If the news that Anna Kournikova is leaving The Biggest Loser after just one season shocked you, don't take it too hard. It's a tired old myth that being a good athlete means you can make one out of someone else. And it looks like the folks at NBC got sucked in too!
If that were true, folks, there would be a whole lot of hardworking people in the sports industry out there on the unemployment line. Like most athletes, the former tennis pro spent a lot of time working with coaches on her way up through the WTA. It started with her dad, Sergei, a part-time tennis coach in Russia, and later she landed at Nick Bollettieri's Tennis Academy in the US.
They helped make her into the tennis player who would win several Grand Slam titles with Martina Hingis. But who got all the glory? Anna. Naturally. She hit the ball. She got the titles (although there were not many of them, were there?). But without those people behind her, she'd still just be the pretty face that millions of men trawl the Internet for (it is their face she's looking for, right?).
And then when she tried to turn around and become a motivating personal trainer, she was just plain ... not good at it. Many of the contestants said she wasn't sympathetic to their plight, and that backfired big time. Her group of seniors going for the Biggest Loser title didn't lose as much weight as the younger folks led by trainer Bob Harper.
Being a trainer or a coach is a lot like being a doctor. You can know the mechanics of the body without having the personality to work with people. But it takes both to drive an athlete to succeed. That's why Bob Harper and Jillian Michaels have done so well on the show, because they've been gifted with the whole package necessary to bring out the best in other people, not just themselves.
Anna Kournikova should face it ... she's just not that good unless someone else is behind her pulling the strings so to speak.
Have you ever been really motivated by someone you worked out with? What was it about them that worked?
Image via Yahoo! Entretenimiento/Flickr