1. Gault rules! Typically excellent article that covered a range of people in our sport as well as their own personal reasons for getting the tattoo and really told each story well.
2. I'm not as anti-tattoo as some on here but don't have any myself but it is so cool to me to see how Olympians personalize the rings. Wheating getting the only colored rings as the green and yellow to rep UO is a really cool touch. Also love that he, Nick Symmonds, and Christian Smith all got it together because it underscores just how much that moment and experience of the Olympics meant to them all together.
3. People getting the rings who aren't Olympians is about as lame as it gets. I remember I started a thread after seeing some random guy on IG who had gotten one ring tattooed to represent something like "starting his journey" to the Olympics. Dude was around 20 years old, not on a D1 team, and I think had an 800 PR just north of 2 minutes. He popped up on my feed again more recently and he's dropped the pursuing the Olympics schtick and is now trying to become a UFC fighter. I don't think I could pick a more perfect illustration of the kind of tool who gets Olympic rings tattooed without actually being an Olympian than this guy. But hey, at least he didn't get the full design, which I'm sure a few have!
I could see Eric Holt getting the tattoo before even making the team because yada yada I deserve to be here and I pay for my own shoes so I'm basically an olympian
I'm the biggest Holt anti-fan here, but this is just silly. Why make stuff up when there are plenty of good reasons to diss Holtmania?
There is an mma fighter in the UFC named Charles “Inner G” Johnson who has a prominent Olympics rings tattoo despite never being an Olympian in any sport. He was a solid runner in his younger years though incidentally.
Man, if Valby makes the OlyTeam, that is absolutely one thing I hope she doesn’t do; same for Tuohy. Ridiculous.
I bet a large number of Olympic trial qualifiers have gotten these Olympic ring tattoos. It always is worse with these things than you and I can imagine.
Great writing! Off handed- but is there a worse look that half tights and no shirt a la Evan Jager?
Olympian or not, that is criminal
There are worse articles of clothing than half tights. For those who care, the bigger issue is usually the person's body. But you can always just not look.