|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 30, 2020 20:36:08 GMT
Figure skater Gracie Gold is one of several Olympians featured in HBO's documentary The Weight of Gold, which exposes the pressures athletes face in the pursuit of medals and the emptiness they often feel when that chapter of their life is over. Gold's rise and fall — and eventual comeback — has been one of the most important stories in figure skating in recent years. If you're wondering if she's still skating, the answer is yes, but it's been a long, complicated journey. Following a fairy-tale Olympic season in 2014, during which Gold won a team bronze medal and came just shy of the podium in the individual ladies' event, she hit bottom in 2016. At the World Championships in Boston, Gold faltered badly in her free skate, falling from first place in the short program to fourth overall. In a 2019 profile in The New York Times, she revealed that the loss sent her into a deep spiral, and her already disordered eating resulted in weight gain and depression. "Can't anybody see the cry for help that is my existence right now?" she recalled screaming during a 2017 pre-season session. It marked the first year she finished off the podium at nationals, falling all the way to sixth. Her longtime coach bailed on her in a very public fashion.  Gold entered inpatient treatment for the eating disorder that year, and also sought treatment for anxiety and depression. "It wasn't just one thing," Gold told The Guardian in 2020. "That's where people don't always fully understand at times. They want it to be this happened, you got depressed and then this was the result." She described the events that led up to her seeking treatment as a perfect storm of "a bunch of tiny things." After finishing the program, she tried to get back to the ice. Gold began preparing for a comeback and chose to take advantage of a qualification process for athletes who have stepped away, which gained her a spot at the 2018 Rostelecom Cup. She competed there in the fall (against the recommendation of her coach, she admitted to the Times), but faltered again and withdrew after the short program. She also withdrew from the 2019 national championships to take more time to rebuild. By the following year, Gold was prepared, but according to the sport's rules, she now had to qualify through lower-level rounds in order to make it to nationals, rather than getting a bye as a top-tier skater. She managed to do so, paving the way for her first appearance at nationals since 2017. Gold went into the 2020 competition as a dark horse: an ex-Olympian, but one who'd been away for some time. She wound up finishing in 12th place, but her free skate — set to Sara Bareilles's "She Used to Be Mine" from the musical Waitress — delivered one of the most emotional moments of the night. Gold was in tears by the time the crowd gave her a standing ovation at the end of her program. Her 12th place finish wasn't enough to earn her a spot on the Worlds team, but that ultimately didn't matter, because the competition was one of the many sporting events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officially, Gold is still an active skater, and another season is hopefully in the cards. "I think we've earned that," she told NBC Sports after nationals. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Jul 31, 2020 19:25:02 GMT
In another universe, this summer’s sports-centric programming looks quite a bit different than it does in our current (and very strange) reality, from major league sports like baseball and basketball not existing in a literal bubble to the only-every-four-years spectacle of the Olympics unspooling in Japan. In fact, the latest edition of the Summer Olympics would have kicked off this very week, with the world’s best athletes gathering in and around Tokyo for two weeks of competition. Brett Rapkin’s “The Weight of Gold,” which assembles a sterling array of Olympic athletes to talk candidly about their struggles with mental health, starts with a necessary nod to what would have been another entry in classic Olympic mania.
It even suggests an important question: perhaps they’re better without it? It’s an idea worth pondering, especially as Rapkin’s documentary steadily builds over the course of just one hour to show, if not the full weight of Olympic expectations on those who dedicate their lives to their sport, at least enough of it to given even the most sports-crazy fan a moment of pause.
Unfortunately, that might be all the HBO Sports project is able to spawn, because trapped inside a broadcast-ready package that clocks in at just under an hour, Rapkin’s look at the mental health challenges affecting athletes is far too truncated to leave a lasting impact. “It’s too short” might seem like a blasé bit of criticism, but when a documentary attempts to tackle such a heady subject with such short shrift, the issue moves beyond “I wanted more of this” into “this is actually irresponsible.”
