19 nov. 2015

Triathlon and Debi Thomas

We have witnessed horrible things happening lately.  Starting with the Russian Doping and the bombing of Paris.  Such things are outside of any coherent paradigm, we need to be stupid and crazy to understand such behavior.  What we can understand is the behavior of Debi Thomas (Olympic Medal skier and Orthopedic Surgeon), we can understand the situation in the sense of knowing where it comes from.  It is a tragedy!  It is even worst for the people who supported and pushed Debi to accomplish what she did.  We have done the effort to support somebody going to our limits, and we know the feeling.  Unfortunately, Debi does not see how low the fall was.  We have written posts regarding this subject:
28 sept. 2012
13 juil. 2012
Triathlon and The Loss of The Grand Narratives
19 avr. 2013
“C’EST PAS CATHOLIQUE” AND TRIATHLON
We wrote articles from the point of view of our experiences, and what we see in Debi´s case is lack of education and lack of support system to keep the uneducated functioning after the age of 40 if the learning process does not take place.
She was subsequently forced to close her practice and live in a trailer park with her fiance, Jamie Looney - who is battling an alcohol problem and anger issues - and his two sons. 
She also lost custody of her own 13-year-old son, Christopher Jules 'Luc' Bequette.
Thomas now lives with Looney and his sons in a trailer that she says infested with bed bugs. 
In a promotional video for tomorrow's interview, Vanzant asks Thomas about her circumstances, and she responds that she's 'frustrated'.
'Frustrated?' Iyanla repeats. 
'Not sad, not angry, not ashamed?'
'No,' Thomas responds.
'Not guilty that you've got a man, two kids and a bedbug infestation in a trailer?' Iyanla continues. 
'Frustration is what you feel? Nothing else?'
Thomas then breaks down in tears. 

We did an exercise with our kids to learn from Debi, and we found traces at very early age.  The article was written when Debi was 21 years-old.  Lack of education was present then, and it was never addressed by a loved one; it ended up destroying her when the support system failed:
THE NIGHT WHEN IT ALL SLIPPED AWAY : A Year Ago, Debi Thomas Didn't Skate, or Behave, Like a Champion
February 26, 1989|RANDY HARVEY | Times Staff Writer
As the first black skater to achieve international, or even national, prominence, she was a champion, however reluctant, of minorities. Even though she said that she wanted to be known as a skater, not as a black skater, she could not deny that she felt responsibility as a role model.
She was a champion of the underprivileged, which she did not mind so much because it allowed her mother to take some credit. In figure skating, the underprivileged are all those whose parents earn less than six figures each year. Thomas' mother, divorced when Debi was a small child, earned considerably less than that as a computer programming analyst in Sunnyvale, Calif. But she sacrificed whatever she had to assure that her daughter could pursue her goals.
Then, on the podium for the awards ceremony, she ignored the rules of sportsmanship, failing to acknowledge Witt, the gold medalist, and Manley, the silver medalist, even when they tried to congratulate her for winning the bronze medal. Afterward, at a press conference, she did not take responsibility for her failure to win, instead blaming her coach of 10 years.
It was a fall greater than any she had ever taken on the ice, this fall from grace.
In the year since, Thomas, 21, has developed a less than flattering reputation within the figure skating world. People who have organized various shows in which she has performed, and those who have publicized them, and even some of the other skaters, say that she is demanding and temperamental, as if, they say, she expects to be treated as the gold medalist that she never became.


In Mexico, the support system is very limited after finishing High School.  In the USA, one is sheltered in College and even in a Residency by the system.  Things changed after Residency, and a Surgeon can hardly survived after 45 years of age without bouts of burning out.  A Medical Doctor needs a net to survive after a Residency to avoid burning out; one needs to be educated to create “nets.”  The education at 18 years of age is very limited, and far from teaching us how to create nets; all our athletes have failed after that age.  We work countercurrent to teach how to create nets but most of the time we have failed too. 

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