I haven’t been following the Olympics, but it was impossible to miss this.
I’m curious about people’s reactions to her decision (which seemed brave, mature, and sensible to me) to withdraw. I mean reaction worldwide, from other competitors, athletes in general, and at the Dope, too.
I only saw a couple of comments in the Olympic-related thread, namely, that this was likely to be the end of her career. Maybe it is, but I’m wondering if people are saying she was smart to do this, or cowardly, or let her team down, or let the USA down, or they wish other athletes would consider this kind of decision rather than risk serious injury, etc. Or is it seen as a tempest in a teacup and generally of no consequence to her sport or future competitions? I’m clueless about the culture of international sports competitions.
I hadn’t actually heard about it, but I found this article explaining why:
It sounds a lot like some sort of derealization brought on by anxiety. I’ve experienced that with extreme anxiety, and you lose awareness of your body in that, too. I’ve even had lesser versions when my anxiety seemed fine, but I still had trouble being fully present, like a sort of brain fog.
It makes perfect sense to me that either of those could adversely impact your ability to perform. They can’t rely 100% on muscle memory alone, on their body just doing what they want automatically. Not when being off by just the slightest bit can ruin everything and even be unsafe.
Yeah, I read her comments this morning and she said that at one point while she was twisting, she didn’t know where she was. Yikes! That would be scary for so many reasons.
I’m just hoping people understand and give her credit for a mature decision. I guess I’m just braced for the snarky comments that are sure to come…
All this talk about her letting her team-mates down by eliminating their collective chance at a gold medal is BS, IMHO. There was no guarantee they were going to get gold, especially against that skilled Russian team (they lost by a close margin). Her team-mates stepped-up and did their best. If Biles had just gone ahead and tried to compete, even tho her head was not there, it could have resulted in the team getting even lower scores and they may not have even received the silver, or worse, she could have severely injured herself. Yes, in hindsight perhaps she should have passed on going to the games and let someone else take her spot, but no one knows ahead of time they may have a mental issue during competition. I think she did the right thing.
I have grown weary of all this GOAT stuff and putting people on pedestals, only to rip them down when they don’t do what’s expected of them. Biles is still a hero to a lot of people, and I sense that she will have a great impact on USA gymnastics going forward, even if she does not compete any more.
The only talk I’ve seen about it on my Facebook feed, where I’ve curated my friend list to only be lovely people, is being proud of Simone for sticking up for her own mental well-being and very sympathetic to her choice. I’ve also seen a couple posts on Reddit about how Keri Strugg should not have been pushed to do what she had done, and a male gymnast who competed while hurt wishing he hadn’t done it.
I’ve got my one dunderhead Facebook friend who joked that he was boycotting all the companies that backed Biles hurrrrrr
I feel like there’s a bit of a false dichotomy here. It’s entirely possible that her actions let her team-mates down, in a kind of obvious and trivial sense, while still being entirely reasonable actions for her to take which everyone, including those same team mates, ought to sympathize with and “support”.
Like, if a quarterback breaks his leg in the first quarter of the super bowl, he might well say (and mean) “I feel bad for letting my team down”, but no one would interpret that as “he regrets not being more manly and tough and just going out there and playing with a broken leg”; nor is anyone assigning him moral/ethical culpability if his team then fails to win the game.
(Which isn’t to say that that’s how Simone Biles does or should feel… I’m just trying to point out that “let the team down” doesn’t necessarily have to have a value judgment associated with it.)
(None of which is defending people who are using “she let the team down” as a cudgel to abuse Biles on social media, obviously…)
It’s just a game. I think Mrs Biles health is more important than a game.
Also, (Not that this matters) if you’re going to pick a year to drop out, THIS would be that year to do it.
I also can’t ignore that a very high profile black female, is taking her mental health seriously in a very public way. Which is a net gain to say the least.
So while I’m sorry to see Mrs. Biles is struggling with her mental health, I’m NOT sorry it’s getting the exposure it is and her attitude towards it.
Is spraining your ankle, wrenching your back, or hyperextending your knee “letting your team down”? No, of course it isn’t, so suffering from a mental/emotional problem shouldn’t be considered in that regard, either.
World-class gymnasts have wound up paralyzed or even dead from mistakes during both competition and practice. Gymnastics at that level is hazardous.
I prefer Simone Biles alive, well, and able to walk.
She’s a young lady who has been driven and competing at an elite level for most of her life, she has suffered abuse at the hands of people she should have been able to trust, and it could be catching up with her. As much as some people hate the G.O.A.T. label she’s definitely a candidate and really has nothing more to prove in gymnastics. Absolutely she should be taking care of herself in all ways - THAT is being a good role model for other people.
