On Tuesday, record-shattering gymnast Simone Biles, evidently rattled by an unexpectedly poor performance on the vault, decided to withdraw herself from the team event for the sake of her own mental health — and the performance of her team, which she was afraid of dragging down due to a less-than-100% focus on her performance.
And let’s not kid ourselves: she was also protecting her ow physical health. She could easily have injured herself, even broken her neck, if she hadn’t been able to keep her mind in the game.
Biles, so good at what she does that she’s single-handedly redefining what gymnastics even is, won praise from empathetic observers for taking care of herself when she most needed to.
On the non-empathetic right, not so much.
Just a couple of days ago right-wingers were literally rooting against too “woke” American athletes in the Olympics. Now somehow the righties have collectively regained their sense of patriotism — because it gives them the perfect opportunity to drag Biles for her alleged selfishness in dropping out of one event.
“There’s No ‘I’ In Team, But There Is In Simone Biles,” sniffed Kylee Zempel in the Federalist. “Sorry, Simone Biles, The Olympics Isn’t About You, It’s About America,” added Federalist editor John Daniel Davidson in a second hectoring post.
On Twitter, the abrasive, much-hated Piers Morgan launched into Biles with a couple of snooty Tweets.
Professional reactionary ideologue Charles Kirk of Turning :Point USA denounced Biles as a “shame to this country.”
“You’re representing your nation, you selfish sociopath,” he snorted. “You know who has the gold medal? Russia! … I’m not okay with that!”
Kirk also suggested that “we are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles,” as if anything about Biles could be considered “weak.”
Meanwhile the Daily Wire’s wrong-opinion-haver Matt Walsh attacked those who showed sympathy towards Biles.
From the way that Olympic gymnast Simone Biles is being praised this week, you might think that the decorated superstar put on a heroic display during the team competition in Tokyo and led her squad to a gold medal. …
It was all perhaps the most effusive praise that has ever been heaped on a quitter.
That is what Simone Biles did to earn this exuberant applause. She gave up.
Just a few days ago, you may recall, Walsh was happily rooting against the US:
The US Women’s soccer team went on to win their next game and tie a third; they’re going to the quarterfinals.
It seems to me that maybe they’re not the embarassment here, any more than Biles is. Walsh, meanwhile, humiliates himself virtually every time he opens his mouth.
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Charlie Kirk calling someone else a sociopath is going to cause the Earth to implode under the crushing weight of irony.
@epitome: all the hugs. I hope you can get some relief soon.
@epitome
I use a night light, the times I’m alone and trying to sleep. One of those tiny fake candles, so it’s both dim and active at the same time. Works wonders for me.
@Ohlmann:
Pretty much. I suppose what I should have said was that she wasn’t a professional gymnast.
@moregeekthan
Thank you for pointing that out. I skimmed through the comments to see if anyone else would mention it, but I think it’s an EXTREMELY important thing. She’s losing track of where she is in the air, and changing things on the fly to compensate. She’s not just protecting her mental health, she’s literally protecting her PHYSICAL health. Of course, garbage people like Piers Morgan don’t care, but everyone who isn’t total garbage should care about that very much. I’m sure he also objects to NFL rules that try to reduce traumatic brain injury, because if our paid monkey performers aren’t risking their lives for our entertainment, what’s the point?
“aren’t fit to lick her toes…”
I’m sure we could all do without having to hear your sexual fantasies, David. Do you picture yourself as being qualified to slobber on her digits?
@ProNEETheus, the
Go back to the manosphere, troll.
As if benching herself because she’s off her game and could be seriously hurt, let alone pull her team’s score down, makes her any less the G.O.A.T. ? Kirk and Morgan and the rest of those useless, hateful twatwaffles aren’t fit to share a species with her.
DrVanNostrand – It wouldn’t surprise me even a little if Charlie Kirk did object to the NFL trying to reduce brain injuries. Many people have and do; it’s one of the (many) reasons I gave up being a US football fan. There was much strum and drang over the (then proposed) rule changes that were decried as ruining their very manly game and turning it into no-contact ballet or something. Naturally, the ones doing the most yelling were people who never even played the game and whose brain cells were in no danger (from contact sports, anyway.)
Of course, that was almost six years ago and I have no idea what rules have or have not been actually been changed.
I have never been a gymnast but I have been in ballet for 17 years and aerial silks for 3, I could never be anywhere near Simone but when I watch her I’m amazed by the upper body strength and grace she possesses. You have to be the in the right mindset to do the things she does. I’ve done far less intense things then her and I’ve broken toes, fractured my ankle, broken my wrist. one little slip and your entire body weight comes crashing down one single point of your body and things break. You mess up in the things she’s doing and you die.
I can’t imagine doing any bar involved sports like that. The three times I have tired to pole dance I have hurt myself each time because it’s so different from the styles I’m use to.
