2021 Olympics

Herdfan

Resident Redneck
Posts
4,690
Reaction score
3,571
I feel sorry for her. I really do. She got hosed.

I can't imagine how I would have felt if back when I was playing baseball I was told I was too good a hitter and my, and only my, strike zone was going to be 2" bigger on each side to make it fair. I would have gone ballistic.

No matter what, she is still the G.O.A.T. and nothing she has done will change that in my mind.

I figure some of it is NBC is pissed because the ratings are already in the toilet and she is one of the Top 5 draws.
 

Herdfan

Resident Redneck
Posts
4,690
Reaction score
3,571
At least we kept the Gold in the USA:

 

JayMysteri0

What the F?!!!
Posts
6,612
Reaction score
13,752
Location
Not HERE.
How dare this guy! šŸ˜”






Ritz is scum. Maybe he should quit to examine his own mental health.

.......

(Nah. It's not mental. He's just an asshole.)
Yeah, I was posting about this in the TFG thread, because the armchair right wing athletes ( men ) were out in full force condemning Biles. Never one to pass up attacking someone appreciated by women, liberals, and PoC, they are all over trying to paint her as somehow UNpatriotic. When it's really just being selfish because they were denied some unearned chest thumping in taking pride in their country, and not really giving a shit about the American who did the work after years of sacrifice.

It's also a typical lack of creativity on the Texas pol's part, as they are just regurgitating what makes them feel good while criticizing someone else. Only they don't really get into the details, for fear of what it says about them.

Some people pointed to Kerri Strug, who landed on one foot after vaulting with a broken ankle in the 1996 Olympics to help the U.S. win gold, as an example of the kind of sacrifice an athlete should be willing to make for their country.

Byron Heath shared some thoughts about that fateful day in a viral Facebook post that has been shared more than 370,000 times in less than a day.

Heath wrote:

"This realization I had about Simone Biles is gonna make some people mad, but oh well.

Yesterday I was excited to show my daughters Kerri Strug's famous one-leg vault. It was a defining Olympic moment that I watched live as a kid, and my girls watched raptly as Strug fell, and then limped back to leap again.

But for some reason I wasn't as inspired watching it this time. In fact, I felt a little sick. Maybe being a father and teacher has made me soft, but all I could see was how Kerri Strug looked at her coach, Bela Karolyi, with pleading, terrified eyes, while he shouted back 'You can do it!' over and over again.

My daughters didn't cheer when Strug landed her second vault. Instead they frowned in concern as she collapsed in agony and frantic tears.

'Why did she jump again if she was hurt?' one of my girls asked. I made some inane reply about the heart of a champion or Olympic spirit, but in the back of my mind a thought was festering: *She shouldn't have jumped again*

The more the thought echoed, the stronger my realization became. Coach Karolyi should have gotten his visibly injured athlete medical help immediately! Now that I have two young daughters in gymnastics, I expect their safety to be the coach's number one priority. Instead, Bela Karolyi told Strug to vault again. And he got what he wanted; a gold medal that was more important to him than his athlete's health. I'm sure people will say 'Kerri Strug was a competitor--she WANTED to push through the injury.' That's probably true. But since the last Olympics we've also learned these athletes were put into positions where they could be systematically abused both emotionally and physically, all while being inundated with 'win at all costs' messaging. A teenager under those conditions should have been protected, and told 'No medal is worth the risk of permanent injury.' In fact, we now know that Strug's vault wasn't even necessary to clinch the gold; the U.S. already had an insurmountable lead. Nevertheless, Bela Karolyi told her to vault again according to his own recounting of their conversation:

'I can't feel my leg,' Strug told Karolyi.

'We got to go one more time,' Karolyi said. 'Shake it out.'

'Do I have to do this again?' Strug asked. 'Can you, can you?' Karolyi wanted to know.


'I don't know yet,' said Strug. 'I will do it. I will, I will.'

The injury forced Strug's retirement at 18 years old. Dominique Moceanu, a generational talent, also retired from injuries shortly after. They were top gymnasts literally pushed to the breaking point, and then put out to pasture. Coach Karolyi and Larry Nassar (the serial sexual abuser) continued their long careers, while the athletes were treated as a disposable resource.

