hese sports at the elite level -- Ryan notes a figure skater's dress for a four-minute program costs anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 dollars -- the cost of competition can be a young athlete's sense of herself and her entire future. For example, Ryan notes gymnast Kristie Phillips, the heir apparent to Retton, who tried to commit suicide after she failed to make the 1988 Olympic team. Phillips told Ryan that "I was told that I was never going to make it in life because I was going to be fat" (482).
The falsity of the image these young girls are rewarded to portray is captured most essentially in the di
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