Married Olympian Couples Are Competitively Adorable [Olympics]

Even though National Olympic Committees don't keep track of how many of the 10,000 athletes in London are married, according to the Wall Street Journal, there are at least six couples at this year's Olympics that are currently engaged in an unofficial "who's more in love" competition. Married Olympic couples would seem, at first, to offer really good kindling for warming your heart, but it turns out that people who compete at an insanely high level are actually insanely competitive. Just take Australia's Clayton and Lucinda Fredericks, who, as equestrians, had the opportunity to compete against each other at the Beijing games back in 2008. In the heat of competition, explains Clayton, marriage vows fade to but an inaudible murmur under the clippity-clop of hooves:

For the week of the Olympics, it's more important for me to have a good relationship with your horse than your wife. That's the one that's going to win you the medals.

Anything for medals, I guess? No worries — even though Clayton finished seventh and Lucinda finished twenty-sixth, the couple took home silver medals in the team event and so didn't have to arm wrestle to determine ultimate number-one champion before they parted ways at Olympic Village before lights-out (Australia, unlike some other countries, maintains a strictly-segregated dorm).

Hyper-competitive couples aren't a new phenomenon, though. At Helsinki in 1952, everyone's favorite married Olympians were track and fielders Emil Zatopek and Dana Zatopkova. They gave press conferences together and everything, but when Zatopek tried to siphon a little credit for his wife's gold medal by explaining that his own win had no doubt "inspired" her, Zatopkova took a moment to make her husband look like an asshole in front of everyone by responding, "Oh you inspired me, did you? OK, go inspire some other girl and see if she throws a javelin 50 meters."

Marriage must be a little tougher when everything — making pancakes, watching TV, showering — has the potential to rapidly devolve into a bloodthirsty competition. Especially considering the fact that everyone wins in a pancake contest anyway, so trying to determine a single winner is an absurd exercise.

Marriage Shapes Up as Tough Event [WSJ]

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Not Every Olympian Is Jacked: Fat and Athleticism Aren't Mutually Exclusive [Weighty Issues]

When the Olympics turns the spotlight on athletes, audiences see some competitors who have far-from-average physiques. But. Just as not all lean and/or visibly muscular people are athletes, not all athletes are lean and/or visibly muscular.

As previously discussed, an Australian paper mocked the body of (three-time gold medalist!) swimmer Leisel Jones — and was the target of intense backlash. Fellow swimmer Melanie Schlanger expressed her deep embarassment for the Aussie media, and tweeted: "U can't judge fitness from looks anyway and how about we don't criticize at all." In a column for the Vancouver Sun, Christie Blatchford writes:

First, much as the temptation at these events is always to long for the sentimental result, Jones would not be swimming to gold on behalf of all the wounded fat little children of the world or those who once were. That's because she ain't fat: She weighs about 150 pounds, or about what the average woman in the U.K. and the U.S. weighs.

Secondly, calling someone fat isn't criticism, not in any meaningful sense. It's small and unnecessary, period. You want to criticize a world-class athlete, talk about her sport, her technique or her training - not her makeup (synchronized swimming excepted, of course).

Thirdly, the appearance insult (ask any woman on television what sort of mail she gets compared with her male colleagues) is the insult of first and last resort with women.

But the incident is indicative of our culture's persistent fatphobia. When we see fat, we don't see a person. We don't see potential, possibilities, options. We only see fat. And what we think it means: Lazy. Inactive. Unhealthy. Decoupling fat and health is a struggle.

In a post that went up yesterday on Feministe, blogger Zuzu declares:

I am fat. I'm not as fat as I was when I started writing for Feministe, but I'm fatter than I was this time last year (yay, pre-menopause! That was a fun birthday present). So, still fat.

I am also an athlete.

Zuzu points out that the strongest women in America — weightlifters Sarah Robles and Holley Mangold — don't get sponsorships like other (thin, lean) female athletes. Media coverage almost always mentions their weight and/or body type, before noting how much they can lift. It's as though their size renders all other accomplishments moot.

Why do we insist on believing we can look at someone and know what their health and fitness levels are? Because we live in a society that fetishizes thinness, inundates us with images of svelte female bodies and brainwashes us into believing that thin is The Best Way To Be. Models and celebrities are rewarded for thinness with magazine covers and muti-million-dollar ad campaigns; it doesn't matter if they smoke or have an eating disorder or have truly odious personalities. Thinness trumps all, tricking us into equating it with health and worth, just as fatness trumps all, conning us into believing its presence is a sign of ill health and unworthiness.

Zuzu knows just how hard it is to uncouple and detangle weight and athleticism, because she's had to do it to herself:

A few weeks ago, I met with a Chi Running coach who's an ultramarathoner. It's hard not to feel lazy next to someone who can and will run 50 to 100 miles at a stretch. I made some comment about not being very fit, and she said sternly, "You're fit. You just did 9 miles."

I am an athlete. [Feministe]
NO RESPECT! Athletes, advocates defend ‘fat' Olympic-champion swimmer Leisel Jones [NYDN]
Fat Leisel? Try Fast Leisel [Vancouver Sun]

Earlier: Australian Paper Incites Backlash After Shittily Suggesting that Swimmer Leisel Jones Is Fat

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