While the stories and ideas contained within “The Weight of Gold” are of paramount, literally life or death importance, tying them up into a tidy package that fits inside the confines of one chunk of broadcast time, no longer than an episode of “Bar Rescue,” lessens their heft. Paired with an all-star assortment of talking heads, including Michael Phelps (who awkwardly, if empathetically, narrates), Jeremy Bloom, Lolo Jones, Gracie Gold, Bode Miller, Apolo Anton Ohno, Sasha Cohen, Shaun White, David Boudia, and Katie Uhlaender, “The Weight of Gold” appears to have more than enough material to mine for something far more extensive, something with actual weight.
It’s a limitation that’s not even necessarily obvious for at least the doc’s first half, which is guilty of meandering to the point that it’s difficult to ascertain what is the point of all this. Ostensibly focused on interrogating the connection between Olympic-caliber athletes and ailing mental health, “The Weight of Gold” offers initially broad observations, despite the appearance of so many big stars who seem primed to talk candidly about their struggles. Still, the doc’s early moments do lay out one key foundation: an understanding of why and how these athletes, so driven by performance and results and being the best, might be susceptible to emotional and mental issues.
It’s a concept that makes plenty of sense with the minimum of consideration (seriously, just think about how hard it must be to be an Olympic-caliber athlete), but the doc’s talking heads — particularly Ohno, Gold, Miller, Cohen, and of course Phelps — offer such raw and honest insight into their own struggles that it removes any doubt as to why people so physically adept might have problems in other spaces. From Miller’s searing indictment of the media to Ohno’s insights into what it really feels like to be driven to attain gold at any cost, “The Weight of Gold” at least doesn’t skimp on its most basic of messages.
But by the time it pushes into its messy, often emotional second half, those messages become far less easy to follow. While “The Weight of Gold” is, on its surface, about mental health in the Olympics community, its final act only hedges up against what it might actually be about, what it really should be about: the rising numbers of Olympians taking (or attempting) their own lives. It’s not about mental health in a broad way, it’s about suicide in a very immediate way.
This key change, complete with some of the most emotional scenes the documentary has to offer (and with much of it told through a dispassionate and unimaginative talking head format, that’s not an easy ask), temporarily pushes “The Weight of Gold” into bold territory. There are surprises (many of them wrenching) and there are confessions that absolutely sting (Gold, again, offers some of the doc’s most important commentary), and even the necessary implication that the Olympic Federation (like so many other sports organizations) has wholly failed its members.
But to what end? Neutered into an hour-long quick hit, “The Weight of Gold” can only approach its heaviest, most daring matters at its end, one that can’t even lodge enough time to imagine a space in which they are treated with the care they demand. Just as it starts punching back, the credits roll, another easily digestible bit of broadcast entertainment, just in time to fill the yawning Olympics gap.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 1, 2020 19:25:47 GMT
"The Weight of Gold" was intended to coincide with the Olympics, which adds another somber note to this soul-searching documentary. The postponement of the Games, however, does nothing to blunt the sobering impact of the depression that elite athletes can experience once the fanfare ends, after devoting their lives to the often-fleeting pursuit of glory.
Narrated and produced by 23-time gold medalist Michael Phelps, who freely discusses his own struggles outside the pool, the one-hour film focuses on the intense training that Olympians undertake -- to the exclusion of almost everything else -- and the perhaps-inevitable void left once the spotlight fades.
"Nobody who is going to expend that kind of effort, to achieve that kind of goal, is going to be just like everybody else," the swimming great suggests, citing the repercussions of the "narrow and intense" focus on Olympic perfection.
The potential fallout from that, several former Olympians say, is depression and, for some, suicidal thoughts, even among those who achieve their Olympic dreams and parlay that into a high media profile and endorsements.
As speed skater Apolo Ohno notes, there's a cost associated with athletes being so committed to their sport that "everything else is secondary," with the difference between Wheaties-box success and utter failure (that is, failing to medal) often separated by a fraction of a second.
Snowboarder Shaun White is shown joking with then-latenight host David Letterman, in stark contrast to the "incredible crash" he discusses experiencing emotionally after the Olympics.
Directed by Brett Rapkin, "The Weight of Gold" speaks to a number of athletes and comes away with several recurring themes. They include the sacrifice to one's childhood, in some respects mirroring another recent HBO presentation, "Showbiz Kids," detailing the toll on those who pursued a different kind of fame.
