ago. The investment brought to them several top skaters. In the US, we forget that some contries don't have as large of a population as we do. There aren't many good pools in France either. also, despite what many people think, France isn't a very rich country.
I hope that swimmers don't get on the anti-French bandwagon. One set of my grandparents came to the US from France when they were children. It truly is a great success just that a woman would be a world class athelete. Many French women don't see atheletics as appropriate thing for women to do.
