We know situations where certain utterances of athletes on their social media profiles cause a lot of stir, but in the end, they often reveal themselves as having a completely different sense than what had been projected onto them. Media are often quick to extract a spectacular or catastrophic message from ambiguous hints or interpret too much into a relatively harmless statement. Exactly this has just happened in the case of an Instagram contribution of Josh Lenartowicz…
Within the last few days, different platforms have reported that the Australian athlete would most likely not be able to compete at Mr. Olympia 2019 due to serious health issues. The basis on which said claim was founded, was an Instagram post Josh published last Friday after a few weeks of inactivity on his profile. It says that he would have been dealing with “a health issue“ that would have required him to “to step back from social media and public interaction for a brief while.“ The 36-year-old bodybuilder explained further that he wouldn’t want to go into more detail about the subject, but that he would be fine. He would “need some time and space to heal and get back to full health.”
As vague as these words were or more precisely: most probably because they were that vague, a lot of insiders took this to point to something really serious. Former pro athlete Dave Palumbo of RxMuscle, Nick Miller of Nick’s Strength and Power or Ron Harris, chief editor of the platform Muscular Development, all bemoaned the Australian’s retreat from Mr. Olympia – bodybuilding’s most important event – in September this year, and many fans viewed this as the end of Josh’s career. This catastrophic interpretation was most likely somewhat associatively inspired by the fact that the IFBB pro had gone through quite difficult times during the last years, with the tragic death of his friend and training partner Dallas Carver in 2017 and Lenartowicz’ consequential break for one and a half years thereafter as sad culmination point.
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But strangely enough, Lenartowicz nowhere mentioned anything about staying away from Mr. Olympia in his Instagram contribution! As a matter of fact, the health issues he referred to turned out to be quite the opposite of the doom and gloom that have been projected onto his otherwise admittedly very mistakable words. This has become clear through a reply by the Australian to the best wishes Dave Palumbo sent out to him on his RxMuscle Instagram account: “This has nothing to do with bodybuilding. If it did I would say so it could help others but it hasn’t got anything to do with it. We are about to have a kid and our health is for us. For those sincere I thank you for your best wishes.” In response to another report that wrote off the Australian’s participation at Mr. O halfway, Josh also added that he “never said anything about not doing the Olympia.”
This story demonstrates how quickly a few harmless words can be wholly mistaken and thus lead to an escalating discussion – be it a witch-hunt, a bitter war of opinions between opposing factions or a premature requiem on somebody’s career as was the case here. We’re glad that Josh is obviously of good health and congratulate him to his fatherhood! Furthermore, we hope that Josh is able to master both challenges – his future being as a dad and his likely performance at Mr. Olympia this year!
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