there is a very specific type of heartbreak when you are a fan of a smaller sport that wants to encourage more people into it but you feel like you cant justify bringing people into a sport that you know has major issues. particularly with the winter olys coming up i always want to post about and talk about figure skating, because its such a hard sport to access that the olympics is pretty much the only time people will come across it naturally outside of social media. but i dont feel like i can justify trying to bring people into a sport that feels like it is actively crushing itself. it doesnt feel fair to tell people to watch the ice dance for fear/gibson (who are in medal contention, the first time britain has been in medal contention since torvill/dean) and their spice girls and proclaimers routines, knowing what has happened to gabriella papadakis, knowing that her former partner is competing with someone who is dating someone who was suspended for “sexual maltreatment” despite him knowing that she is a rape victim. it doesnt feel fair to recommend the singles because i have watched the quality of scoring degrade over the years to the point that it contributed in pushing the greatest of all time out of the sport before he felt he was done competing. when the governing body has spent years making the sport less and less accessible?
how do i recommend motogp knowing that two riders punctured their lungs in accidents last year and it was barely talked about? that two riders had to be resuscitated after a crash and the riders in the race straight after had to go on to race not knowing how they were doing other than “riders conscious”? how do i recommend a sport like that when i cant even decipher how the medical code in the published regulations is actually meant to be applied because its so inconsistent?
every part of me wants to recommend them to people because they are both sports that desperately need more interest and theyre so interesting to me, but it feels like a misrepresentation of them as sports to not be upfront about issues like that. just,,,, idk. i dont expect a sport to be perfect to be worthy of recommendation but it feels like the issues are getting ignored even though they have horrible consequences both for the safety and development of the sport.
