Biles out

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Are there any current or former Olympic athletes who've said as much? Because all I've seen is support for her decision from people who've actually been there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Obviously you don’t compete. You don’t get to have a crystal ball, able to predict when you are going to have an issue. It doesn’t work like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Ah, well it would have satisfied *you* but not a slew of other critics who would have called her selfish for not trying. Can’t win!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:She quit because she was about to lose. Why is she still in Tokyo stealing the spotlight? Shouldn’t she be going home to work on her mental issues?

+1. Her performance had been going downhill for a while. It may very well be that she quit because she was afraid to lose. She would look a bit silly donning her GOAT leotard on the bronze medal stand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Obviously you don’t compete. You don’t get to have a crystal ball, able to predict when you are going to have an issue. It doesn’t work like that.

+1. None of us have any way of knowing at what point she realized she couldn’t do it. Heck maybe even with the missed warmup vault maybe she still thought she could make the vault when it counted.

Some of you seem really bitter than the team didn’t bring home gold for you and I suggest you sit down and think about why that is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think she may save thousands of lives with her honesty and determination to protect her mental health. I bet there are teenagers, hell, maybe even adults who may now feel less ashamed to admit to mental struggles and maybe more likely to seek help. I frankly see it as a heroic, world changing act. She’s a bigger hero now than she was before.

So which is it? A cause of the "twisties" or a larger mental health issue?

Maybe it's both. If you think there's such a fine line on mental health issues, you don't understand what mental health issues are. It's not like having strep throat where there's a test of you either having it or not.

And let’s be honest: a major contributor to any Black athlete’s mental health struggle is the pervasive white supremacy in America.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

I agree that the hype (and pressure!) was over the top, and it appears that Biles herself bought into it, which likely contributed to her problems at the Olympics.

But to assume that Biles knew she would feel unsafe leading up to the Olympics is unfair. I think part of the issue is that Biles has been so good for so long and so far ahead of everyone else that there was almost too margin for error. Most other gymnasts with subpar performances at trials or in Olympics would have been left off the team, not made any finals, or not used as much in team finals. But she still made all the finals, and she had higher scoring potential than any of the alternatives in team finals. So everyone (maybe even Biles her self) brushed off the cracks, until she broke completely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Obviously you don’t compete. You don’t get to have a crystal ball, able to predict when you are going to have an issue. It doesn’t work like that.

+1. None of us have any way of knowing at what point she realized she couldn’t do it. Heck maybe even with the missed warmup vault maybe she still thought she could make the vault when it counted.

Some of you seem really bitter than the team didn’t bring home gold for you and I suggest you sit down and think about why that is.

Yup. Biles won 4 gold medals and 18 world championships. And people are calling her all sorts of names like she did this on purpose. She's been training 10 hours a day for years. No one walks away from the Olympics lightly. If people could "predict" when they were going to have a mental health issue, the emergency rooms wouldn't be full of sick people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

I agree that the hype (and pressure!) was over the top, and it appears that Biles herself bought into it, which likely contributed to her problems at the Olympics.

But to assume that Biles knew she would feel unsafe leading up to the Olympics is unfair. I think part of the issue is that Biles has been so good for so long and so far ahead of everyone else that there was almost too margin for error. Most other gymnasts with subpar performances at trials or in Olympics would have been left off the team, not made any finals, or not used as much in team finals. But she still made all the finals, and she had higher scoring potential than any of the alternatives in team finals. So everyone (maybe even Biles her self) brushed off the cracks, until she broke completely.

Yup. Biles at her best is so far above other athletes that people probably kept pushing her to compete. And then the machine breaks down because it's not a machine but a human woman.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is she took a spot that someone else could have filled and reached their Olympic dream.

+1

Whose spot? Do you happen to know who would have gone if Biles hadn't?

It's just a hunch but I'm pretty sure it would have made no sense to send that person instead, but I could be wrong.

Probably Jade Carey. She's taking the spot Biles gave up in the AA competition, which she qualified for but was the third ranked American and they only permit two per country. She's a vault and floor specialist. Having her in the team final may very well may have gotten the US team the gold, as those were two weaker events for the US without Biles.

She did not take Jades team spot. Jade earned a spot as an individual competitor, and elected to use that spot instead of being considered for a team spot. Performance suggest Le that jade would have been stronger on the team than Grace McCallum, arguably better than Jordan chiles overall, but she opted out of team consideration. This was made clear at the trials.

This isn't what I said. I wasn't talking about whether Jade should have been on the team originally or what happened at trials. I'm saying that if Biles had bowed out prior to the team competition, who would US gymnastics subbed in her place at the last minute? I don't know the specific rules, but if she was eligible, I'm pretty confident that Jade Carey would have been the one selected. She did very very well in the qualifying round and would have been an strong asset to the US team.

They couldn’t sub in Jade at the last minute- would have had to have been 24hrs in advance if the competition. I can’t remember where but had read that Simone had looked ok in an earlier training that day.

In any event, no matter what Biles had done- stuck it out or pulled out earlier, the US girls still likely would not have won gold. The math was in favor of the Russians whether Biles had continued to compete or Jade had been used in a couple events. And although I was pulling for the US team I couldn’t help but be happy for the Russian team- nice gymnastics and you could tell how much it meant to them.

I don’t think that’s right, Biles vault hurt them, and they are very deep at vault. With a good vault score and enough notice to pick the best girls for the other events, gold was still within reach. Carey had an individual spot that could not be transferred to another girl and was heavily discouraged from seeking a team slot for that reason.

Not questioning whether she should have withdrawn, just wish she had decided sooner, she has been struggling since the trials.

