People admire her? What nonsense! We used to raise, educate and train men and women to be strong and to overcome their mental and physical frailties. If we admire this creature we are doomed as a people and should be. pl
RSS- Black voters may have cast Virginia ballots in 1864
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By hyping Biles as the Greatest Of All Time in the lead up to the Olympics, her performance scores potentially have no where to go but downward. Multi-million dollar endorsement contracts are now at stake, unlike decades ago, so her career strategy seems to be to opt out rather than risk disappointment. But being a quitter won’t be easily forgotten. No doubt there are PR handlers working hard at this very moment to salvage her image.
She can always switch to a psycho-pharma endorsement.
Great idea Cofer! And more apt now than her image on a box of Wheaties.
Or as Tony the Tiger would say about her potential cereal box premiere: SHE’s GREEEAAAT……NOT!
akaPatience,
“Multi-million dollar endorsement contracts are now at stake, unlike decades ago, so her career strategy”
Name the most famous female gymnast on the planet. Hint, it’s not Nadia Comăneci.
“career strategy”
What’s the top age of past female olympic gold medalists? 18, 20? Her career was almost over, she’s cashing in by couragously becoming – a victim. She knew the physical risks of performing her routines long before she betrayed her team mates by quiting immediately prior to the team event. So 21st century. Just like Obama’s favorite seargent, Beau Berghdahl. Her conduct is disgraceful. Her coaches even more so.
What I read in Russian media, which, actually, quite sympathetic, she was on Ritalin for years for ADD (Russians doubt that ADD is a real ailment to start with, and Ritalin is a strong doping in its own right) and, naturally, before Olympics she was taken off it. The withdrawal symptoms from drug include highly pronounced apathy, lack of drive, depression and things of this nature which make a human a compete emotional wreck. Simone Biles was an amazing athlete but her time has come and Ritalin withdrawal could have played (I think it did) a huge role in her departure in such a manner. Now the media circus starts to not allow the main question, which many would like to ask, to be asked–would she have reached the level she was at without doping.
How did she win previous competitions? Did she not have to go off the drug for those as well? All of the higher level competitions drug tests. Nice try Russia.
Nope. She got therapeutic use exemptions for the prescription medication Ritalin from the International Gymnastics Federation, the U.S. Olympic Committee, and the U.S. and World Antidoping Associations for years (!) because she has ASHD. Ritalin is the poor man’s cocaine. It reduces the feeling of danger, removes self-doubt, feelings of insecurity. Ritalin takes away any idea of caution or self-preservation. Good stuff!
The Tokyo rules seem to have forbidden her from using her ‘meds.’
I think Joe Rogan just got into some sort of trouble with Twitter for saying something about this. They are very upset!
Smoothie, by the way, is an American citizen. He gets articles published in Proceedings, no mean feat. As well as some challenging books. He has a very interesting blog “Reminiscences of the Future.” It’s scary as hell what he is saying. People in the US Navy are listening. He knows whereof. Of course, he uses a lot of mathematical formulae to support his arguments, which totally intimidate any opposing point of view.
Tidewater to Tidewater: ADHD
Also–Joe Rogan was retweeting someone who attached the punishment (in hours of banishment) Twitter had meted out for some sort of breach of civilitas. But Rogan has had a lot to say about the Olympics. Calls them “corrupt.”
Tidewater,
Interesting. Then not getting her fix really could be the explanation; probably is. Would have messed her up real good.
Chalk another one up to the Russians.
Simone Biles is a phenomenal gymnast. I’ll never forget watching her incredible performances in Rio, she genuinely seemed to be in a class of her own. She did not achieve this by being a quitter and I hope the outpouring of sympathy over her withdrawals does not detract from her will to win. Her Twitter comment exhibiting wanton snowflakery is a bad sign in that respect.
