The sport I sometimes enjoy watching is the insane world of Strongman competitions. The body types there seem like a hybrid between the more cut/defined arms of builders and the squat torso-heavy build of lifters. The focus on reps probably gets them more cut up.

Sarah Robles seems like a great role model

In the sense of doing what you love despite what others think about it/how much benefit it brings to others/its financial consequences? I suppose it’s a fair point to make, but would it not equally apply to, say, drug addicts? I’m all for people pursuing whatever it is they love, to hell with what everyone else thinks. I do not, however, see it as something to be admired or emulated. Indeed, if you have a role model, are you not giving up some of the “for myself and no one else”-ness?

so, she can lift more than anyone else… and thus she should have an income based on that?

How about, parallel to her training, learning a trade to maintain herself in this cruel currency based world?

Hey I wanna be a novelist, musician and a film maker, but you know what, PHP, JS  & MYSQL help nicely to maintain a lifestyle, whilst I do some of these in my spare time and keep rest on the back burner.

I don’t think ones who taken the risk to ‘do what they love’ to maintain themselves should cry about it if it goes pear shaped.

And generally, the people who are discussed engaging in weightlifting are men.  Is it because Robles is a woman that she receives such a warm reception (which, IMO, she deserves, I should note).

Anyhow, if anyone wants to get all sociological on some forum and post anti-stereotypical stories to see whether the polarity of comments flips on those as well, I’ll be tickled pink if I’m able to locate them.

We all do, of course, but as far as I know of the case, we don’t know anything at all besides the bare facts. 

I’ve seen “free strong spirits” and “people who seem like fun” do really shitty things to their next of kin.  And of course much more stupid (to outside observers) reasons for siblings not interacting which each other.

Again: All we know is that he doesn’t want to watch her lift some weights.  I’d simply leave to at that.

I’m not particularly interested in the Olympics and I don’t care at all about other sports, but I do admire athletes like this one (not so much the multimillionaire professionals). As a society we’ve more or less moved past the point where great athletic skill or great strength are necessary, like you say, so what they’re doing is essentially an art, and one that a lot of people do care about and admire.

That’s not really an argument for paying her more than what she makes – she’s not entitled to it, just like obscure artists aren’t entitled to a steady paycheck – but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to admire about what she does, and it doesn’t mean there isn’t any value to society in athletes like this. 

Sarah Robles is a dedicated, lovely young lady who deserves way more support than she’s getting, here or elsewhere. I wish her the best in London.

Just to point out something here.
Olympic style weight lifting, or weight lifting as a sport in general does NOT give you a body like that on the front of Muscle magazine or Arnold or Ronnie Coleman.

Strongmen and top tier weight lifters are strong as can be, but they are not ripped.  You might see one near %15 body fat, but really it’s probably going to be higher than that.

Not saying that strongmen/women don’t get the occasional sponsorship, but it isn’t because they have chiseled abs and awesome arms.

OK, yeah, feeding the troll, sorry.

Her brother Nick won’t even be going to see her compete in London, ostensibly because it’s during preseason practice.  Jets coach Rex Ryan was “shocked” by that, and said he’s going to strongly encourage Nick to miss a couple days and go see his sister compete.  Nick did say that’d he’d find a way to watch it on TV though.  :-/  So yeah, sounds like there might be a mild degree of sibling estrangement going on there.

But the thing that galls me is that were our society not so incredibly skewed toward the rich, this debate would be superfluous.   The 1000 richest people in America easily have enough PERSONAL wealth to lift the 50 million poorest out of poverty.   They could do it tomorrow.   And they would STILL be the 1000 richest people in America afterwards.

But they won’t.  Nor will they do it the next day.  And so instead those of us who are barely scraping by will need to try to figure out how we can scape by on just a little less so that we can at least try to help those who aren’t making it at all.