Athletics World Championships - 2019

[lessthanluke]

36 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Just google "Klosterhalfen" for pictures.

Let's just say it didn't look particularly healthy.

Very few sports at healthy at the elite level. Speaking as someone who competes at an elite level in his sport.

[Jo498]

Klosterhalfen has been looking roughly like this since she became internationally competitive at 17 in 2014. Since then people have been crying out that this anorectic body could not sustain a professional career. They were wrong; she has actually been injured far less than most other runners and kept improving all the time. If anything, she is a bit more muscular now than in 2016-17. She must be healthier than it looks, otherwise she simply could not have kept on professional training for now around 5-6 years. She is the greatest middle/long distance running talent Germany has ever had and has good chances to become the best woman without African heritage ever on the track distances (Paula Radcliffe's Marathon WR is still another thing, but Klosterhalfen has already beaten Paula's and Sonia O'Sullivan's as well as several Eastern Europeans' 3000m and 5000m times at only 22). Her bronze medal was the first non-African medal in the women's 5000m WC/Olympics since 2003.

And as Luke said, have look at the shot putters. They don't look healthy either, only in a different direction.

[BigFatCoward]

Professional road cyclists are far worse, they are pathetically feeble when off their bikes. 

[Loge]

19 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Just google "Klosterhalfen" for pictures.

Let's just say it didn't look particularly healthy.

She is skinny but I don't see what's supposed to be unhealthy about that. Not much body fat but there's definitely muscle. You don't get that from starving.Neither could she be competitive without it. If she were a model for swimsuits or underwear you'd probably want her to gain a few kg but she is a long distance runner.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

I found the images of her to be grim, particular when she was running around with the German flag, and for once it wasn't the flag that I found to be the most disturbing thing. I mean her arms, they looked more like match sticks to me. And no, this isn't about me not getting off on her. We live in the age of free internet porn for that.

Just a random remark, since you brought up the model bit. If she were model running catwalks in Paris or Milan, we'd have that discussion over bans for anorectic models.

[Jo498]

She does look scarily thin, one shouldn't deny that. Extremely low body fat. Don't try this at home but I think with the close supervision by nutritionists and doctors that world class athletes usually get it seems that she is apparently o.k. Especially female athletes with too low a weight tend to get bone injuries (stress fractures) and this has led to the end of many careers but Klosterhalfen never had such an injury (which is quite common among high level runners, even those not having very low weight), so it works for her.

As I said, she has had this appearance now for about 6 seasons of professional sports on an internationally competitive level (she already went to the Rio olympics at 19 and got as far as the 1500m semifinal), so she didn't drop there from a considerably higher weight. If you look at her instagram she can be seen lifting weights (and also some slightly creepy modelling pictures as well, although harmless for instagram standards I guess).

[Jo498]

As many other track & field fans I was very skeptical about these Doha championships. I still think that it was wrong to have them there. And the conditions for the women's marathon and the race walking events must have been cruel (men's marathon apparently was not as bad). But apart from that it was a very good event. The conditions in the ACed stadium were close to optimal for most events except for the long throws (the men's javelin was the weakest event). And there were stunning competitions, often very close and exciting or with extraordinarily strong marks.