Is it American Pro Pool Players or American Athletes in general?

[SouthernDraw]

I know, the Mosconi Cup focus has been discussed over and over. But, I believe that this question is worthy of discussion. This article on yahoo about the Olympics, there is a "picture that says a million words." It occurred to me that maybe this type of reaction may be more about our culture than about individual athletes. I rarely recall other countries athletes reacting similarly (maybe more isolated).

So, do we (in the US) cultivate this type of response when an athlete does not get their way? Maybe by pressure to be the best? Or our expectations that our (US) best is entitled to be the best in the world (like it is a birth right)? Any other ideas?

The article...
The Article

The picture that triggered my question...


And maybe not just our athletes...Taylor Swift's reaction when she didn't win a grammy was viral recently.

Daren

 

[poolguppy]

I think america is often put in the spotlight for anything like this because of others trying to make us look bad. Our athletes/proffessionals have no worse about this than any other countrys elites. Every country feels they deserve to win for a life of training

 

[krupa]

What's wrong with disagreeing with or being upset about your scores? If she smiled though the whole thing, people would just accuse her of not caring enough.

I think people make too much out of things that don't matter.

 

[Kim Bye]

This is not a stricktly American thing.
I come from Norway and as you might be aware the winter olympics usually is our little spot in the sun.
Seeing interviews with our top atlethes you could easily be led to belive that these people are idiot savants and possibly also have some psychic problems, the seem to have a hard time feeling empathy and often revels in other contestants missery and failiure.
In our media these athletes are often in local scandals, not the sex type, but often linked to money, taxes and real estate.
That might be the price to pay for being the world champion in a given sport. Or rather, people with these traits gravitate towards such extremes.

 

[thekaiserman]

OK so you have never seen a bad call?