It's been nearly 4 years since the last episode of Ambitions with Emily Batty was produced and now with the support of Canyon Bicycles and her new sponsors, the series is back for a second season. The series is a collective effort by Adam Morka, Liam Murphy, Brian Hunt and others who will document Emily's pursuit of performance and the lifestyle that comes along with it with a few guest appearances.
 | Dear haters, I have so much more for you to be mad at. Just be patient. Seriously though, I’m excited to bring the Ambitions video series back in 2021. Let’s all just be cool, thoughtful, understanding, respectful, and raise each other up to make 2021 a great year. |
In the teaser, Emily Batty, who has twice finished third in the World Cup overall, won bronze at the World Championships two times, won both the Pan American Championships and the Canadian National Championships, and finished fourth at the 2016 Olympics, shares some of the hateful comments she has received and promises she's not done with competing at the highest level just yet.
| She has looked too lean, for a couple years now. Eat yer food girl. The fire in the belly is gone. More worried about IG modelling like posts. She might feel like after 12 years of racing it's time to pop out some babies. From one Barbie with rainbow stripes... to another Barbie without them. |
Must Read This Week
130 Comments
Have they heard of ESPN, or sports writing generally? There’s a century-old tradition and multi-billion dollar industry around sports commentary and analysis. I’m a fan of the sport. She’s a professional athlete. Sports fandom has never been about sitting on a sideline politely cheering. If you care about the sport you want to know things like how they’re training, what events they’re targeting, and yes, why they found success or hardship in different periods of time.
Of course, inherent in the question is the acknowledgment that I have no idea what's going on with her coaching except that it was a visible point of conflict with her team and that it manifested in some unusual equipment choices. Who knows? Maybe it's optimal for her.
She changed her coach
Good. Everything is new for me in 2021, including a coach out of the USA. He’s worked with multiple World Champions and Olympians in all disciplines, and it’s been a lot of fun. Adam is so busy with his day job and the team that it just didn’t make any sense for him to wear the coaching hat. It wasn’t fair for him or me, so we figured it out, and it’s been amazing so far
emilybatty.com/blog/signing-with-canyon-q-and-a-and-podcast-feature-on-canadian-cycling-mag
I'm not saying that's right, but is part of the game, is part of human nature. Deal with it.
- Trump
Good job Emily, keep overcoming the obstacles.
The double standard here is ridiculous. If you worked super hard towards your life goal and there were constantly people trying to tell you how to live your life and undermine your hard work, you wouldn't be upset? Everyone can sit there and say "they are just comments, why do you care?" but I bet most people commenting here wouldn't handle it any different if they were on the receiving side. Male or female it doesn't matter, at the end of the day we are all humans with feelings.
I think that people who are somewhat introverted get unfair treatment online by ass holes who think everyone needs to entertain them all the time.
Isn't there a pattern here? Males get trolled for not being bro enough. Females get trolled for being too bro.
Though admittedly the comments about appearance, calling one "Barbie", negatively commenting on her physique, how she's too thin/too thick, only has sponsors because of looks (utterly ridiculous in case of Batty) are reserved for females. At least I can't recall anyone calling Finn Iles "Ken". I mean he's a handsome young man who hasn't exactly been winning World Cups left right and centre and yet is on a major team. No one's gonna suggest it's because of his pretty face and not insane amounts of talent? We acknowledge his results also depend on how strong the field is and a bit of luck on the day, but Emily is a talentless Barbie if she's "only" top 10 and not top spot?
For the past five or six seasons women's XC has been the best racing on the planet, and Emily has featured in some of the best moments in those races - guts, determination, superior skilled overtakes, never say die. I would have put money on her for a win. That sells bikes to us people who actually buy bikes.
Truth is just that, it exists, there is one of it, it has no split-personality, no feelings and doesn't care about being fair or in the middle ground. If one side is clearly right and the other clearly wrong, it is what it is and no wishful thinking or old proverbs will change that. If it is indeed in the middle between two options, then yeah... but it's hardly often the case, let alone a "rule".
Also gonna point out that the video makers didn't just pick out the negative comments as you suggest. You must have missed the entire second half of it that quotes the positive ones. Not sure where the excuse making is either? Seemed to me more like the premise of this video was taking motivation from the comments of either type.
You are confusing "potentially maybe most profitable" with "right".