Yeah but a struggling Biles still finished 1st in qualifications over pretty solid Suni and Jade. 3.5 points is a LOT to make up. And everyone would have just found some thing else to criticize/complain about anyway.

In qualifiers, Carey scored 15.166 in the vault, 14.133 in the uneven bars, 12.866 in the balance beam and 14.100 on the floor.

Simone got a 13.766 on vault in the team competition. Hypothetically, Jade's vault score from qualifiers would have made up 1.4 points. On uneven bars, McCallum got a 13.700, so Carey's score from qualifiers would haveade up another 0.4 points. On floor, Chile's got an 11.7, so if you substitute Carey's qualifiers score you make up another 2.4 points. That's 4.3 points total. Even with some margin, having Carey replace Simone could have gotten the US team the gold. It definitely wasn't mathematically impossible.

Sorry, that's 4.2 points. Typing on my phone.

If Simone would have withdrawn earlier, the replacement would have come from the replacement athletes (Kayla DiCello or Emma M as Kara tested positive for Covid and Leanne had to quarantine). Jade was not in that pool since her position was not on the “team roster”.

Pretty sure McKayla Skinner was also available as an alternate, and vault is her strongest apparatus.

Same story, she was in an individual spot, which I don’t believe could be used to fill an open team spot.

Yeah I think this is what is confusing to people- not sure Skinner and Carey were eligible and and as PP mentioned, the top two team alternates were in covid quarantine. this year was tricky with the combo of team and individual athletes. we could analyze this all day with hypotheticals but whats the point- the Russian team had better performances that day team USA won a silver medal and that's that.

suni just won the AA- congrats to her and the other medalists! sounds like it was a good competition, will watch later.

This insistence that there is no way that the US could have been better situated is so fan girlish and tiresome. Simone has not been her normal self in competition for weeks. I have no issue with her withdrawing but it certainly could have be done in a manner that left her teammates with better odds in the team competition. To not admit that’s even a possibility is just bizarre.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Obviously you don’t compete. You don’t get to have a crystal ball, able to predict when you are going to have an issue. It doesn’t work like that.

+1. None of us have any way of knowing at what point she realized she couldn’t do it. Heck maybe even with the missed warmup vault maybe she still thought she could make the vault when it counted.

Some of you seem really bitter than the team didn’t bring home gold for you and I suggest you sit down and think about why that is.

Yup. Biles won 4 gold medals and 18 world championships. And people are calling her all sorts of names like she did this on purpose. She's been training 10 hours a day for years. No one walks away from the Olympics lightly. If people could "predict" when they were going to have a mental health issue, the emergency rooms wouldn't be full of sick people.

Her sports psychologists aren’t doing a good job if she has no idea of her own mental state until it collapses.

[Anonymous]

Haven’t read this whole thread so I think this is a somewhat different take - but I have ZERO problem with what Simone Biles did. I DO have a problem with the way it’s being covered, however. Pulling out of a dangerous competition at the last minute, potentially leaving teammates who are counting on you in the lurch is surely a very difficult, but very rational and understandable decision. It is certainly not villainous or selfish; neither is it brave or courageous. It is just an unfortunate and crappy situation that all the gymnasts handled to the best of their ability.

WHY do we have to resort to this childish, binary, black-or-white, good-or-bad, cowardly-or-brave narrative for EVERYTHING these days? It’s ridiculous.

She’s not selfish, she’s not bad, but she’s also no hero.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Haven’t read this whole thread so I think this is a somewhat different take - but I have ZERO problem with what Simone Biles did. I DO have a problem with the way it’s being covered, however. Pulling out of a dangerous competition at the last minute, potentially leaving teammates who are counting on you in the lurch is surely a very difficult, but very rational and understandable decision. It is certainly not villainous or selfish; neither is it brave or courageous. It is just an unfortunate and crappy situation that all the gymnasts handled to the best of their ability.

WHY do we have to resort to this childish, binary, black-or-white, good-or-bad, cowardly-or-brave narrative for EVERYTHING these days? It’s ridiculous.

She’s not selfish, she’s not bad, but she’s also no hero.

Of course it's a brave and courageous thing to do because: 1) mental health issues aren't accepted as medical issues in much of America and 2) people are mean and criticize anyone who shows a bit of weakness. The fact that people like you are complaining she "left her teammates in the lurch" is ridiculous--she didn't compete because she didn't feel healthy to do so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Relevant post

Yeah, it's not a coincidence that every gymnast has come out 100% supportive of Simone Biles. They know that with the slightest slipup if your head is not in the game, you can end up in a wheelchair for life or worse.

I don't think a single person thinks she should have competed if she felt unsafe about it. What people don't agree with was her behavior (GOAT) and the timing of it all. She should have stayed home.

Obviously you don’t compete. You don’t get to have a crystal ball, able to predict when you are going to have an issue. It doesn’t work like that.

+1. None of us have any way of knowing at what point she realized she couldn’t do it. Heck maybe even with the missed warmup vault maybe she still thought she could make the vault when it counted.

Some of you seem really bitter than the team didn’t bring home gold for you and I suggest you sit down and think about why that is.

Yup. Biles won 4 gold medals and 18 world championships. And people are calling her all sorts of names like she did this on purpose. She's been training 10 hours a day for years. No one walks away from the Olympics lightly. If people could "predict" when they were going to have a mental health issue, the emergency rooms wouldn't be full of sick people.

Her sports psychologists aren’t doing a good job if she has no idea of her own mental state until it collapses.

You're showing your ignorance of mental health issues. People snap sometimes, and commit suicide or do something violent, and their doctors will say they had no idea that it was coming. She's been competing for more than a decade and has been among the most solid and nerve free gymnasts. Psychologists aren't magic. That's why these are "behavioral sciences". There is no formula for how people are going to behave.