Meet Caitlyn Jenner, née Bruce (World’s Greatest Athlete, 1976)

Bruce and Caitlyn_cover to coverI watched the 1976 Summer Games in Montreal. I remember watching Nadia Comaneci and her perfect 10s. I remember the Japanese gymnast (Shun Fujimoto) who helped his team to gold dismounting from the rings on a broken right knee. And I remember Bruce Jenner being crowned the World’s Greatest Athlete in the decathlon competition.

Bruce was the epitome of the all-American hero. He appeared countless times on Wheaties. (Who the heck eats Wheaties, I have no idea.) He was the 70’s platonic image of masculinity. For so many Americans, he was, The Man. And yet, as he told Sawyer in April, “Bruce – always telling a lie. He’s lived a lie his whole life about who he is. I can’t do that any longer.”

From 17 million viewers in a ground-breaking interview with Diane Sawyer to the cover of Vanity Fair, Bruce, now Caitlyn Jenner, has become the center of attention again, over 40 years later. As The New York Times reports, “…the physical copy of the (Vanity Fair) magazine with Ms. Jenner on the cover won’t be available at newsstands until June 9. The online version of the article could be purchased for $4.99, and the website had broken its traffic record in just a few hours, with more than 6 million unique visitors.)”

This is not a case of “he said, she said”. With Jenner, the story is the same.