Even if she can sell the most bikes pandering to the middle ground between fans and haters (doubtful), that does not mean in any way shape or form that the truth about her, her work ethic, attitude, training etc. lies somewhere between the subjective opinions of those two groups or that there is more than one truth about that. Fact is, none of us in the PB peanut gallery have that knowledge. However judging from her results over the years and how long she's managed to stay at the pointy end of a competitive field with other riders coming and going in the meantime, my best guess would be that if anyone is closer to some truth here, it's the fans.
As for efficiently selling bikes, aren't the haters mainly mad at her for focusing on social selling and content creation outside of racing? If that's the case then yeah, nah, "middle ground" won't be the right strategy. That's how bikes are sold now. She'll be just fine ignoring the trolls (or trolling them back like in this vid), doing her thing and laughing all the way to the bank.
every failed.
no matter.
try again.
fail again.
fail better"-tattoo on the foreman of 3 time grand slam champion Stan Wawrinka
She's a very tiny percentage away from getting rainbow stripes. Hopefully the new team change gives her that edge.
I would love to know what percentage of negative comments she gets compared to positive comments?
For some perspective, I would expect that a footballer might get more negative comments after a single bad performance or moment in the first 10 minutes than the entire elite male and female XC field gets in a lifetime!
The one thing that I took from the video is that at she is still hungry and wants it, its her job and she is exceptionally good at her job (I am certainly not one of the top 10 engineers in the world!).
She will have to do the social media thing to bring in additional money or honour her contract/sponsor commitments, but so many are doing that now as its just part of the earning game for athletes.
Every time I watch an XC race I am in awe of the athletes, they keep themselves at the red line for so long, its incredible.
Regardless of how well Emily does in 2021, coming back year after year and going into that dark place training must be exceptionally hard, especially when there are younger riders coming though with not only the same desire but with advancements in diet and training they have an advantage for sure and can progress faster than athletes from 10+ years ago.
As a downhiller I often prefer to watch the XC than the Dh as the XC is just so exciting these days.
Nor does Kate Courtney.
Why is that?
(Some) people dislike Froome because hes perceived as an inauthentic robot.
We can only perceive from what we are given. She puts out the gram posts and YouTube edits. She does the interviews.
Everyone has ups and downs, and I can't imagine the pressure of having to perform day in day out (like many jobs I guess) but in the public eye.
At least there was some positivity and encouragement amongst the idiocy too. Good luck with your goals, Emily - embrace to the fans and ignore the sceptics.
But "hateful"? Come on...
1. put on makeup
2. workout
3. race
4. lose race
5. pout on instagram about "haters"
wash, rinse, repeat....
I'll put $100 on her not being on the podium in 2021. Not as a discredit to her but because the field is absolutely stacked right now. And add $100 for PFP with the overall. Not sure about the olympics yet...
"Run for your lives you little f**ckers! The man is coming!"
"She was never a champion". She won Gold (i.e., became the Champion) at the 2015 Pan American Games.
Regardless, she is most definitely a champion in the figurative sense; a champion of the cause that more girls take up the sport, for example.
Or can we agree that an employer paying an employee is just them fulfilling a legally binding contract and nowhere near anything deserving special praise?
Sing praise where it's deserved for something exceptional, sure. But no reason to exaggerate or fake emaotion if it's just "OK". I've never pretended to be happy with a job when I wasn't and it never hurt my career. Integrity goes a long way.
Falsely and publicly advertising bad employers is not being a professional. It's being a douche to anyone considering working for them.
Why are you so angry she didn't thank them when none of us knows the first thing about what working for them was like for her and how it ended? And why are you acting like she had said anything bad about them? Let me remind you again that she did not. She remained neutral and professional.
Thanks for "supporting her"? We need to stop calling it that. She was their employee. Note that athletes who give their sponsors thanks for support are the ones who really have a special relationship and do indeed get support, not just contract fulfilment. It's pretty clear this wasn't the case here.
Can you point me to where Trek actually thanked her for X years selling their bikes?
And lastly, can you point me to the PB comments where you got equally mad at Danny Hart and his dad for not just "not thanking" Saracen but openly slagging them? I'm sure you did criticize Danny for that, right? Surely you don't think that a dude doing what's right for him is "standing up for himself" and a gal doing the same but in a much milder version is "being a bitch", right? Right?
People like Danny Hart and Emily will have no problem finding sponsors while they are in the prime in their career, but once their results start going down and contracts are up it is a different story. People who do their best to promote their sponsors will have careers as product ambassadors once they start slowing down - Look at riders such as Wade Simmons, Brett Tippe, etc.
Post a Comment