Outstanding comment. I am ashamed at myself that I didn't immediately think of that. Nice job.
I also find it odd when people use their god to justify this. So your god took time out of their day because they preferred you over the rest of the field ? Instead of curing cancer, stopping child abuse, helping famine, stopping genocides or war…. your god chose to help you?
Or could it just be you were the strongest athlete on the day of the race?
“Your god took time out of their day”—this is nonsense, because God and the angels exist outside of time. Time is a creature of God.
Every time a successful athlete thanks or mentions God in an interview, LRC turns into a midwit atheist subreddit circa 2007, without realizing that that movement has mostly evolved into wokeness.
It was unexpected to hear him make several references to God. It is something I usually associate with sprinters, not American distance runners. I guess Salazar/Rupp being the huge exception.
Some Muslim runners drop to the track and kiss the track and pray to God right after their races. That would look very out of place coming from Hocker, right?
I was just a little surprised because it was not part of the Hocker persona that I knew prior to this race.
Huh?
The last three American medalists in the 1500 (Cole, Centro, and Manzano) are devout Catholics, as are Salazar/Rupp (who you mentioned), Meb, Ritz, and many others. Look at the high schools attended by top American distance runners, if it is a Catholic school, there is a 95% chance they are Catholic. [Kipchoge is also a Catholic and most Ethiopian runners are either Orthodox or Catholic (similar beliefs) and I think these are a lot of the people that you see dropping to the track.]
As for Protestants/non-Catholics — the BYU guys are Mormons and there are a bunch of Evangelicals (Ryan Hall, CJ Albertson, etc.)
When any athlete feels the need to do prayers on the track or thank God in their interviews, it intensifies my suspiscion that they are using diversion tactics ('look at me I'm such a wonderful, God fearing person') in order to hide something!
Catholics and Orthodox are very similar, though they differ on two basic doctrines, the Filioque and papal primacy. They also diverge a bit in terms of devotions and art (Catholic 3-D statues and Eastern 2-D icons), also think that Orthodox do not emphasize Christmas as much on their calendar, instead it is the Ephiphany. The theology is a bit different too, as the Catholic Church has a strong tradition of Scholasticism which the Orthodox generally reject. But they are very alike in terms of sacraments, mysticism, apostolic authority and devotion to the Virgin Mary.
There is a whole spectrum of Protestantism, some strands very classical and closer to Catholicism (such as conservative Anglicanism or Lutheranism), all the way to what we would probably consider evangelicalism or non-denominationalism, which tends to be very suspicious of sacraments and any kind of hierarchical authority.
The god is a weirdo. He's worse than Trump. God spends time helping runners but not little kids starving. What a weirdo God is.
We should get him. We should get God. Honestly if we all combine our strength we can overpower God, like the way 100 little kids can overpower one big guy.