Biles bails at the Olympics

[George K]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/gymnastics/story/_/id/31902290/simone-biles-withdraws-individual-all-competition-tokyo-olympics-focus-mental-health

Gymnastics superstar and defending Olympic champion Simone Biles has withdrawn from Thursday's individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Games to focus on her mental well-being.

The decision comes a day after Biles removed herself from the team final following one rotation, on vault. She cited her mental health as the reason when speaking to the media following the competition.

An interesting look at this from the RWEC. Here's a distilled version, which sort of points out what @Optimistic was saying:

The point missing from all this is that Biles’s lack of focus had already almost caused a severe injury. Various gymnasts and experts in the sport have spent the past day trying to explain to laymen how frightening Biles’s botched vault on Tuesday was:

Gymnasts call what she experienced “the twisties,” where essentially you lose your muscle memory of how to orient yourself in space relative to the floor to ensure that you’ll land safely. It sounds a bit like vertigo. Think of a baseball player getting “the yips,” where suddenly he can’t make short routine throws anymore and loses confidence in his basic skills. In Biles’s case, the yips potentially means corkscrewing through the air with the force of several G’s and landing on your neck.

The proper analogy isn’t to a basketball or even a football player deciding not to play due to a bout of anxiety under pressure. It’s more like a trapeze artist deciding not to perform. If you’ve suddenly lost your confidence in your ability to judge where the trapeze bars are in space, then … yeah, you might want to sit it out. The consequence of poor performance won’t be an airball or a fumble, it’ll be death potentially. That’s not hypothetical: Philip Klein notes the case today of an American gymnast who misstepped during a vault, hit the vaulting horse head-on, and ended up paraplegic before eventually dying at age 18.

With the stakes that high, Biles couldn’t just “tough it out” the way, say, Michael Jordan with the flu could. And as many have pointed out today on Twitter, didn’t Jordan himself spend several years away from basketball after his father was murdered to recover from his grief? He knows what it’s like not to be able to perform up to your expectations when you’re distracted.

[Optimistic]

@george-k Yeah, those sum it up really well. The mind-blowing difficulty level of her skills in particular, even compared to many other elite gymnasts, means that being the slightest bit off can be a catastrophic injury. Most other sports analogies just don't compare.

[Doctor Phibes]

@catseye3 said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

Here's a list of those conservative right-wing 'talkers':
Clay Travis
Buck Sexton
Piers Morgan
Amber Athey
John Daniel Davidson
Charlie Kirk
These peoples' remarks are truly horrendous. One of them -- don't ask me which one, I can't stand the idea of going back and looking for it -- said Biles brought 'shame to America'. No, you atrocious little insect, it's not Biles bringing shame to America, it's you and your spirit of vileness.

Piers Morgan isn't American. He is, however, a pudgy little cunt. I may have mentioned this in earlier discussions.

[Doctor Phibes]

I don't really understand why these professional trolls can't give Biles the benefit of the doubt.

Other than the fact that they're a bunch of cunts, of course.

[Mik]

@jon-nyc said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

I must confess I have no opinion about Ms Biles.

Yep. I see her as neither courageous nor cowardly. She just did what she did. I have no reliable knowledge of her personality or her mental or emotional state.

As far as her detractors, the only one I have ever heard of is Piers Morgan. I suspect the rest of them are simply clamoring for attention. All this stuff would not have brought a single whisper had it been a lesser known Olympian.

Nothing but clickbait.

[Horace]

One former US elite gymnast I talked to said that if it was someone other than Simone Biles who had made that same error, they would have certainly blown a knee, at minimum. Another said if it had happened to her instead of Simone, "I probably would have ended up paralyzed".

Most non-gymnastics fans do not understand the seriousness of what happened because she landed on her feet. Every elite gymnast I've talked to has said that Simone Biles' vault was TERRIFYING and it's a miracle she put that vault to her feet & avoided seriously injuring herself.

I see they are bringing out the heavy duty rhetoric to defend Ms Biles. So deliciously non-verifiable and emotionally compelling. Who could argue?

[Doctor Phibes]

She could be going through anything - we genuinely have no idea one way or the other.

