Olympic stars are gifted athletes. A precious few become celebrities with their own personal brands. How two of them handled adversity in the winter games in Pyeong Chang, South Korea provides media training takeaways for anyone dealing with the press.
Shaun White: The red-haired “Flying Tomato” has been snowboarding’s super star with three gold medals since the 2006 games and a record-setting performance in last week’s half pipe competition. His last run victory was tainted by two factors:
- He is also a rock musician who had settled past sexual harassment charges. When asked about it during the news conference after his latest victory he replied, “I’m here to talk about the Olympics, not gossip. I feel like I’ve addressed it.” Media and social media reaction was brutal.
- While celebrating his victory he unknowingly dragged the American flag on the ground and also stepped on it. Despite a subsequent apology, the incident earned him massive protests on social media.
- Shiffrin refused to blame weather delays that forced her to ski on back-to-back days, or illness that kept her from sleep and caused her to vomit before the race.
- She focused on her failure to settle her nerves and on the lapses in technique that cost her precious time.
- She was gracious in her comments about all athletes who compete at such a high level
- Despite defeat, media coverage and social media reaction to Shiffrin were uniformly positive and sympathetic.
- Shaun White has a team supporting him. Knowing about the past sexual harassment settlement, they should have been prepared for those questions, especially in the current #metoo environment.
- The snafu with the flag is perhaps a piling-on. It was an innocent mistake that gets conflated with the other communications errors, but in hindsight, any elite athlete capable of winnging gold should be reminded to hold the flag high.
- Mikaela Shiffrin’s gracious responses serve as a reminder that humility and self-awareness in defeat will score you more reputation points than arrogance in victory.
Better coaching of Shaun White might have limited the reputation hit. Mikaela’s responses were a product of experience and a certain grace that is hard to teach.
For us mere mortals, getting to the Olympics means you are already world class.
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