Anonymous wrote:Every once in awhile there comes a young gymnast who does not make many mistakes. They are lauded.
But usually, the top gymnasts do make a few bobbles in a high level competition. This is normal.
Biles was a gymnast that last Olympics did not make many of those normal bobbles. Whatever happened recently, she quit 5% in to her 2nd Olympics.
Oh well. There could be many reasons for that. That's too bad she didn't retire several months ago. Or create routines she was more confident about. Or brush off the "be perfect all the time" BS.
Just do your best, as all the athletes who did perform this week, did. Well prepared, trained, ready. Just do your best and everything will be OK. Look at Ledecky getting 5th in a race with 2 people crossing olympic records: "That was a tough race!" And it was. THen she went and swam and won her 1500m.
I don’t necessarily agree with everything you’re saying here, but I do wonder whether never having faltered before had something to do with all this. I can’t imagine being a high level athlete who has literally never faltered until their second Olympics where they are basically the face of the Games for their country. It’s not good for an athlete to never lose or mess up. It puts more and more pressure on them and makes it that much harder when they inevitably don’t have a perfect performance (because they are human after all). I think it’s better to deal with failure and disappointment when the stakes are low, if possible. It’s how we’re supposed to parent our kids — let them fail early when the consequences aren’t too big or they will crumble if they don’t experience failure until they’re adults.
I know Simone has faced a lot of adversity in her life and is obviously very tough. But “failing” at gymnastics does seem like a completely new experience for her and maybe on top of other things in the background tipped her over the edge in terms of her mental health and confidence.