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OT: Olympics: Simone Biles out with injury...

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Blakeon18

Blakeon18

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out of the team competition. Is she still expected to compete in the individual events?

Edit here: the original crawl from ESPN said 'injury'...now it is saying 'medical issue'...as noted in eebmg's post.
 
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eebmg said:
Oh boy. That does not sound good, Too late to cancel the Olympics?
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Is this her last Olympics? I know she's 24 and gymnasts have a short window to compete at their peak, so I will feel bad if this is how her career comes to an end.
 
hoopsfan22 said:
Is this her last Olympics? I know she's 24 and gymnasts have a short window to compete at their peak, so I will feel bad if this is how her career comes to an end.
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I think I heard that she wanted to end her Career after Paris (2028). Her coaches are from Paris
 
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It’s easy to overlook how much pressure athletes are under to perform. Biles has been rock solid throughout her career, until the second day of qualifying at the US trials, when she made a number of uncharacteristic errors.

Subsequently, she struggled again during the first day of qualifying at the Olympics, although she still had the best overall score. Today, she missed her first vault and I guess she determined she wasn’t able to continue. I hope that was the right decision for her. This story will dominate the news today.
 
I just hope she can leave the olympics feeling comfortable with her accomplishments. She is an incredible athlete and done so much already. Hats off!
Congratulations to the rest of team USA with their silver!
 
A total disaster. USA gets team Silver, behind the Russians who get Gold. Biles trains for 4 years, does nothing but wins & sets record, & gets injured at the worst possible time. Unbelievable.
 
Nooooo. I feel for her. Elite gymnastics is 4 years of suck broken up by the Olympics. (Yes, I know there are national and international competitions but the Olympics is their time to shine, and, frankly, an unequalled time to build brand value and marketability.) I hope she gets a chance to compete. She's worked hard and sacrificed a lot to get there.
 
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She didn't look good from the get go...All that pounding has really taken a toll on her body. Even Osaka looked terrible too. Best of luck to the both of those young millionaires..
 
bluedevil said:
She didn't look good from the get go...All that pounding has really taken a toll on her body. Even Osaka looked terrible too. Best of luck to the both of those young millionaires..
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Absolutely. There’s a lot of pressure that comes along with being the face of the entire team USA at an Olympics. Osaka’s was ever more prominent being from the host nation and playing a huge role in the opening ceremony. Makes you appreciate people like Phelps who never cracked under the pressure.
 
From a non-ESPN article:

While the competition was still taking place, USA Gymnastics issued a statement confirming Biles had withdrawn due to a “medical issue”, but there was confusion about whether Biles had suffered a physcial injury during the event.

Speaking after the event, Biles said she was not injured, “just a little ... to my pride”, and had to “focus on my mental health”.
“After the performance I did, I just didn’t want to go on,” she said.

www.smh.com.au

Simone Biles pulls out of individual final

Superstar gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from Thursday’s all-around competition to focus on her mental wellbeing, and will not defend her Olympic title.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au
 
I was trying to remember another competition of this magnitude when a key athlete removed themselves from competing. The best I could come up with was game 7 of the 1968 NBA championships, when Wilt Chamberlain took himself out during the 4th qtr against the Celtics in LA, never to return, with the Celtics going on to win the championship.

I’m not sure what to make of Biles decision. After the competition, Biles indicated that she didn’t want to prevent her team from winning a medal. Maybe if she fights through her mental issues, she leads the team to gold, or maybe she has one bad routine after another and the team finishes 4th.

Wilt had a history of fading in big games. Biles has been one of the greatest big competition performers ever. For her sake, I hope she finds solace in her decision and can move forward in her life.
 
bloor said:
From a non-ESPN article:

While the competition was still taking place, USA Gymnastics issued a statement confirming Biles had withdrawn due to a “medical issue”, but there was confusion about whether Biles had suffered a physcial injury during the event.

Speaking after the event, Biles said she was not injured, “just a little ... to my pride”, and had to “focus on my mental health”.
“After the performance I did, I just didn’t want to go on,” she said.

www.smh.com.au

Simone Biles pulls out of individual final

Superstar gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from Thursday’s all-around competition to focus on her mental wellbeing, and will not defend her Olympic title.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au
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Wow.
 
I wonder if some of these athletes will give some of that sponsor money back after quitting? I believe they will..
 
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bloor said:
From a non-ESPN article:

While the competition was still taking place, USA Gymnastics issued a statement confirming Biles had withdrawn due to a “medical issue”, but there was confusion about whether Biles had suffered a physcial injury during the event.

Speaking after the event, Biles said she was not injured, “just a little ... to my pride”, and had to “focus on my mental health”.
“After the performance I did, I just didn’t want to go on,” she said.

www.smh.com.au

Simone Biles pulls out of individual final

Superstar gymnast Simone Biles has withdrawn from Thursday’s all-around competition to focus on her mental wellbeing, and will not defend her Olympic title.
www.smh.com.au www.smh.com.au
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I guess there are 2 trains of thought on this...on one hand, take care of your mental health. I'm not sure there is more pressure on anyone in Tokyo than Biles. She's under a microscope and has the weight of the world on her shoulders so I can sympathize with that.

