What is the deal with Mark Spitz??!!

[iceturkee]

i didn't say the olympic committee owed him anything. i said i can understand why spitz thought he should have been invited to this years games.

funny, i learned many years ago that we all handle tragedy differently.....that none of us grieve the same way.

that being said, the way i have interpreted this thread is that some of you guys wanna remember this guy because he came across like an arrogant prick, demanding he should have been invited to bejiing.

i see spitz as the 22-year-old jew who hit the crowning moment of his career during the first olympic games held in post nazi germany. that the olympics were suppose to be an olive branch instead turning to a horrid tragedy that i pray never happens again.

sure, some of you will say the guy's a jew so he knew there were risks competing in munich. mark spitz was to be the poster child of everything that had supposedly changed in germany. but, although, his competition was completed during the terrorist attack, he was evacuated from olympic village for his own safety.

so, think what you want about him. i still have much respect for what he did in 1972!

 

[salsadancer7]

i didn't say the olympic committee owed him anything. i said i can understand why spitz thought he should have been invited to this years games.

funny, i learned many years ago that we all handle tragedy differently.....that none of us grieve the same way.

that being said, the way i have interpreted this thread is that some of you guys wanna remember this guy because he came across like an arrogant prick, demanding he should have been invited to bejiing.

i see spitz as the 22-year-old jew who hit the crowning moment of his career during the first olympic games held in post nazi germany. that the olympics were suppose to be an olive branch instead turning to a horrid tragedy that i pray never happens again.

sure, some of you will say the guy's a jew so he knew there were risks competing in munich. mark spitz was to be the poster child of everything that had supposedly changed in germany. but, although, his competition was completed during the terrorist attack, he was evacuated from olympic village for his own safety.

so, think what you want about him. i still have much respect for what he did in 1972!

WOW!! Who peed in your Wheaties??!! NO ONE is REMEMBERING HIM as a "prick"....in THE INTERVIEW he is COMING OFF as...and again, we will use your word..."a prick"! I cannot take ANYTHING away from the fact that he was one of the most amazing athletes of our time....but he was an arrogant jerk in the interview. You would think he is bigger than the Olympics.....he was THE redeeming light, so to speak, of a tragic Olympics....The Olympics does not owe him nothing because he got what was owed to him due to his amazing performance.....7 gold medals! Nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Paul Wozniak]

But he is bitching like he is entitled to be there because there is a chance his record will be broken. Do we know what were the circumstances the OTHER champions were invited? No....and I am sure there have been OTHER Olympic champions that were not invited and you didn't hear them bitch to the media.

I got to agree here. What were they supposed to do? It wasn't written in stone that Phelps would actually accomplish the feat. (Witness the close calls in two of the races). If he wanted to be there, I'm sure a phone call to the US Olympic committee would have provided him with tickets and who knows what else he needed. Or maybe Phelps should have called him and said " I'm going to obliterate your records, so here's some ducats and an airplane ticket so you can put the medals on me!" Salsa's right about one thing for sure - Spitz is going to benefit all over again in endorsements, etc....He's back on page one, what else does he want?