Re: Wrap-Up on Tara and Her Hip
Berthes Ghost, Joe, Lavender, Lucy, Mzheng, nymkfan, and anyone I missed, thanks for answering my questions about Tara and her hip. Below I've tried to summarize my interpretation of what people said and then I've tried to respond with a long, insufferable Rgirl post. But, please, everyone, correct me if I misrepresent anything you said.
Berthes Ghost--I thought you explained your feelings very well, and yes, as Joe was saying, of course I understand that all this is just conjecture. Tell me if I'm interpreting what you said correctly, but you seemed to be saying that while you don't think Tara knew the extent of the damage she was doing to her hip by practicing the 3lp/3lp so much, that she still has a certain amount of responsibility for the outcome. However, it seems you also feel that Tara's parents and coach should have been more aware of the potential damage she was doing to herself and perhaps had too much of an imbalance in favor of winning the OGM vs. looking out for the best interests of Tara's health. All that coupled with apparently misdiagnoses from the doctors created a kind of "soup" of conflicting interests, Tara's highly driven personality, and lack of proper medical information that even in hindsight makes it difficult to impossible to say with any certainty that any one party is to blame for what happened. The bottom line is it seem like there are a lot of gray areas that are made even grayer because of changing stories from Tara, her parents (mainly Pat), agents, etc. Please correct any misinterpretations I might have of what you said. I'm just trying to see if what I got from your post is accurate.
Joe--You wisely reminded us that none of us really knows what happened and that anything we say is all conjecture unless we have direct quotes from Tara. Good advice
You go on to say that Tara was driven to win and that this would please her mother no end. Between the lines, I get the feeling that perhaps you feel there was a double motivation: one, for Tara to win for herself and two, to win for her mother. Yes? Again, correct me if I'm misinterpreting. You also said that she did not try to imitate Michelle but rather skated in her own style. You then say that at some point she must have known the hip was in bad shape and that you are almost convinced she had to decide before the Olys whether or not to have surgery, but that whether the surgeons advised her correctly or not, we just don't know. Another point you made is that after the Olys, her public wish was to be with her parents, so she gave up her eligible status, but it seems somewhat contradictory that she went traveling with SOI for six months out of the year.
Lavendar--<blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>She didn't believe in stretching. Who in the world told her that she didn't need those type of warming up excercises?[/quote] I had not heard or read that before. I'm not doubting you did, I'm just wondering where you heard/read it.
Mzheng--If I am summarizing what you said correctly, you said that even if her parents and coach didn't know the severity of her injury prior to the Olympics, her agent either knew or suspected it because you heard him say in an interview that because of Tara's hip injury winning the OGM was either now or never. You also said you thought that meant Tara was willing to take the risk with her hip long before Nagano, but that because Tara was so young, with all the impulsivity that goes with it, you don't blame her but do believe her parents and coach are at fault for allowing her to practice the 3lp/3lp so much. You also seemed to express some mixed feelings because on the one hand Tara was warning young skaters about the dangers of what she did and for them not to repeat her mistakes, but on the other hand, Tara said she had no regrets. Another thing that seemed to cause you to feel ambivalent about this issue is that in an interview shortly before SLC Tara said something about if she had stayed eligible she might have been able to win another OGM, but that she wanted to give other skaters a chance. But now we know that she knew how serious her hip was when she made the blunt "I could still win the OGM in SLC" statement, which is very contradictory. You end by saying, "You just can't take what she says seriously."
nymkfan--You said you felt Tara probably didn't know for sure how badly she was injuring herself and that it is hard to imagine that her parents would let her go on if they knew the extent of her hip problem.
Lucy--Whenever I see your name and forum title I want to sing "Lucy on the ice with diamonds!"
Sorry, couldn't resist. Anyway, you seem to echo a lot of what Mzheng said in that there have been a lot of different stories as to who knew who injured Tara was when; ie, her parents knew she had a bad injury but Tara was so determined there was no stopping her; Tara said the reason she turned pro so quickly was because of her hip; and that these were just two examples of many stories.
Again, all of you, please correct me if anything I have summarized is wrong.
A bunch of long boring points from my POV: Having worked with a lot of athletes who competed while they were injured and also having gone through it myself as a dancer (thought I wasn't competing in the technical sense, I was competing to keep my job), there are a lot of things I see in Tara's situation that I saw time and again with injured athletes and things I can relate to myself. To emphasize Joe's point, of course this is all conjecture on my part.
IMO, I think Tara was in the common "push me-pull you" situation for athletes or anyone who makes their living from performing physical feats beyond the norm. When I was in grad school, my exercise physiology professor used to remind us periodically that elite athletes did not train to be healthy; they trained to push the limits of human physical ability. Of course athletes need to be healthy to be able to push themselves, but that being an elite athlete in any discipline that requires extreme physical activity is going to put that athlete in a position where the goals of their activity and good health are in conflict. The idea is for athletes and their coaches to try to push the athlete as far as possible toward their physical goals without pushing so hard that they cause serious injury.
