gmoney411 wrote:dirkforpres wrote:bkseven wrote:
Then she could have taken that break earlier before the Olympics started... There were other US Olympians competing for her spot.
She thought she could handle it up until she realized she couldn’t. There’s no shame at all in her needing to step away for her self improvement
Funny thing is if she did that people would still be calling her a quitter. Simone Biles leaves team hanging right before Olympics. Instead she helped her team qualify for the finals and tried to go out and help them win the finals until she realized she couldn't get it done. How selfish of her.
I don't know if it's already come up in this thread, but I want to add some additional perspective to why she might push herself all the way up until she was competing in Tokyo to withdraw at this last minute:
"It is impossibly difficult to relive these experiences," she wrote, "and it breaks my heart even more to think that as I work towards my dream of competing in Tokyo 2020, I will have to continually return to the same training facility where I was abused."
Biles, America's Sweetheart and the public face of USA Gymnastics, was the only person with the political and public clout to force permanent change in women's gymnastics. She admitted as much when asked why she would subject herself to another five years of physical and emotional distress.
With the thinly veiled threat of choosing not to return for another go at the Olympics, Biles first forced USAG to cancel plans to formally buy the Karolyi Ranch and then persuaded the USOC to decertify USAG. Her last likely feat would be to prove that American gymnasts can still dominate, even without the brutal discipline of Karolyi-style coaching.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/simone-biless-sacrifice-was-selflessAnd here are some quotes from the interview linked in that article:
"I just feel like everything that happened, I had to come back to the sport to be a voice, to have change happen," Biles told Hoda Kotb in an interview that aired on TODAY Wednesday. "Because I feel like if there weren't a remaining survivor in the sport, they would've just brushed it to the side.
https://www.today.com/news/simone-biles-competing-tokyo-olympics-be-voice-abuse-survivors-t214955