scca_ita wrote:
devashish_paul wrote:
Just replying to this thread in general. Triathlon1989 is a 21 year old kid. It seems he chose to DNF at first, cutting out the energy lab and heading home. Then he chose to go through the chute at the last moment with all the hype around. Perhaps like some kids the fear of failure in front of family pushed him to make the wrong choice which he is obviously regretting. I feel more sad for him than anything. Sometimes in life we learn lessons the hard way. He made the wrong decision on the biggest stage of this sport. Some of us at that age drove a car while drunk, that no one really new about. 21 year olds do make mistakes and learn from them. It sounds like he already is.
+1 - This thread should be closed - like kicking a dead horse. I think this sport and community is like brotherhood. I have raced cars, sailboats, run, swam and have not experienced such I high peer support level in any of these sports as I have seen/experience in the TRI community. Perhaps this is my immediate TRI community but I think it is wide spread especially after being at Kona and other international races - it is very communal for all.
I think Tiathlon1989 has leaned a hard lesson and in life we all continue to learn/mature/improve character etc and how we apply these learning's will determine how successful we will be personally and professionally. Kids - especially boys need to get a free idiot pass at least once. God only knows I am happy to have had many myself and hope my son's literally survive through their youthful offender years as well.
Ageed on the free idiot pass for young people.
As a parent of a 15 year old, I had some more time to think about this thread. Around me I see lots of "high pressure parents" for whom anything but being the absolute top in anything is not good enough.
I also coach youth sport and I see parents who are quite overbearing. Even yesterday, I had a parent of a 13 year old girl lobbying me in front of her kid why her daughter should be in the group with the more advanced kids, as if she it was her trying to be part of the program. The 13 year old daughter could probably care less which XC ski group she will be in this winter, but mom was all over the head coach (me), to put her in the advanced group. Kids learn at a young age that the parents don't settle for anything but the top....
From a young age, kids can learn from their parents, that it's not good enough to try and fail. The only acceptable outcome is trying and being the best. Some kids just turn off and rebel. Other kids live through this high pressure horror show and try to live up to the parental expectations. It might be in sport, it might be in academia, it might be in both.
I can't say this is the case for Triathlon1989, but its all over the place. We see high achievement kids doing all kinds of things to get a successful outcome to live up to parental pressure. Things like cheating on exams, plagerizing essays etc are known to happen in academia at high profile Ivy league schools.
A 21 year old kid, racing in Kona may have felt the pressure of those types of expectations. I don't know if he did, and I'm not saying what he did was right, but somewhere in his apology he mentioned something about letting down his parents/family etc.
Sure we all feel we let down those who supported it us when we fail at something. But kids need to know that it is perfectly acceptable to try hard, crack and fail under pressure or duress and that it is a better outcome than taking illegal shortcuts in getting things done and that trying and failing is a much more noble endeavor than never even trying at all.
In my view, Triathlon1989's situation is just as much a failure of his parents as it is a massive lapse in his own judgement. I hope his parents took a step back and said something along the lines of, "What you did was wrong, but you're never letting us down if you try and fail. But you are letting us down when you cheat to achieve success."