I left out a couple words and want to correct 'em, for the record:
Not An Expert wrote:
The two things that bother me most about a lot of people's posts (MSCoach's included) are that they have, since the race, assumed that Barringer's collapse was definitively and entirely mental and not physical, and that (as a corollary to that) she wasn't trying hard enough or wasn't focused enough. That in and of itself is problematic, as, as some posters have said, we just didn't know enough at the time to make the conclusion that it was a mental problem. And even if it were a mental problem, that doesn't mean it didn't have physical repercussions that no amount of effort or focus could overcome.
It's also worrisome that these same posters use Jenny's interview as evidence to confirm their theory (that it was a mental collapse and thus she wasn't trying enough); this shows a near complete lack of understanding of the nature of panic attacks (which certainly cannot be ruled out as--and is in fact, in my admittedly un-expert opinion, based on watching the race and listening to her interview quite likely [but not certainly]--what happened to Jenny).
It's worth noting, though, that we don't know enough to definitively conclude that Barringer's lapse wasn't a mental one, but based on her fully body of work I do think it seems highly unlikely that, whether her lapse was mental or physical, that the lapse was indicative of a lack of effort, as some seem altogether too eager to assume.
People drawing definitive conclusions on the nature of Jenny's collapse (be they concluding that Jenny's collapse was due to mental reasons or physical reasons), and certainly those that speculate on her effort, focus, and (most of all) character based on those specious conclusions all need to just chill out.