Yeah, it would be more effective if it was from people I actually respect, which is a list that includes errrrr, none of you jokers.
The athlete in question let her team down. No reasonable person (ie a non Doper) can deny that and I suspect Biles herself will say much the same. Her career, is a glittering one regardless and her legacy is secure. Lots of great athletes have had occasions where they failed to reach their lofty standards and that does not affect their greatness. It won’t here. Doesn’t make the incident less bad.
But, that kind of nuance is sometime your poor brain cannot contemplate.
The fuck are you even doing here, then? If it helps, the lack of respect is pretty mutual. There are some good people here, but you’re a arrogant, bitter little shit in pretty much every thread you drop a turd in.
I think that the media develop certain storylines, favorites and underdogs, heroes and villains, in advance. The commentators do their homework and prepare for the athletes they think they’ll be interviewing and the questions they think they’ll ask.
And then the competition happens, and it doesn’t always follow the script. Everyone thought they’d be talking to Simone Biles; when someone else steps up, they’re not ready for it.
I think the pressure now is worse than it used to be. There’s more sponsor money, more commitments the athletes have to keep, more people following them on social media, more network time to fill, more interview and promotional appearances, etc. I’ve never been in that sort of situation, but I wonder if some athletes take on more than they can handle. I wonder if any of them bow out of all the hype; “sorry, I can’t shoot a Visa commercial that day, I’ll be at home playing with my dog.” If that did happen, we’d never hear about it.
The time to do something about athlete’s mental health and stress is when they’re making all these deals and commitments, not after they get to be too much.
Would you take the music out of the women’s routines, or add it to the men’s? And do we add two apparatuses for the women, or remove two from the men?
I have no opinion about whether men should do choreography, or the women shouldn’t. The point is that there is no reason that the floor routine requirements should be different in that way, other than patriarchal expectations/traditions. This feels like a no-brainer to me.
As far as apparatuses . . . I don’t know a ton about the whole process, but I’m assuming (and a quick google seems to confirm) that you’re saying men compete in two gymnastics events that women don’t. This is a whole other kettle of fish that I don’t feel equipped to have a supportable opinion on, though my off-the-cuff response would be:
Why don’t men and women compete on the same events/apparati? I imagine it’s an artifact of history rooted in patriarchal expectations about what women are capable of. And, most/all Olympic events are contrived, with arbitrary parameters agreed upon (by the IOC?). There is no reason that women couldn’t/shouldn’t compete on the rings, for example, other than “we’ve just decided that they don’t”.
Yeah, I don’t think there’s any good reason for the men’s and women’s floor exercise to be different. But, I also don’t see one version being fundamentally better or worse than the other, so I don’t see the difference as being patriarchal or oppressive, just different.
Men do compete on 6 apparatus, and women on 4. Is it oppressive to deny women those 2 additional events, or to require men to take on the burden of 2 more events? I don’t think either of those is necessarily true.
I think the difference in events has something to do with body composition. The high bar, parallel bars, rings, and pommel horse are all upper body events. Women compete on the uneven bars and balance beam, so they’re somewhat more balanced between using arms and legs.
Because men and women are built differently. Men have more upper body strength and the rings, parallel bars, and horse showcase that. You can see that even on the floor exercises they do more strength moves like handstands and less tumbling passes and flashy stuff. They also have heavier bones and wider shoulders. Women have more lower body strength, have less muscle mass in general, and are lighter in build so they can do the tumbles and jumps that women’s gymnastics are all about.
Why is it different? The mere fact that there is an arbitrary difference is patriarchal: if you are a man, you must do your floor routine following X protocol, and if you are a woman you must do it following Y protocol. It’s patriarchal not because one is inherently easier, harder, better, or worse, but because men decided that there would be a difference, and what that difference should be.
These are just so stories that do little to actually explain the difference. This is just the first article I found about the issue, and doesn’t dive deeply into it, but it’s clear that the evolution of men’s and women’s gymnastics is not as straightforward a process as the implied: it’s just obvious that men and women are doing the things that naturally showcase their unique physical differences.
Who decided that men compete on the pommel horse (for example), while women don’t? Who decided that what women can do on that apparatus is not worth exploring, but what men do on it is?
I don’t know, but in my experience these sort of decisions tend to evolve naturally rather than to be handed down from just a few people.
I think the ultimate driver is popularity. Tug-of-war was an Olympic event once. Ski ballet was a demonstration sport along with moguls and aerials, but only the latter two become medal events. The governing bodies of various sports have to set the rules so that they will continue to draw athletes and fans. And they change things all the time; I remember when gymnastics routines were scored out of a possible 10 points. If there’s sufficient demand to see women on the pommel horse, maybe we will someday.
Sure, so, not because of whether a given event is difficult or shows off physical prowess or ability, but rather what people are interested in watching (and thus what generates revenue).
My whole point in this digression is that the choices here are not based on some pure and sincere understanding of the human form, but rather they are often arbitrary choices based on circumstance, finances, and cultural expectations.
Don’t care about your “struggle”, don’t care about your family back home, don’t care about your dog dying of cancer, don’t care about your political positions, don’t care about your sexuality, don’t care about your ethnicity, don’t care about your physical or mental frailties, don’t care about your “story” full stop.
TV and media generally like to milk a combination of the above for all they are worth but it just gets in the way of the actual sport. I’d fully endorse them getting themselves up to an Olympic standard of knocking that shit off.
I’m only bothered about how well you do what you are there to do and the degree to which it entertains me. You can then give a brief celebratory insipid interview and sod off for the next four years. If you are actually talking about the sport and the performance itself I’ll listen a little longer but the moment you bring your dead aunt Edith into it I’m switching off.
The sports press and the publicity organs of the sports federations must stop it with the anointing of “sweethearts” and heroes and GOATs leading in to competitions.
Another sad part of it is: the actual gymnastics world, the pros and the committed fans, know Biles’ record and achievements. But then there are all those who only know or care during the Olympics so all they have on her is, in their eyes, lead-in hype, and now how she “deprived” them of seeing the promised amazing performance and their flag raised.
I do not watch much gymnastics but Biles has clearly paid her dues and done wonders for her team and the sport. She has endured some trauma, yet won event after event to the extent she was thought unbeatable.
I do not think the Covid Olympics should have happened at all. It must feel abnormal to compete in empty stadiums. From the news summary I saw, Biles looked unfocused and made a few small errors, which did not look like much to me. She clearly knows what is needed to win and so is probably in the best position to judge whether she can go on. Who knows what else might be going on? How can one this judge her? I see no reason her team would not be supportive and wish her a speedy recovery. So do I. If the announcers are snippy about it, more shame to them.
Though I like the look of bikinis, surely women athletes should be able to wear whatever they please within the technical limits of the sport. It is 2021. Who cares if a team wants to wear longer shorts if the men’s teams do so?
Synchronized events are not my favourite. It is probably tough to synchronize eight or whatever swimmers. But two divers? Obviously, some people have very different tastes in sport than I.
I find some of the swimming events fairly similar. Different strokes and distances, but sometimes a bit much of a muchness to me. I’m sure they are very different to the athletes involved.
As a former diver, I thought synchronized diving was a silly gimmick that cheapened the sport. Then I watched it. It’s now one of my favorite Olympic sports.