Oh, boo-hoo - the USA didn’t win gold. Screw that - it would be a lot more “disappointing” to have one of the competitors rushed off the floor on a stretcher and winding up a ventilator-dependent quadriplegic. Which has actually happened on occasion. I don’t want to see anyone getting hurt during the Olympics or any other sport competition.
The media I’ve been watching has had positive coverage of Biles’ decision. I have no doubt that somewhere out there someone has something negative to say because there is always someone with something negative to say. I also would not be at all surprised if the nay-sayers are overweight bros whose most athletic feat is carrying a new case of beer home from the store.
It shouldn’t, of course - but it’s far likelier to be perceived as such. It’s a much less visible problem and athletes are liable to be accused of faking it in a way that they wouldn’t with a sprained ankle.
I mentioned it on another thread: for many people who do not really follow the sport, they only gain awareness of it for the Olympics. So they don’t really know of her career and achievements and trials. All they have is what to them sounds like media GOAT hype and the disappointment of feeling they were denied the Big USA USA USA Show they were promised.
I thought “well good for her, doing what she needs to do for hee own well-being…”
Then a friend sent me that article about her twisties and I thought “oh shit; I didn’t know that had a name!”
I have experienced that: mid-air, reaching for a rope, like Tarzan, and suddenly did not know what I was doing. Sprained ankle, torn MCL and a dinged up meniscus, but I managed not to whack my head on anything, thank Og.
So now I not only think she did the right thing at the right time, I will vociferously defend her decision to any naysayers.
I continue to be proud that Miss Biles represents my country; she is among the best of us, IMO.
Good article in The Atlantic. That’s what I’m talkin’ 'bout!
…
Shortly after [withdrawing], Biles appeared at a press conference and did something remarkable. One of the world’s top athletes revised the language of greatness, positioning it as something to be tended to and mindfully maintained, not drawn on ad nauseam. Her most telling words rejected the false dichotomy between personal well-being and professional excellence, instead pointing to the former as a precondition of the latter. Biles has spoken in the run-up to the Olympics about the pressures of fame, the isolation of these particular Games, and her experiences in therapy. Yesterday, Biles said she felt “lost in the air.” “I tried to go out here and have fun … but once I came out here I was like, ‘No, mental’s not there.’”
The response to Biles’s candor has been mostly laudatory, an indicator of the waning hold of sports’ win-at-all-costs ethos…
… In the 24-plus hours since Biles walked off, sports media have made much of the potential of her actions and words to reshape gymnastics. This is a discipline rooted in hard endeavor that can tip into mistreatment; its participants start young, train through injuries and over arduous hours, and chase a codified perfection. USA Gymnastics has seen these mores concentrate messily in Kerri Strug, who in 1996 vaulted onto an already-damaged ankle to push her team to gold, and nightmarishly in Larry Nassar’s sexual abuse of Biles and other athletes. (Biles noted yesterday that she had the “correct people” around her at these Games, an allusion to the brutal and tight-lipped culture of the former regime.) Aly Raisman, a former Olympic teammate of Biles, is among those publicly hoping that Biles’s actions set a new precedent of self-prioritization among gymnasts. Biles has made room for others to do what was formerly unthinkable in the sport’s grinding culture: refuse too punishing a task.
…
We draw no small portion of our ideas about striving and accomplishment from sports. Biles, in leaving her competition yesterday, did what we want great athletes to do: offer a hint about the connection between internal workings and external brilliance.
…
They seem to be taking it so absurdly seriously- like somehow the Olympics actually matter, and that Biles withdrawing is somehow traitorous or extremely self-centered or something.
This isn’t warfare, and it’s not like she opted out of combat, letting her teammates get killed. And the smart (i.e. non angry white conservative man) way to interpret what she did was that since it was a team competition and she got the “twisties”, she realized that pulling out and letting her teammates compete in her stead was probably better for the team than trying to gut it out and perform anyway.
Look at it this way… let’s say a pitcher loses his mojo during the sixth inning of a World Series game, and when the manager and catcher come out to the mound, he says “I’ve lost my mojo, you’d better pull me.” Is that an act of cowardice or self-centeredness, or is it acknowledging that the best thing for the team may be NOT to try and play through at that current moment?
I don’t see what Biles did as being any different, assuming it was a calculated decision to better the chances of the team and not just leaving her teammates in the lurch. (I don’t think that’s a good precedent to celebrate).
