There's a crazy amount of pressure on athletes to succeed during the Rio Olympics, and many are understandably crushed if they don't perform particularly well. Such is the case for Martyn Rooney, a runner from Great Britain who underperformed during a race. When Rooney was interviewed after the race, he was visibly crushed and his response as to why he did so bad was extremely blunt and to the point. Check out the below video to find out his NSFW answer.
That just about sums it up, doesn't it? According to The Independent, Martyn Rooney is a sprinter for Great Britain who came out on top as the 400m European champion earlier this year. Being the running champion of all of Europe brings a certain amount of expectations, and people anticipated a big performance from Rooney in Rio. Unfortunately, the runner finished fifth in his heat with a time of 45.6 seconds. Fifth place doesn't sound all that bad, but when you go to the Olympics, your goal probably isn't to get fifth place.
So, Martyn Rooney was pretty bummed and not thinking straight (lots of emotions and adrenaline will do that to you), which is why he wasn't minding what he said during the above interview by BBC. As for the reason why his performance was so underwhelming, Rooney later said that he might have been too relaxed in an attempt to not get nervous.
Martyn Rooney's dreams of bringing home the gold for Britain aren't entirely dashed yet; he still has to compete in the 4x400m relay to compete in. Rooney later apologized for his language on Twitter and promised to pick up the pace for the relay.
This is just one of many tales from the this year's Olympics in which competitors underperform or get injured. Another Great Britain athlete, gymnast Elissa Downie, injured her neck during a fall. In her words, she "crunched my neck" and then tried to keep competing. Switzerland's Volleyball player Isabelle Forrer suffered some whiplash during a dive against USA's Kerri Walsh Jennings. Additionally, Armenian contender Andranik Karapetyan snapped his elbow during weight lifting, and a French gymnast recently broke his leg. If one thing is for sure, it's that these athletes are beasts.
The Rio Olympics are currently underway over on NBC, and you can live stream the competition from NBC's website. In addition, you can catch more coverage of the 2016 Rio Olympics on NBC through Sunday August 21, when the closing ceremony airs.
