Conceit or Confidence

The Olympic spirit seems to have few admirers in the media. The inwardly focused athlete is deemed unfriendly and self-absorbed for not giving chatty interviews, smiling enough or waving appreciatively. Anyone who doesn't show up for practice is labeled arrogant and probably doomed to the fate they deserve (which generally is assumed not to include the medal podium.)
This morning I read one reporter wonder aloud whether such behaviors were conceit or confidence. To those of us on the sidelines, I think the question is a speculative, useless and even meaningless line of inquiry. To the competing athlete, though, I imagine its significance lies in how grounded in reality his or her perception of him or herself is.
To know with some accuracy what one needs to do to perform at the top of one's game and to proceed to do just that, however it makes the rest of us feel, is to be admired in my book. On the other hand, an inaccurately too lofty or too low ability assessment is a recipe for trouble. Not for its moral implications in the eyes of others, but simply because the decisions being made concerning focus or practice or late night parties are not grounded in the facts. When it comes to performance competition, it's the facts that get tested.