NYT Obliterates Lolo Jones

Can't argue with that at all.

But I will point out that Michelle Wie and Danica Patrick have taken their share of criticism on here for basically not being as good as the magazine covers and ad dollars spent on them would suggest.

 

Jere Longman introduces his new New York Times series: "Who Pissed in My Cheerios This Morning."

 

How did Anna Kournikova ever make it into the top 10 with "here relatively meager skills."
I found the whole thing troubling, but that line alone jumped out at me. Failing to live up to the hype, or even underachievement does not reflect a deficient "skill" set. We all know what he's getting at with that line, and still the delivery was farcical. Just a mess.

And I think this bother me the most: I could see a column in which the writer asserts something like "It's too bad Lolo Jones feels the need to market herself in every conceivable way because it clouds an Olympic story you really, really want to root for." Maybe tell it in the first person. That could have sounded personal and genuine. Instead, the tone is all "tsk, tsk, Lolo Jones is an awful person."

Maybe it's a semantic, but this could have done not nearly so self-righteously.

I met Jere Longman at a women's Final Four and really liked him. But this story is crap. It's gratuitous. It points out a deficiency in him, rather than Jones.

 

Could have been worse. He could have broken into her email.

 

I wonder if her first post-qualifier Tweet was a dig at Longman?

Lolo Jones ‏@lolojones
Thanks @iamrashidajones for running that first race for me so i could rest up... They didn't even notice. I'll it from here my #lookalike

 

I wonder if Long considers Serena Williams also unworthy since she too posed nude in the 2009
ESPN body issue.

The Times sports section seems way off these days.

 

Not defending the tone of the piece - too harsh - but if Longman is fairly embedded with the Olympic runners, and knows them well, perhaps he's writing with a little more authority than we're giving him credit for. Jones' teammates may not be real fond of her.

 

But in track, "teammates" are only that in the loosest sense. They've always hated each other and been subject to petty jealousies. Just because they wear the same color uniforms for two weeks every four years doesn't change that.

I can see how the person who's better than Lolo would be upset that Lolo gets all the cash from the McDonald's endorsement. I can't see how this is much different from the way the sports world has operated forever.

 

Then he could have easily implied that but didn't. Readers who did not know better would come away from that story thinking that Jones made the Olympic team based on her looks and not on her merits. They would also come away with the impression that Jones was the only Olympic athlete to ever pose nude or appear on the cover of a magazine provocatively dressed.

 

Not sure, but she certainly didn't seem to happy in the post-race interview -- as if she had a serious chip on her shoulder. Makes me wonder if she read the NYT yesterday.

 

I thought the piece was pretty good, for what it was. Lolo Jones was being built into a star. Jere Longman countered his media cohorts by saying, What has she done to deserve the royal treatment? His task was made more difficult because Jones didn't speak to him, giving him little in the way of counterpoints. He should have addressed that many superstar athletes and lesser athletes pose in The Body Issue. But her persistent coquettish puts her under the spotlight.

It's allowed to sell yourself through your sex appeal. Danica Patrick has used it to her advantage. But that sex appeal seems to be all that Jones has these days. Longman's article wasn't sexist; it was a push against the sexism that makes Lolo Jones the USA's most famous hurdler when we have so many better ones to celebrate.

 

Based on the tone of his article, I'm going to guess this story turns out a lot more flattering for her if she decides to play ball. Which is another unfortunate piece.

I'm really rooting for Lolo to medal. Unlikely, for sure, but I would greatly enjoy the follow-up piece to this.