I Almost Forgot About the French Pole Vaulter that Cried at the Olympics Because he was Booed

The softest story to come out of the Rio Olympics was undoubtedly French Pole Vaulter, Renaud Lavillenie, who cried after being booed by the Brazilian crowd. This is so wrong on so many levels. Part of being a world class athlete is mental stability and dealing with hostile environments. The best athletes thrive when all the crowd wants is them to fail. Was Lavillenie that mentally fragile that some booing fans actually broke him down to tears on international television? And how many people were even there watching pole vaulting?

Apparently the home crowd booed Lavillenie during the pole vaulting finals as he was competing with a Brazilian for gold. It's called home field ADVANTAGE for a reason. Lavillenie began to cry mid-event and after tweeted that the way the crowd treated him was reminiscent of the way Jesse Owens was jeered by the Nazis at the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, which is the most absurd comparison of all time. Could Lavillenie be any more dramatic? Dude, get a grip, you're embarrassing your country at the Olypmpics. This entire story makes me cringe, not for that coward Lavillenie, but for his family. I can't imagine a more embarrassing turn of events for an Olympic silver medalist's family. They were probably local celebrities because their kin is competing for France in Rio, but after he cried during his event, and then tweeted an outrageous statement comparing himself to Jesse Owens and the Brazilian crowd to prewar Nazis, now they're just known as the family that raised a dramatic baby.

This is also the most quintessentially French thing that I've ever heard. It's almost too stereotypical to be believable. Ifit hadn't been globally televised I would have thought it was a complete exaggeration. If my buddy told me that a French athlete cried at the Olympics because the crowd booed him I would've said that there's no way. No effing way did an Olympic athlete actually cry because the crowd booed him. This type of thing would never happen in American sports. Can you imagine if Aaron Rodgers cried mid game against the Vikings? Or if LeBron cried when he gets booed in every city he plays in? The idea of a professional athlete crying in the US is so unfathomable that it makes this story all the more amazing. I'm still struggling to wrap my head around the concept of an athlete mentally breaking during a competition.

To add insult to injury, the unapologetic Brazilian crowd fed on Lavillenie's weakness and booed him again during the medal ceremony. - which made him cry - again. I swear to god, you can't make this shit up.