The men can wear swim wear as well if they want. And I agree (and the article I linked upthread says so) a lot of it is about putting bums on seats or more accurately eyeballs on bums.
But the point is that they have a choice.
Presumably she wants to have a job once she’s done with gymnastics. Kerri Strug could still get commercials and sponsors due to having the most iconic moment of that olympics. If the majority of people think she is a quitter then she will have to go find a regular job instead of the hundreds of commercials she’s been in the last couple of years. Phelps has talked about his mental problems while an olympian and since he didn’t walk away he is still getting a huge amount of money from media sources.
All of that will come down to the PR spin she is able to put on this. If she comes out as a tough woman who is struggling with a difficult condition she will be able to ride her previous successes to a life of fortune while on the other hand if she becomes know as one of the worst teammates in olympic history then no one will want to touch her. She cares very much what the average person thinks of her right now and that involves giving lots of explanations.
I’m quite sure she understands you aren’t going to listen to anything she says or her teammates say anyway. Why waste the effort?
I am quite confident she’ll be doing a press tour talking about it for a month after she gets back from the olympics. It’s too bad we’re not allowed to wager on it.
Yeah, it’s already splitting between decent people who understand and bigots who never will.
Yes, but she won’t be trying to convince you. She knows you can’t be reached.
That is a fascinating word choice. What is bigoted in the people who don’t believe mental heath issues are real?
Me? Why would you think I can’t be reached? I don’t think I’ve posted much about her except for my general dislike of women’s gymnastics.
Don’t play stupid.
I think that the people giving her grief don’t think that black people, especially black women, are fully human. To paraphrase the excellent flow chart from McSweeney’s posted up thread, black athletes should put their minds and bodies at risk solely for the enjoyment of whites.
I guess I’m going to have to play stupid because I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Ok, sounds great.
Huh. I know a lot of people who don’t think mental issues are real issue and that true if the person who suffers is black or white, male or female. The stigma against mental health issues is huge in the US and one of the reasons that Michael Phelps didn’t discuss his problems when they were occuring. If he had pulled out of the men’s relays due to his mental health he would have gonnet hammered as hard as Biles is if not much worse since the tide is slowly turning.
Cool story bro.
Not sure Biles is a regular human to be honest, having seen her performances, where she tells the laws of physics to fuck off.
A relevant article:
One-piece bathing suits won’t work, because the sand gets inside and chafes; in fact, the players say, the less material that can trap sand, the better. Ross and her partner Alix Klineman, who helped design their own uniforms, also said it’s important that the straps don’t restrict her movement or breathing.
“For us, this is what feels most comfortable,” Klineman said. “You’re not wearing more clothing in really hot weather; getting sand stuck in places is not fun. But I totally respect other people wanting to be more covered if that’s what makes them more comfortable.”
Interestingly, they neglected to ask the men about their wardrobe preferences.
And yet you still pompously decided to criticize her.
The Olympics are expensive. But it is the IOC who reap the benefits, one suspects, especially during the Covid Games, and not always the athletes (although of course the best ones will eventually).
I mean, I did not even know the gold medals were ninety percent silver. This clearly reduces their cost a lot (though not their value). You think it’s really because they care so much what could happen to the medal twenty years later?
Yeah, nobody anywhere AFAICT has disagreed that Biles’ withdrawal from this competition because she feels unfit to compete is a regrettable misfortune that prevented her from reaching her usual stratospheric standards of performance. Nobody anywhere is saying that it’s not okay to feel disappointed about that or to wish things had been different.
But only an asshole would think that Biles deserves “derision” for choosing not to compete when she feels that her health is not up to the grueling demands of competition. It really doesn’t take a lot of “nuance” to recognize that.
Of course Biles deserves support and not sarcasm. Remember, these Olympics:
- involve more isolation than usual
- do not permit friends and family for support
- lack supportive crowds
- require mask wearing in 95F temperatures
- occur in Japan so may involve odd times
- only 85% of the US team was said to be vaccinated which may further limit social mingling - i.e. an unusually somber mood in the Olympic Village
- still have all the required broad TV smiles and shallow interviews
And that there was traumatic evidence two weeks ago that US gymnastics likely conspired to slow or stop an investigation into lurid activities, and so might be perceived as less reliable by athletes.
Stress would be reasonable even if none of these factors were present.