Today Simone Biles--the greatest gymnast of all time--chose to step back from the competition, citing concerns for mental and physical health. I've already seen comments and posts about how Biles 'failed her country', 'quit on us', or 'can't be the greatest if she can't handle the pressure.' Those statements are no different than Coach Karolyi telling an injured teen with wide, frightened eyes: 'We got to go one more time. Shake it out.'

The subtext here is: 'Our gold medal is more important than your well-being.'

Our athletes shouldn't have to destroy themselves to meet our standards. If giving empathetic, authentic support to our Olympians means we'll earn less gold medals, I'm happy to make that trade.

For shame Simone Biles decided her mental & physical health were important. For shame Simone Biles will compete another day.

For shame she didn't risk her well being for others entertainment & pride.

Fuck those others.

https://www.twitter.com/i/web/status/1420857933022248961/
 

Clix Pix

Focused
Site Donor
Posts
3,160
Reaction score
5,126
Location
Eight Miles from the Tysons Apple Store, No. VA
Main Camera
Sony
A lot of people don't seem to realize that if Simone HAD gone ahead and participated in the rest of the competition at that point with her head not really in the right place that it was more than likely that, yes, again mid-air she could have faltered and subsequently fallen, with the result being not a medal but instead permanent life-threatening and life-changing injuries. Surely no one really wants Simone to have taken chances on dying or spending the rest of her life in a wheelchair because winning that gold medal for the US was just, so, so important?!!!!

This young woman has demonstrated a self-awareness, personal and internal strength and grace which reaches far, far beyond the physical ability for winning gold medals, and we in the US should be so very proud that she is an American athlete representing this country, as this goes so far beyond bringing home medals...... Through this she is also showing the US and the world that abuse of young female athletes will not and should not be tolerated any more, ever. She is an asset to the world at large, actually, not just the US, in having the courage to stand up for what she knew she needed to do and going ahead with that. I think many young athletes both in this current Tokyo Olympics and those at home aspiring to one day be an Olympian are looking at this, internalizing it and I hope learning from it.
 

Herdfan

Resident Redneck
Posts
4,690
Reaction score
3,571
Pivoting away from gymnastics, if anyone has any interest at all in swimming, you need to watch or DVR tonight.

For the first time ever in the Olympics there is going to be a Mixed 4x100 Medley Relay. The only rules are a team must be comprised of 2 men and 2 women, but no rules on what strokes they swim. So a team could send their 2 men out first and hope the women can hold on or send the 2 women out and hope the men can bring it home or some combination. It is going to be chaos for sure. :)
 

shadow puppet

Certifiable
Posts
1,381
Reaction score
2,686
Location
4th padded cell on the right
Moving to swimming, did anyone see the Women's 100M Breaststroke last night? I was watching King battle Shoenmaker figuring it would come down to them. Then King has a horrible turn basically taking her out of it and then out of nowhere comes 17 year old Lydia Jacoby to take the Gold.
This has been one of my favorite Olympic moments so far. Seeing the look on 17 year old Lydia Jacoby from Alaska (which only has one proper, 50-meter, Olympic-sized pool), after winning gold & Lilly King, former breaststroke Queen, immediately congratulating her. #passingthetorch
šŸ”„


spitserphoto_1627396047_2_FB.jpg


usaswimming_1627354241_2_FB2.jpg
 
Last edited:

shadow puppet

Certifiable
Posts
1,381
Reaction score
2,686
Location
4th padded cell on the right
A lot of people don't seem to realize that if Simone HAD gone ahead and participated in the rest of the competition at that point with her head not really in the right place that it was more than likely that, yes, again mid-air she could have faltered and subsequently fallen, with the result being not a medal but instead permanent life-threatening and life-changing injuries.
Exactly.

Ever read Little Girls in Pretty Boxes? It's about the elite level of competing in women's gymnastics and figure skating. One young gymnast landed wrong in her vault and ended up paralyzed for life. Her level of technical difficulty was no where near that of Biles.
 