The point that almost everyone made is that the stories we get from Tara keep changing and are often contradictory. This too is something that I found very common with athletes who were injured, especially those with a chronic injury. As far as my experience and research go, the reasons for changing and contradictory stories seem for fall into a few basic categories: One is that the athlete has trained for years to use "mind over matter" and to push themselves beyond what they think they can do. One gets a physiologic "high" from doing this (won't go into the physiology but anyone who is athletic will recognize the concept) and after training for 10 or however many years to "push, push, push," both psychologically and physiologically, it's very hard to turn it off. Athletes who have to stop training because of an injury almost always become clinically depressed, with research results showing that when training stops physiologic things like endorphin levels drop, changes in brain neurochemistry occurs, and all kinds of other hormonal and neurochemical changes occur. It's a fair to say that the athlete goes through physical withdrawal when training stops abruptly, which is why when an athlete is injured to where s/he cannot train normally, the trainer or whatever sports medicine specialist is in charge tries to keep the athlete working out with every other part of the body that is not injured. You try to get the athlete to do the most with the least harm.
My point with all this is that prior to the Olympics I think Tara was like most athletes in similar situations in that the "high" she got from pushing herself to perfect the 3lp/3lp plus working on all the other elements of her skating with the goal of what is considered, rightly or wrongly, the most important medal in skating at stake, was in conflict with the pain she was feeling in her hip. What I've seen as a big problem with injured elite athletes, all of whom in my experience are highly self-motivated, driven, and determined, is to get them to even admit that they have pain. It's the opposte of malingering, where people pretend they're sick or injured when in fact they're not. Although there is no official antonym for malingering, which I think shows how unrecognized it is, we called it <em>bonlingering</em> or <em>bonalingering</em> since <em>bon</em> and <em>bona</em> are French and Latin for "good." We would have used "well" but in French and Spanish "well" is <em>puits</em> and <em>pozo</em> respectively, and <em>pozolingering</em> sounded like Bozo the Clown was involved, lol.
But I digress (don't I always); the point is that because the driven mindset athletes have naturally is part of what gets them to the elite level and is also emphasized even more by training, it's incredibly difficult to get such an athlete to hold back. In my experience, to get an injured elite athlete to hold back, it usually takes a physician with a strong personality and reputation to show him/her an x-ray or some kind of test and say, "See this? This means your [whatever] is going to be permanently damaged if you keep training the way you are. You may make it through the Olympics and may even win a medal, but you'll have severe chronic problems for the rest of your life if you do." The things is, even the best physicians are rarely this sure unless it's a traumatic injury such as a full tear of a critical tendon or ligament. In '98, Elvis Stojko skated with an injured groin muscle. He had to know he was in danger of tearing it if he competed in the Olympics, but he did and it did tear and it took him about two to three years to recover. I think if Tara had recovered from her hip injury the way Elvis did, people probably would have little interest in it.
For Tara, from what I understand, prior to the Olympics the damage to her hip did not show up on x-rays and although I don't know if they did more sophisticated tests such as Computerized Tomography (CT) scans or Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) at that time, my feeling from what I've read is that such tests were not done until a couple of years after the Olympics when the pain was so severe Tara was having difficulty walking. There is a general perception that if an elite athlete is injured, especially one going to the Olympics, that they have a team of the best sports medicine specialists available to them all the time. Sadly, this is not the case as I believe the situation with Yagudin's hip has demonstrated. Thus it's my belief--emphasis on belief--that Tara probably minimized what she said about the pain in her hip prior to the Olympics because she was afraid a physician would tell her to stop training. In other words, she was <em>bonlingering</em>.
Another thing I found to be very common in the athletes I worked with was the mindset of, "I've had pain and trained through it before and was fine in the end. Why should this be any different?" Also, at 14-15 years old, Tara was at an age, which lasts for many years, where she felt indestructible. To me, this isn't unique to Tara; it's common among almost all elite athletes. It's part of the psychology that makes them elite. My guess is that Tara probably felt something like the following: <em>My hip hurts, but it doesn't hurt all the time and it's well enough for me to skate my full program with all the jumps. If I can just get through the Olympics then I can rest and my hip will be fine. After all, I've been injured before and I've always gotten better once I got some rest. Winning the Olympic gold medal is what I've been working for my whole life. I can't give it up now. My parents have sacrificed so much for me to get here. I just have to put up with some pain for a while and then rest it later.</em>
It's classic Scarlett O'Hara, "I'll think about it tomorrow," but it's oh so common in my experience. As for the responsibility of the athlete in caring for the injury and "doing the right thing," having been on the side where you're part of the team that is supposed to "know" what's best for the athlete, one thing I do know is that nobody really knows anything when it comes to athletic injuries that do not show up clearly on tests. Some injuries show up clearly on tests and others just don't. Even at severe stages, injuries to some parts of the body don't show up at all. Add to that the fact that you can show the same test, such as an x-ray, to 10 different physicians and get 10 different opinions ranging from "this looks perfectly normal" to "this needs surgery immediately." Then you get the 10 different opinions on what kind of surgery is needed.