Colonel, you are quite right that a society which celebrates and rewards taking part over winning and sees mental weakness as a triumph of self expression, is lost. Blame here lies with woke attitudes to events in Tokyo IMO. I am trying to resist the urge to rush to judgement on Simone herself and hope she can still show us what she’s made of.
Barbara Ann
Dream on.
I noticed the expression on her face after one of her bolo performances was not one of humility or disgust with herself. She made a smug bitter look and pointed her nose up and at someone it seemed. The Disney version of the middle finger is how I would describe it. White Gaston arrogance and spite does exist in a 5’1 black woman. It can’t be true. It’s not true…meh.
Better for her to have gone out there and tried, despite feeling off mental center, and fallen flat and broken an arm or leg than to quit like that. The time to quit would have been before or after a competition, not in the middle of it and most certainly not with a team depending on her. I don’t know how she lives with this years down the road. I suspect there will be much regret and damage to her psyche; maybe booze/drugs.
But what are we going to do? Beat up on her? The admiration talking points go too far, though. Maybe better if she simply wasn’t mentioned at all. Just fades away from the public view.
Toughness doesn’t seem to be her problem. She’s won a nationals with a big toe busted in five pieces, and Olympics with a kidney stone. Didn’t go fetal position after being sexually abused by her coach. Hasn’t lost an event since 2013. Tough as woodpecker lips.
The press is focusing on her comments about the mental strain of staying on top at the sport’s elderly age of 24, but specific to this withdrawal, Biles says she has “the twisties”, a term her peers seem well familiar with. Seems sometimes gymnasts go through a phase in which they lose the ability to maintain orientation while twisting madly 10-15 feet off the ground. It was revealed in that one horrible vault attempt she did. Lucky to manage to land on her feet. It’s a dangerous sport.
I wouldn’t admire a decision to back out because she wasn’t having fun or feeling a bit off but I would admire her for that. Taking yourself out for the good of the team is admirable, and she’s the GOAT, so all the more so. Hubris is not admirable. If only Biden had had the courage to acknowledge his shortcomings in that same way, I guess an apt metaphor here.
Mark Logan
Sob!
Col. Lang,
What do you think of Sunisa Lee’s gold?
General comment on Biles: I’m not a mind reader. A shame she dropped out when she did, but high-performing people do burn out. Our culture is not handling mental health very well and never has. We treat it like some special black-box problem (it’s either broke or it ain’t), try to medicate it out of existence, or coddle it. None of those works very well, it’s not any more important than having a bum knee. The treatments are a little more art-than-science but there are strategies with good payoffs.
Another angle to this is the problem our culture has with letting admiration get twisted into idolatry, and an individual has to be particularly tough or lucky to withstand it.
Mike C
From what I know she hung in there and won. Bravo.
Those Hmong are tough.
Yes
I remember them well.
Well said Colonel. Since this event every time I turn on the TV and they are interviewing some olympian, it is some sob story about mental health this, mental health that. These people have it all easy and are cursed with the late Millenial/Zoomer fixation of inventing imaginary obstacles for their internal life stories. Mental health my ass. She didn’t practice hard enough during COVID and she lost. Sore loser, couldn’t handle the pressure. Bowing out like as if it’s some kind of statement is disgraceful, figuring in all the talented young athletes that would kill to be in her place. Yeah maybe I’m being too hard on her, I don’t know what could be going through her head, but I’m sick of hearing about this mental health crap.
I agree with the analysis of Colonel Pat Lang here. Our society has taken off down the wrong road in dealing with “mental issues” and “feelz”, and this is just another in a long series of FUBAR cul-de-sacs. The writing was on the wall when the media celebrated celebrities committing suicide as “courageous”; I can remember shaking my head with disbelief when they called Robin William and Anthony Bourdain “brave”. Bourdain took his own life and left a teenaged daughter behind. Anyone who calls that brave is in serious need of a reevaluation of life. Brave is not assisted suicide and euthanasia; brave is living out your last days in pain and waiting to be called to the next life.