When you’re the best in your sport, you’re going to be the envy of all your peers. With great success, comes great jealousy.
Via Business Insider:
For White, the win was one of redemption after crashing in the 2014 Olympics and missing the podium. But it remains to be seen what his competitors in the snowboarding community, many of whom have previously expressed disdain for White, think of his win.”The whole snowboarding community doesn’t really like Shaun,” Brandon Davis, an American snowboarder, told Time in 2014. “He’s apart from everyone. He’s the lone wolf.”
This ‘hate’ just so happens to be a phenonemen according to the article, with GOATS From all sports being the target of such ire.
Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant, considered two of the best to have ever played basketball, are also known to be ruthlessly competitive. Even when Jordan was being lauded for his basketball genius, he made a point to revisit past slights, famously calling out his detractors in his Hall of Fame speech in 2009.
Me personally, I’ll take all the hate I can get if it means being at the top of my sport. I don’t think the Flying Tomato cares very much about his competitors, and snowboarding isn’t exactly a team sport, so playing nice doesn’t have to happen.
“I’m sure people have valid reasons for liking him and valid reasons for not liking him,” Gus Kenworthy, a US skier, told The Post. “But it’s always easy to not like the guy who’s winning. I definitely think he’s less polarizing now.”
I think he’ll find plenty of friends with all that gold.