The real point of this exercise hinges on breaking through the silence and shame that Olympians can suffer -- prone as they have historically been to quietly endure their lows -- and by extension, share that message with anyone who might grapple with depression.
"Athletes just don't talk about our weaknesses," says two-sport star Lolo Jones. "We're tough."
"The Weight of Gold" opens and closes by acknowledging the absence of this year's Olympics, which will likely only heighten demand for the event, either next year (as is currently hoped) or beyond.
Yet while the Olympics have always been the ultimate symbol of triumph -- the perfect embodiment of "The thrill of victory," as "Wide World of Sports" famously put it, and Phelps exemplified -- he and his peers deserve enormous credit for sharing their private agonies, a stark reminder of the dark clouds that can go with gold, silver or bronze.
"The Weight of Gold" premieres July 29 at 9 p.m. on HBO. Like CNN, HBO is a unit of WarnerMedia.
|
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Aug 26, 2020 20:15:12 GMT
Figure skater Gracie Gold is one of several Olympians featured in HBO's documentary The Weight of Gold, which exposes the pressures athletes face in the pursuit of medals and the emptiness they often feel when that chapter of their life is over. Gold's rise and fall — and eventual comeback — has been one of the most important stories in figure skating in recent years. If you're wondering if she's still skating, the answer is yes, but it's been a long, complicated journey. Following a fairy-tale Olympic season in 2014, during which Gold won a team bronze medal and came just shy of the podium in the individual ladies' event, she hit bottom in 2016. At the World Championships in Boston, Gold faltered badly in her free skate, falling from first place in the short program to fourth overall. In a 2019 profile in The New York Times, she revealed that the loss sent her into a deep spiral, and her already disordered eating resulted in weight gain and depression. "Can't anybody see the cry for help that is my existence right now?" she recalled screaming during a 2017 pre-season session. It marked the first year she finished off the podium at nationals, falling all the way to sixth. Her longtime coach bailed on her in a very public fashion. Gold entered inpatient treatment for the eating disorder that year, and also sought treatment for anxiety and depression. "It wasn't just one thing," Gold told The Guardian in 2020. "That's where people don't always fully understand at times. They want it to be this happened, you got depressed and then this was the result." She described the events that led up to her seeking treatment as a perfect storm of "a bunch of tiny things." After finishing the program, she tried to get back to the ice. "There is not an Olympic medal for who can suffer in silence the longest." Figure skater @graceegold encourages athletes to speak up about mental health ahead of the release of 'Weight of Gold,' produced by @michaelphelps. Full interview: t.co/QO43vRnNpi@HBO @teamusa pic.twitter.com/RxGIZzgZs3 — Olympic Channel (@olympicchannel) July 29, 2020 Gold began preparing for a comeback and chose to take advantage of a qualification process for athletes who have stepped away, which gained her a spot at the 2018 Rostelecom Cup. She competed there in the fall (against the recommendation of her coach, she admitted to the Times), but faltered again and withdrew after the short program. She also withdrew from the 2019 national championships to take more time to rebuild. By the following year, Gold was prepared, but according to the sport's rules, she now had to qualify through lower-level rounds in order to make it to nationals, rather than getting a bye as a top-tier skater. She managed to do so, paving the way for her first appearance at nationals since 2017. Gold went into the 2020 competition as a dark horse: an ex-Olympian, but one who'd been away for some time. She wound up finishing in 12th place, but her free skate — set to Sara Bareilles's "She Used to Be Mine" from the musical Waitress — delivered one of the most emotional moments of the night. Gold was in tears by the time the crowd gave her a standing ovation at the end of her program. Her 12th place finish wasn't enough to earn her a spot on the Worlds team, but that ultimately didn't matter, because the competition was one of the many sporting events canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Officially, Gold is still an active skater, and another season is hopefully in the cards. "I think we've earned that," she told NBC Sports after nationals. |
|
|
|
Post by Admin on Sept 1, 2020 4:46:24 GMT