Clix Pix

Focused
Site Donor
Posts
3,160
Reaction score
5,126
Location
Eight Miles from the Tysons Apple Store, No. VA
Main Camera
Sony
Yep, and that book was a real eye-opener......I also read a couple of other books as well, and the message came through loud and clear that while gymnastics is dazzling and amazing for onlookers, it is extraordinarily physically and emotionally difficult and challenging each and every time for a gymnast, and it can definitely be life-threatening. Young gymnasts have died, young gymnasts have wound up in a wheelchair for life...... Eating disorders, ongoing physical and psychological distress, physical injuries...... And that is only touching on the issues of physical, psychological, verbal and sexual abusive behavior by the coaches, trainers and medical personnel who were supposed to be supporting these young athletes rather than allowing and pushing them to do more, more, more and to just go ahead and work through an injury with the sad results that some of them were indeed injured and emotionally destroyed for life just so that they could go to a competition and come home with medals......
 
Last edited:

JayMysteri0

What the F?!!!
Posts
6,612
Reaction score
13,752
Location
Not HERE.
TOKYO ā€” At Thursday's Summer Olympics, the women's all-around gymnastics winner was ... not Simone Biles.

The title and gold medal went to Sunisa Lee of the U.S.

Biles' absence hung over one of the most anticipated events at the Games, an event she won at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics in 2016. Biles withdrew after first dropping out of the women's team finals, while it was underway, earlier this week, citing mental health challenges.

She hasn't detailed much about what those challenges are.

But she has acknowledged suffering from a phenomenon known as "the twisties."

Lost in air​

In her one, and perhaps only finals performance of these Olympic Games, Biles launched herself into a vault that, once airborne, would require 2 1/2 twists of her body. As she recounted afterward, it didn't work.

"I was trying a 2 1/2," Biles said, "and I ended up doing a 1 1/2. Just got a little bit lost in the air."

An ocean away, in California, former competitive gymnast Catherine Burns watched and winced.

"I know that feeling so deeply in my body," Burns said, "of being, like, I'm lost, I came out [of the move] too early, where am I? And all of that is happening in the course of split seconds, that recognition of something's not right and I need to be able to complete the trick without injuring myself."

Burns competed through high school in gymnastics and diving. She was nowhere near the elite world Biles inhabits. But anyone who has honed their airborne skills in sport can experience the frightening sensation of suddenly being lost in air.

It's called the twisties.

"You can get it on twisting moves," Burns said, "but you can also get it on any kind of rotational move. [And] you can get lost in the air on a really simple trick that you've done a thousand times before."

Burns said gymnasts, especially elite ones, do so much work to be able to gain muscle memory and awareness of knowing where their body is in the air.

"Having that spatial recognition, being able to see yourself doing the trick, it becomes a point where it's like built into your body," Burns said, "and you do it sort of without thinking about it cognitively. And then sometimes you get these twisties [and] it's sort of like a mental block that some people refer to as if you're starting to cognitively think about [it] again."

Burns likened it to other things we do over and over, with their execution locked into our muscle memory. Similar to walking down a flight of stairs.

"If you think too hard about picking your feet up at the right rate going down the stairs," she said, "and you start to get overwhelmed and you're going to trip over yourself. That's sort of the feeling of, like, thinking too hard or being too aware of something that you shouldn't really have to think about anymore."
 

Herdfan

Resident Redneck
Posts
4,690
Reaction score
3,571
Caleb Dressel won the 50 Free by .48. That is crazy to beat the field by that margin in a 50.

On a side note, I do not understand the issue with the Soul Cap. I think both sides are a bit stupid. First, I don't understand why it's banned. Bigger cap = more drag = slower or need to be stronger to overcome. So it is not an advantage, if anything it is a disadvantage. Second, if you are a swimmer at the upper levels of swimming (NCAA, USA Swimming > Zones), and you are choosing your hair over your times, then that's on you.
 
U

User.45

Guest
All I see on social media are mediocre white men acting like they know what's best for Simone Biles. These racist tools never waste a chance to attack a black athlete.

These same idiots were cheering against the "woke" US Women's soccer team when they lost to Sweden. Now they want to act like Patriotic Americans and attack Simone for not representing their country by "quitting" These people are straight trash.
The thing is, a Black Athlete's respect can be highly conditional to success. Most recently England's soccer team's Black players getting an extra layer of abuse after missing penalties.
 
Top Bottom
1 2