On the other, she has her teammates relying on her to step up and lead the team. Having your star gymnast deciding not to compete at the last minute is a bit of a selfish move and hurts her teammates chances of winning. She signed up for this and decided to take a coveted roster spot that could've gone to one of a zillion other gymnasts who were dying to be here. Leaving her team out in the cold on the biggest stage is a major bummer.
 
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bballnut90 said:
I guess there are 2 trains of thought on this...on one hand, take care of your mental health. I'm not sure there is more pressure on anyone in Tokyo than Biles. She's under a microscope and has the weight of the world on her shoulders so I can sympathize with that.

On the other, she has her teammates relying on her to step up and lead the team. Having your star gymnast deciding not to compete at the last minute is a bit of a selfish move and hurts her teammates chances of winning. She signed up for this and decided to take a coveted roster spot that could've gone to one of a zillion other gymnasts who were dying to be here. Leaving her team out in the cold on the biggest stage is a major bummer.
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She already tried to compete and she knew she was not performing optimally. She did the right thing by letting her teammates compete without her dragging them down and being the only story of the competition.

Hope she can get her mind right and compete in the individuals
 
Two things may be playing with her mental health. This is the first time her parents have not been present to support her. I don't understand why parents are not allowed, especially if vaccinated. Second, these gymnasts are not used to performing in empty venues. As the saying goes, the silence is deafening.
 
oldude said:
I was trying to remember another competition of this magnitude when a key athlete removed themselves from competing. The best I could come up with was game 7 of the 1968 NBA championships, when Wilt Chamberlain took himself out during the 4th qtr against the Celtics in LA, never to return, with the Celtics going on to win the championship.

I’m not sure what to make of Biles decision. After the competition, Biles indicated that she didn’t want to prevent her team from winning a medal. Maybe if she fights through her mental issues, she leads the team to gold, or maybe she has one bad routine after another and the team finishes 4th.

Wilt had a history of fading in big games. Biles has been one of the greatest big competition performers ever. For her sake, I hope she finds solace in her decision and can move forward in her life.
Expand ...
Tiger Woods withdrew from a bunch of tourneys after two horrific rounds. No one called him a choker.

 
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bballnut90 said:
On the other, she has her teammates relying on her to step up and lead the team. Having your star gymnast deciding not to compete at the last minute is a bit of a selfish move and hurts her teammates chances of winning. She signed up for this and decided to take a coveted roster spot that could've gone to one of a zillion other gymnasts who were dying to be here. Leaving her team out in the cold on the biggest stage is a major bummer.
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This perspective is of course not invalid, but I would gently invite all of us, myself included, to question the assumptions that underpin it.

There's a traditional line of thought that mental health issues can be overcome just by "snapping out of it" or "sucking it up" ... because god forbid we let down our [family/team/country/fans]. This perspective goes hand in hand with a failure to appreciate mental health as equally "real" as physical health, as well as with the longstanding and crippling stigma surrounding mental illness.

I'm not usually one to draw parallels between sports and military life, but the soaring suicide rate among active service members illuminates the perils of just blithely assuming that anyone who "signed up for it" should be able to bear whatever the mental toll.
 
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I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions as to her mental health, other than what Biles has said. I don’t see how withdrawing would have hurt her teams chances. I thought the lowest team score was dropped in gymnastics. . Maybe she just didn’t want to continue individually if she felt she couldn’t do her best. I just don’t know at this point.
 
Plebe said:
This perspective is of course not invalid, but I would gently invite all of us, myself included, to question the assumptions that underpin it.

There's a traditional line of thought that mental health issues can be overcome just by "snapping out of it" or "sucking it up" ... because god forbid we let down our [family/team/country/fans]. This perspective goes hand in hand with a failure to appreciate mental health as equally "real" as physical health, as well as with the longstanding and crippling stigma surrounding mental illness.

I'm not usually one to draw parallels between sports and military life, but the soaring suicide rate among active service members illuminates the perils of just blithely assuming that anyone who "signed up for it" should be able to bear whatever the mental toll.
Expand ...
I think the most reasonable way to look at this is that there is an entire spectrum (different levels) of mental health issues just like their is physical injury issues and that overcoming these issues to compete depends on the level of the particular malady. For example, mental issues can mean anything from suicidal thoughts or loss of structured thoughts (blackouts) to the "yips" just like physical injuries can go from a sprained ankle (to be taped up) to ligament damage . It really is not something an outsider can assess so it is best we simply wait and see what develops.
 
darkstar1 said:
I don’t know enough to draw any conclusions as to her mental health, other than what Biles has said. I don’t see how withdrawing would have hurt her teams chances. I thought the lowest team score was dropped in gymnastics. . Maybe she just didn’t want to continue individually if she felt she couldn’t do her best. I just don’t know at this point.
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In the team competition all 3 scores count. Biles score on the vault, her only event before withdrawing, was the lowest score of the 3 US gymnasts, and Biles lowest score on the vault in any competition in the past 10 years.
 
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