Lose the big prize. Take a knee to the flag. Make a raving or two to the press about the awfulness of the U.S. And reap lots of media attention your athletic performance wouldn't otherwise merit. Instant fame. Endorsement deals. Money. Profit big from insulting the flag of the very country that made your performance possible.

By now, the routine of athletes calling attention to themselves by dissing the U.S. flag at some athletic event has become so de rigueur that you could write the script before it happens.

A couple days ago, we got this attention-seeker, whose bronze medal in fencing at a championship event in Lima, Peru apparently wasn't sufficient for him.

'We must call for change'



Team USA fencer Race Imboden took a knee as a form of silent protest during the team foil medal ceremony 2019 Pan American Games. pic.twitter.com/Ft7XYZtPxV — CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) August 10, 2019

Never heard of him before. Hope I never hear from him again.

But that's too much to ask, what with an eager media establishment clamoring to record his every word and hand him exposure his rivals can only envy. The two U.S. athletes who outperformed this publicity hound get zero press attention, but the third-place finisher, Race Imboden, gets all the soapbox he wants. See how they fawn:

Fencer @Race_Imboden on why he took a knee on the podium at the Pan Am Games: “I think that the catalyst was certainly the shootings this past week...being an athlete who’s on the road a lot and seeing the terrible things that are happening and wanting to evoke change.” pic.twitter.com/5ZkeBsIP5z — CNN Newsroom (@CNNnewsroom) August 11, 2019

It's disgusting. The little creep is doing this because he can see how it brings on the rewards. It's not even original, either; it's a faded Xerox copy of a three-year-old stunt pioneered by a washed up football player who wanted attention and athletic endorsements for himself, too. Insult the flag, reap the big bucks; this is how the corrupted game is played now.

It's sickening because courageous U.S. men and women have died for this flag, and the brave people of Hong Kong are defying a brutal communist juggernaut by waving that very same flag as the world's strongest beacon of freedom:

Protestors in Hong Kong are using the American flag and anthem as a symbol of freedom to rally.

RT if you support them!!pic.twitter.com/vfMmUeLMxH — WinstonCovfefe (@winstonCovfefe) August 12, 2019

The little puke instead chooses to take a knee to it to make some money and publicity for himself. What's even more revolting is his forked-tongue justification here.

We must call for change.

This week I am honored to represent Team USA at the Pan Am Games, taking home Gold and Bronze. My pride however has been cut short by the multiple shortcomings of the country I hold so dear to my heart. Racism, Gun Control, mistreatment of immigrants, pic.twitter.com/deCOKaHQI9 — Race Imboden (@Race_Imboden) August 10, 2019

As if this country had nothing to do with why he had the time and money and infrastructure and competition events to make himself competitive in the sport of his choice? As if America had nothing to do with his achievements and he would have been a champ no matter what country he was raised in because he's just so good?

One wants to vomit.

Maybe the fawning press could ask him why, if America is such a hellhole and so very deficient, a million border-surgers this year are rolling in illegally.

Or why his fellow athletes, some of them from true ess-hole countries, don't take knees to show their disrespect for their own flags, too. It must be quite a murmuring from those quarters as this grandstander with all his privilege in his rarified rich-kid sport, tries to tell them that America's flag is unworthy of any respect.

That doesn't even get into the matter of athletes from true tyrannies competing. We all know why they don't disrespect the flags of their particular countries.

Most serious of all, maybe someone in the press can ask him why American audiences shouldn't respond in kind to him and turn their backs on him as he gets his medals. Why should anyone care if he wins medals if he has a problem with the country they live in?

Or why endorsers shouldn't shun him like bad meat.

A stale stunt of disrespect for the very country that made him a small champion merits that, but don't hold your breath. Something nasty is going on, and he knows the template.

Image credit: Twitter screen shot.