From what I've read about Tara's hip, it sounds to me as if prior to the Olympics, the physicians she saw told her she was fine. After about two years of being in constant pain with SOI, it seems she was in a situation of multiple misdiagnoses for about a year. After about three years, when her hip got bad enough that the damage was clear on x-ray, CT, or MRI, it seems there was disagreement on the kind of surgery she needed. So, IMO, Tara was getting a lot of conflicting information from physicians that often did not reflect how her hip felt, ie, lots of pain but physicians telling her they didn't see any damage on her tests. Then more pain and physicians agreeing she needed surgery but disagreeing on what kind. Thus when asked by the media about the status of her hip, what does Tara say? "My hip hurts so bad I can hardly stand it but the doctors tell me there's nothing wrong." Or, "The pain in my hip is much worse and the doctors say I need surgery but they disagree on what kind of surgery to do." In terms of PR, that's not going to go over well, plus athletes have a lot invested in being in phenomenal shape. It's incredibly difficult for many injured elite athletes to say, "Something's very wrong with my body but nobody knows what it is." It sounds easy to say, but when so much of your identity is based on the incredible shape your body is in and the amazing athletic actitivies you can do, I can see how easy it would be for Tara to say, "Sure, I could win a medal in SLC," even whilee her hip is causing blinding pain.
Of course I dont know squat about Tara's mindset. I'm basing this on the things I've heard from and experienced with other elite athletes. The possibility of not being able to do the thing you love so much it's virtually your whole life when you're still a teenager and you're supposedly indestructible is very, very hard for an athlete to accept. "Life without skating" are probably the worst words an elite skater can hear. On good days when her hip doesn't hurt so bad, I can imagine Tara thinking, "Hey, this will get better!" and if she's being interviewed that day, that's what the interviewer gets: "My hip feels great! I could compete at the Olympics again." On bad days when she can hardly walk, I imagine Tara must be either very depressed or has developed coping skills to keep a positive attitude. If interviewed during the bad times, I think that's when Tara gave answers that I think were probably somewhat exaggerated, such as, "I trained the 3lp/3lp much too hard, 50 times a day, and it ruined my hip. I don't want this to happen to other skaters." I don't think Tara actually counted and actually did 50 3lp/3lps every day, althoughI'm sure on some days she did close to that and maybe once in a while she did to 50 just to push herself. But I think people have taken that statement a little too much to heart. IMO, "I did 50 3lp/3lps a day" was an expression like, "I trained till I dropped every day" and was meant to emphasize that she let the situation get out of control.
As for Tara's statement that she has no regrets, I think Tara is savvy enough with the media to know they want a "happy" ending to the interview and plus I think Tara herself probably believes in the power of positive thinking. Thus I think it's just not Tara's style, or very few skaters style, to say, "Yes, I regret that I trained so hard trying to be the best skater in the world that I ruined my hip. I'd give my Olympic gold medal back in a second if my hip was well again." Also, sometimes the journalist will write a "happy ending" quote themselves regardless of what the athletes says. Believe me, I've seen it happen.
Regarding Tara turning pro, what I recall reading and hearing her say is that she was concerned that her parents were separated because she had to train in Detroit and have her mother with her while her father had to live and work in Texas (I think--correct me if my geography is wrong). I don't recall it being that Tara wanted their whole family to be together 365 days a year. I can very easily relate to a 15-year-old wanting to see her mother and father living together again, especially if she sensed tension in the marriage and was afraid of being the cause of it. I think it was a given that she would start touring six months out of the year, but at least her parents would be back together and Tara would be with them when she was not on tour. And I'm sure Tara's parents wanted her to be happy and being happy for Tara, at least from the quotes I've read, is to keep skating.
My apologies for another obnoxiously long post, but having had experience with injured elite athletes in situations similar to Tara and of course my own experiences being injured, I wanted to give my opinions based on those experiences. Rgirl, give her opinions?! How unusual!:rollin:
:rollin: Of course my opinions could be completely <strong>wrong</strong>, but there they are for people to judge. Also, I'm not trying to start the "Crusades Over Tara's Hip" thread:lol: I can completely understand people who say about Tara and her hip situation, "There are too many contradictions. Things just don't add up. I'm not sure I can believe anything Tara says about her hip." These people could very well be right. This is just my point of view and as I've said before, I know absolutely nothing about the true nature of Tara's situation or her mindset. One thing I do know is that this is way past time to be OVER, so I'll spare anybody reading this anymore torture and I myself will watch George Carlin on HBO
Rgirl
PS I will add that I wish Tara all the best. She's been through a lot of intense chronic pain and apparently still is and that's hell for anybody.