But if she is having mental health problems, I can't see that a bunch of mediocrities decrying her online is going to help much.

[Horace]

@doctor-phibes said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

She could be going through anything - we genuinely have no idea one way or the other.

But if she is having mental health problems, I can't see that a bunch of mediocrities decrying her online is going to help much.

Yes, those people expressing anger at their Olympic star suffering an emotional breakdown at the worst possible time, are bad. Actually I distrust any adult man with an emotional connection to women's gymnastics. And yes, Simone had a breakdown. It's unfortunate she didn't retire before the competition, but she clearly wasn't predicting that this would happen.

However I again fail to require a fainting couch at either the incident or the reaction.

Perhaps this will cause people to once again re-evaluate their understanding of all of human existence. Like vaccination rates being less than 100% have been revelatory for some.

[Doctor Phibes]

@horace said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

Actually I distrust any adult man with an emotional connection to women's gymnastics.

I'd be quite willing to bet money that Piers Morgan didn't give a fuck about it until a black American woman did something he doesn't approve of.

[Horace]

@doctor-phibes said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

@horace said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

Actually I distrust any adult man with an emotional connection to women's gymnastics.

I'd be quite willing to bet money that Piers Morgan didn't give a fuck about it until a black American woman did something he doesn't approve of.

I am sure the race narrative will be wielded here at some point. Maybe in some cases it will even reflect some truth.

[Catseye3]

@doctor-phibes said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

Piers Morgan isn't American. He is, however, a pudgy little cunt. I may have mentioned this in earlier discussions.

Yes, I thought of you when I included his name. <G>

I wavered between neutral and mildly disapproving, fueled largely by ignorance. Thanks to Omni and to George's sources, I have a better understanding now. Like Mik said, she did what she did. If these people are correct, she had the choice of quitting versus bulling through and risking her life or serious debilitating injury. No choice, really.

[Doctor Phibes]

Mental issues really shouldn't be that big a deal - just look at Piers Morgan, and how he manages to maintain a successful media presence despite suffering from a crippling personality disorder.

[Aqua Letifer]

I love how we've politicized a gymnast deciding not to compete at the Olympics. What the actual fuck.

[Catseye3]

@aqua-letifer Welcome to TNCR, noobie! Just so you know, somebody else has been using your nick all this time.

[Aqua Letifer]

@catseye3 said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

@aqua-letifer Welcome to TNCR, noobie! Just so you know, somebody else has been using your nick all this time.

I didn't mean TNCR, I meant Americans.

If you're liberal, you have to view this as a courageous act from a true hero.

If you're conservative, you have to view this as an act from a quitter who couldn't hack it.

I'm tired of everything becoming a proxy discussion about politics with no one thinking for themselves. I don't want to discuss issues with someone's interpretation of what their echo chamber has concluded, I want to talk to an actual person.

[Catseye3]

@aqua-letifer said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

I didn't mean TNCR, I meant Americans.

Ah so.

I'm tired of everything becoming a proxy discussion about politics with no one thinking for themselves.

Oh, m'dear, I so SO hear you.

[Doctor Phibes]

We've also moved on from being Monday morning quarterbacks to Monday morning mental health professionals.

[Aqua Letifer]

@doctor-phibes said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

We've also moved on from being Monday morning quarterbacks to Monday morning mental health professionals.

Liberals are the Monday morning mental health professionals in this instance.

Conservatives are still doing the quarterbacking.

[Catseye3]

Average American conversationist:

[Mik]

@aqua-letifer said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

@catseye3 said in Biles bails at the Olympics:

@aqua-letifer Welcome to TNCR, noobie! Just so you know, somebody else has been using your nick all this time.

I didn't mean TNCR, I meant Americans.

If you're liberal, you have to view this as a courageous act from a true hero.

If you're conservative, you have to view this as an act from a quitter who couldn't hack it.

I'm tired of everything becoming a proxy discussion about politics with no one thinking for themselves. I don't want to discuss issues with someone's interpretation of what their echo chamber has concluded, I want to talk to an actual person.

Amen, brother Aqua.