"Eccentrics Are Dominating the Paris Olympics"…Athletes' 'Unusual Pasts' [Paris Olympics]

The unique backgrounds of athletes who won medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics have become a hot topic.

Sally Jenkins, a sports columnist for The Washington Post (WP), highlighted in her column titled "Nerds and Geeks Are Dominating the Paris Olympics," published on the 7th, that "there has never been an Olympics where such outstanding geeks gathered in one place as in the 2024 Paris Olympics." She focused on athletes who have achieved both academic success and athletic careers through brilliant intellect and dedication to sports.

[Image source=AP Yonhap News]

According to the column, Gabrielle Thomas of the United States, who won the gold medal in the women's 200m track event at the Paris Olympics, became the "first Harvard graduate to win an Olympic gold medal in athletics." She majored in neurobiology at Harvard and earned a master's degree in public health. She has a special interest in sleep dynamics. A few years ago, when she was struggling with the pressure of training and improving performance, she showed a "geeky side" by suddenly taking a two-month break to Senegal for a change of atmosphere.

Grant Fisher, who won the bronze medal in the men's 10,000m, majored in electrical engineering at Stanford University and earned a master's degree in computer science. His hobbies include computer programming and playing the piano. After running, his favorite activity is "computational social science," which uses data to analyze and predict various social phenomena.

Jared Nuggus, who took bronze in the men's 1500m, played on his high school bowling team. He earned a degree in biochemistry from the University of Notre Dame. He claims his dream is to become an orthodontist, and running is one of his hobbies. He also enjoys sketching insects with charcoal pencils during his free time.

Jenkins identified their "geeky obsession" as the factor that allowed them to catch both rabbits of academia and sports. He stated, "Geeks have obsessions that most people do not share and pursue them intellectually," and evaluated that "this is why they achieve good results at the Paris Olympics."

Valerie Carolyn Allman, who won gold in the women's discus throw event at both the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and the Paris Olympics, becoming a two-time champion, explained, "At the level of athletes competing in the Olympics, psychological battles play a large part," adding, "Most of what athletes do is repeat the same movements thousands of times throughout the year and control their daily lives and discipline to perform movements lasting about one second in the competition arena." She diagnosed that the reason "geeks," who endure boredom, focus on the process, and possess deep attention and resilience suitable for training, perform well at the Olympics.