"Personally, I think he's extremely lucky and if it had fallen under anti-doping laws, the penalty could have been double and that would have cost him a spot at the worlds," Trickett told the Daily Telegraph.
"He's got to face up to the responsibilities that come with being a role model and this is simply unacceptable behaviour from someone with his stature and profile in sport.
"Hopefully, he can learn from the mistake and it's a pretty big fall from grace after what he achieved in Beijing" at the 2008 Olympics, where the American won an unprecedented eight gold medals.
"It takes some of the shine off his spectacular performances in Beijing and this behaviour simply isn't okay."
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If I could I would like to ask Libby these questions: Can a Playboy Bunny be a role model to age-group swimmers, and which is a bigger moral transgression, posing naked for a soft-porn magazine with great articles in it; (read that as Playboy), or harming yourself with illegal drugs?
Note, Amanda Beard publicized the event whereas Phelps certainly did not want it publicized.
7 comments:
Well yhe big difference is one is illegal and one is not.
Phelps is a swimmer and an Olympian. If you are looking for role models for your kids that starts at home. Sports and entertainment folks are not role models. They are just individuals who excel in one particular field.
It all starts at home. Talk to your kids and stop relying on the mass media to raise you kids.
"It all starts at home. Talk to your kids and stop relying on the mass media to raise your kids."
Joel, this is just about the best response I have read anywhere in regard to this situation.
Life is a role playing game!
Michael Phelps is a great role model if you break his "roles" down into individual modules such as his work ethic and his charitable nature.
The gambler/drinker module is not so flattering.
Example:
Gauguin was an amazing painter who had the courage to drop everything and do great art. However, The f**ker was a pedophile and abandoned his family and even tormented Van Gogh.
Not a nice guy but I admire his work and courage.
Excellent analogy TA.
Joel's point is well taken. But just because role modeling should start at home, does not mean that it actually does start there, or that it ends there. Just as there are people who would pay $1000 for the opportunity to be photographed wearing a Sandy Koufax, there are people willing to pay to own a piece of MP's image as well.
Yes, it's probably hypocritical of most to criticize MP for what he did (since a substantial number of us have done just what he did), and there are certainly worse things, morally speaking, that he could have done. But if MP wanted to avoid all this negative publicity, he shouldn't have taken the money and signed the contracts.
Maybe Tony can tell if Amanda Beard similarly breached. Notwithstanding, I've never thought she was selling the same image as is/was MP.
A better analogy is probably Janet Evans, who certainly has a moral turpitude clause in her own contracts and who I know has been very careful to avoid even hinting that she might do anything approaching what MP so carelessly did.
Janet Evans is a Saint; she makes Mother Terresa look like an embezzler.
As for Amanda Beard and MP, I think morals are fluid in that if Phelps was in Amsterdam it would have been no big deal and if Amanda was in Iran she would have been hung.
Just weird.
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