Quigley bashing BTC

Listen, it is normal for an almost retired athlete to be bitter. It’s the first step in letting go of your former life.

Colleen was a 1 time ncaa champion, who made the Olympics and multiple world championships. She overachieved as a pro compared to her college career.

Did she push too hard and get hurt? Yes, but when you aren’t already a superstar that is part of the risk you take to make it. If she doesn’t push to the edge, she probably doesn’t make teams.

It’s okay to be angry at the end about being broken. That doesn’t mean the training was wrong. Every athlete thinks they are more talented than they are.

The risk was worth the reward. With time she begin to understand that statement.

Let her vent, workout her feelings, and move on. She had a great career.

Also,, judging from reading the newsletter, it looks like she could either move more into Triathlon or coaching (especially coaching).

For some reason, i don’t see Colleen as being entitled or unrealistic in this post.

What she seems to be saying is something I’ve heard many segments of athletes give their own version of. Elite level gymnasts have definitely said it. Athletes in the former East Germany have definitely said it. And runners — I feel like it was a major thread of the CU report as well — where the athletes talk about “CU really wasn’t more brutal than my other D1 program” or “yes, i felt isolated when i was injured but that’s what it’s like running for an elite program”.

All these athletes, it just seems to point to a certain extreme training style that goes too far and serves no purpose and takes too much from the athlete (health, if nothing else). Mariel Hall seems to have had the same experience with BTC, if I remember her comments correctly. (Mariel Halls comments were far more subtle, of course.)

The “throwing eggs against a wall” analogy is such a brutal metaphor for this kind of training, but probably not the wrong metaphor.

The you-should-take-responsibility argument doesn’t seem right to me. Whenever I’ve heard the broken humans of any sport, talk about their experience as athletes, it is almost always coming from the perspective of “if I had known the price I would eventually pay for choosing to train under that system (under that coach), I would choose differently”.

It’s just that, at the time, the athlete looks and thinks, “This is an excellent program, this is an excellent coach, it is an opportunity, of course I should take advantage of it.” There are some athletes that seem to have seen the danger and turned down a brutal coach, or a meat-grinder program, but the majority don’t seem to know how big a price they’ll pay, and seem to regret their decision.

Excellent post and spot on, in my opinion.

Did no one read the part about going back to training under her college coach!? Karen Harvey is coaching again?

These message boards used to be littered with threads about Harvey abusing and overtraining her athletes at FSU. How does Colleen think this is a good move for her?

In fact, she came to BTC injured already when she was at Worlds in 2015. She said something to the effect of taking ibuprofen all summer to get through what I think was a hamstring injury? My memory recalls the smallest (and perhaps dumbest) details …

So was it a BTC problem or a Colleen problem? Probably both. I think she’s also alluded to fear of gaining weight if she lays off the exercise for too long.

Being a “model” and athlete just seems like an unfortunate mix when it all comes to an end. I hope she has a therapist.

not getting too much attention, but she's back with Karen Harvey, the FSU-coach who vanished days before the NCAA's.

Anyone on the MB knows what happened back than?