Figure skater Sasha Cohen is one of several athletes who reveal their struggles in the HBO documentary The Weight of Gold, now streaming on HBO and HBO Max. While the film is sobering, it's also a reminder that Cohen was one of the biggest stars in figure skating during her career - and for fans of the sport, it's easy to see her influence even today.  Cohen is, in so many ways, the epitome of the golden age of American ladies' figure skating. From the '90s through the early '00s, it was almost expected that American women would be on the podium at every event. Cohen was the last of this skating dynasty that also included greats like Kristi Yamaguchi, Nancy Kerrigan, Michelle Kwan, Tara Lipinski, Sarah Hughes, and Kimmie Meissner. In fact, after her bronze medal in 2006, American women went a full decade without medaling at the World Championships, until Ashley Wagner took home a silver medal in 2016. To this day, Cohen remains the most recent American woman to win an Olympic figure skating medal in ladies' singles. Her particular style of skating is iconic - it's what we think of when we think of ladies' skaters: long, elegant lines; flexibility for incredible positions in spins; and graceful musicality. You can see elements of her style in some of the top American women in recent years: Gracie Gold's poised elegance, Karen Chen's incredible extensions, Wagner's knack for musical interpretation. Cohen is one of the skaters who reminds me of why I fell in love with figure skating in the first place. I remember, as a little girl, watching Ekaterina Gordeeva and Yamaguchi and Kwan and just being in awe of what they could do. Their grace, their expressiveness. Cohen is the last of that era in skating, so rewatching her programs is bittersweet and nostalgic for me. The sport isn't like it was back then, and that's both good and bad. During her career, Cohen broke scoring records not for her jumps but for her artistic elements and attention to detail. During her career, Cohen broke scoring records not for her jumps but for her artistic elements and attention to detail. When the scoring system switched over to the International Judging System - a more detailed points-based system that assigns value to elements, as well as "grades of execution" - Cohen became the first skater to receive +3 grades of execution on her spirals, and she also was the first woman to break the 130-point barrier on a free skate. Today, you can see her influence in the popularity of difficult, arabesque spirals (shown above) and the "I-spin," in which the skater's free leg stretches all the way up, forming an "I" shape.  Figure skating looks a little different now, and the priorities of Cohen's era have somewhat faded into the background. Over time, the scoring system has shifted to reward jump-laden programs more than artistically cohesive ones. Spirals are no longer particularly relevant to scores. And, as a result, ladies' skating tends to favor small, very young skaters whose bodies can pull off endless triple jumps or even quads. For comparison, Cohen was 22 when she won her Olympic and World medals in 2006. The most recent Olympic champion, Alina Zagitova, was three months shy of her 16th birthday when she won gold in 2018, and the past few years have been largely dominated by a revolving door of teenage phenoms. Even in the US, it's Alysa Liu and her stunning jumps that have prevailed for the past two years, even though she was too young by international rules to even compete at Junior Worlds the year she won her first senior national title. From this perspective, Cohen was among the last of a dying style of skating - not a better one, just a different one. Skaters today might not focus on the same elements she did because the judging system simply doesn't reward them as much. For fans like me, who fell in love with the sport's unique blend of artistry and athleticism, it's frustrating. Beautiful skaters like 2014 Olympic bronze medalist Carolina Kostner or, closer to home, reigning US silver medalist Mariah Bell will always struggle to pierce the top tier of skating, because they don't have quad jumps in their programs. Today, she's modeling something even more important for young skaters: how to find purpose and meaning after their careers have ended. Big jumps put tiny, young skaters at an insurmountable advantage, and it's not as much fun to watch and get invested knowing that, as their bodies mature or they become injured, every top skater will fall by the wayside, before they have the opportunity to develop unique artistry and personality on the ice. Cohen, like many skaters of her era, had a long career, one in which fans could root for her to continue developing as an athlete and a performer and look forward to what she would do next. Shorter careers may produce bigger tricks, but they make the sport feel emptier. Yet it's hard to ignore the fact that Cohen and the other skaters of her generation influenced today's athletes, who would have grown up looking up to her. Today, she's modeling something even more important for young skaters: how to find purpose and meaning after their careers have ended. |
|