@ProNEETheus, the – You’re being silly. Not every expression is sex-related. E.g. if someone told me to fuck off, I wouldn’t assume they meant to propel myself in the opposite direction by means of sexual intercourse.
@Sheila Crosby, thank you!
@Threp – And thank you too – you gave me an idea. Although the dark itself doesn’t bother me, next time I can try putting a radio on at a low volume.
And I’m feeling better now, but my boyfriend had a tough time yesterday: first the person who said she’d buy his washer and dryer didn’t show up, then the truck he rented for the move was in a different place than the company said, and then he couldn’t figure out how to get to the highway through all the construction.
So he came over to my parents’ place near midnight, since he was near our part of town, and it was good they were there too because my dad, bless him, went out in his own car and showed him an alternate route.
Now, he probably could have figured it out just through Google maps on my computer (he doesn’t have a phone with Internet data), but it’s refreshing to experience some interpersonal niceness after a round of impersonal frustrations.
Anyway, he’s coming back on Saturday for the rest of his things and I’m going with him to spend a week at his mom’s place. I don’t think it will unnerve me too much be a passenger on a long drive – I hope not, anyway. When I was small, my parents would drive me around at night to get me to go to sleep (yes, I was that kind of baby).
@epitome
Creepy troll is just telling us that he finds toes sexual.
@elaine
I’m not the one conjuring up images of men that [I] find repulsive licking the toes of an Olympic athlete; David is getting off on the idea of conservative men with superior wealth and status being forced to genuflect and leave their saliva on a black woman’s toes.
@ProNEETheus
Sure, whatever you say toe sucker. If you want to suck toes, that’s your business. I prefer to suck cock and cunt myself but you know. stop projecting onto David. maybe just keep your kinks to yourself okay Sugar.
Elaine wrote:
I had never heard of aerial silk until recently, when on YouTube I stumbled on a really amazing performance by a Hungarian athlete by surname Vellai (her first name is like “Christina” but I can’t replicate the exact spelling). It looked mesmerizing even compared to elite gymnastics, and certainly very physically demanding, and very dangerous if you slip.
Incidentally, when young spiders drift along wind suspending themselves on floating silk threads, it’s called “ballooning”, but I think “aerial silk” would be a more fitting term.
It spelled “Krisztina” (when you wrote you can’t replicate the spelling I fully expected it to have accents or something, Hungarian is kinda heavy on those). She is (apparently, I googled) an acrobat at the Capital Circus of Budapest.
Sorry, I primarily meant I couldn’t remember the correct letters with reasonable certainty, and didn’t bother to dig up and check the name. Though I did have a vague memory as if the spelling was more complicated than that.
BTW I think “Vellai” sounds really cool.
@Prunt
Nothing about those pond-scum makes them superior to her.
@Lumipuna
I would say that I am still at a very basic level. It was offered at my school so I took the classes. I have broken my wrist while doing it and I wasn’t even that high off of the ground. My feet got tangled and my hands slip so my feet were still in the air but my top half came falling down. I tried to catch my self on my hands to protect my face and landes the wrong way on my hand. It has made my hand calluses like crazy. The finger print reader on my computer can’t read my finger print anymore. For anyone to go into that sport without being in the right mind set is a disaster waiting to happen. I think what Simone does it far more dangerous then what I am doing and what I am doing still puts my neck on the line. I’m just happy she’s didn’t get hurt and that she’s working through it.
Whenever the risks of injury to athletes comes up, there seems to be a huge crowd that think the athletes may as well start every competition by chanting “Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant.”
(“Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you” – supposedly said by Roman gladiators, though this is unlikely.)
@ProNEETheus
*cough* Ducky, that’s not what David wrote. He said that certain critics of Simone Biles were not fit to lick her toes. You don’t have to indulge in shrimping to use that sort of language. It’s just a colorful expression used to express judgment of Simone Biles’ critics.
Personally I would’ve written “not fit to carry her dirty towels” or “not fit to wash her leotards” or “the men who criticize Simone Biles are all hat and no cattle” or “Biles’ critics are as useless as a windshield on a billy goat” or “I’m fixin’ to get all big sister furious on Simone Biles’ critics,” but as her fellow Texan, I feel obliged to be positively FLAMBOYANT in her defense. Not that she needs my help – she’s a credit to the Lone Star State even if she retires from gymnastics tomorrow.
Elaine – Sorry for your injury. At least you have been doing (and continue to do) some cool physical things. I wasn’t remotely athletic even at your age, but I’ve sometimes hurt myself just taking leisure walks in icy winter conditions.
@Lumipuna
Well I’ve also dislocated my hip from sitting down to hard and dislocated my jaw from yawning to wide so it’s not exactly like humans are immune from hurting ourselves in stupid ways just because we’re athletic lol. Happens to everyone I think.
The US women won today.
I’m glad Simone Biles did not compete. That Yurxhenko vault is terrifying to watch.
I’ve banned proneetwhatever for his rapey comment, and deleted the comment.