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The Roar

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Sally Pearson and Robbie Farah: Who's the hero and who's the prima donna?

mindquad new author
Roar Rookie
28th July, 2014
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Sally Pearson's gold medal in London may end up being her Olympic swansong. If that is the case, it was as fine a finish to an Olympic career as possible. (AFP PHOTO / GABRIEL BOUYS)
mindquad new author
Roar Rookie
28th July, 2014
3

Given the scarcity of gold medal-winning feats in Olympic athletic events by Australians, you’d think Sally Pearson has earned the right to do what she pleases.

Combined with the fact she comes across as an affable, self-deprecating champion, Pearson has become of Australia’s elite and most respected sportspeople.

Yet the events surrounding her Commonwealth Games appearance this week are casting her in a slightly different light.

Whatever you think about Athletics Australia’s decision to fine her and teammates for apparent non-attendance as required – and yes, it seems a petty and meaningless decision – the aftermath has been unedifying for all concerned.

It now emerges that Pearson is not on speaking terms with the head coach and probably not the high-performance coach either, as a result.

No one comes out of this looking good, not even if Pearson wins gold, but it does pose the question – can Sally Pearson expect to be treated differently to others because of her achievements?

There’s a substantial enough groundswell of support to suggest the answer is an overwhelming yes. And yet it is illustrative that Pearson’s current situation comes at the same time as Robbie Farah finding himself in the spotlight in the NRL for roughly similar reasons.

Like Pearson, Farah is – consciously or not – perceived to be above his teammates and no longer answerable to higher authorities on the team. The narrative to this is that it is an expected byproduct of being the ‘best’ performer on the team.

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Farah, though, has copped a barrage of criticism from all sectors for his stance, including a rather severe serve from the Daily Telegraph‘s Phil Rothfield.

It’s fascinating to see how Pearson can act the prima donna and be lauded for it, on the basis of her record of success.

The inference here is that you can make a stand, single yourself out from your team (notwithstanding that athletics is an individual sport, Pearson is in Glasgow as part of a team) and position yourself to not be bound by team requirements, and be congratulated for it, so long as you are ‘good enough’ at what you do.

But as Robbie Farah is finding out, ‘standing out’ is a slippery slope and Sally Pearson might want to exercise a bit of caution lest she go too far down that particular track.

It only takes one failure for the tide of public sentiment to start to turn.

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