So when did she start having these doubts about herself?
Could be she’s under a lot of pressure from people and groups to “represent” and be a “role model.”
If strangers came up to me all the time to say “we’re counting on you” or “you need to represent,” that would probably play on my nerves and put me off my game, too.
Agreed but we also need to point out the elements of sports these days leading to all these unnecessary pressures. (Applies to more than Simone.)
Overuse of social media
Over commercialization and branding of personality
Hyper-sexualization of the female athlete’s image masking as empowerment
Exhaustion of woke activism :(
She took up a slot that could have gone to a better athlete who had fire in the belly.
She blew it. Snowflake.
Memememememememe
COVID, lockdowns, sexual abuse...
Our young people don’t stand a chance. The crazy Marxist Dems have fear-porned them. I feel great empathy for our young. God help them.
Article is just a bunch of dribble.
She is rather old for the sport. 24.
“whenever you get in a high-stress situation you freak out”
This long-standing problem needed to be mentioned & overcome earlier.
I saw some of her work on TV and it was very impressive.
Weak losers had no business on the team if they can’t compete and stick with it. Too many quiters, prima donnas, and agenda folks. The US Olympic team is a disastrous joke. Can’t believe anyone would waste a second watching them. Even my time to write this is wasted time.
I don’t see anyone talking about the non stop commercials from NBC building her up into some sort of super gymnast. She may simply not be accustomed to that amount of pressure to perform flawlessly.
As elders we’re failing the young by not putting down the predators that stalk and prey upon innocence.
This girl was sexually abused by the team physician for the US women’s national gym team, who also abused dozens of other girls. I’m sure she’s carrying around some trauma from that abuse, and she owes the US women’s national gym team nothing - if they want their team members to be stronger mentally, maybe don’t hire pedophiles who sexually abuse them.
Are we allowed to state the obvious? There was so much pressure put on this extraordinary young athlete because she is black and doesn’t subscribe to the grievance dogma required by the progressive masters. Her whole life has been one of achievement and merit, Now. She is expected to either embrace grievance for her accomplishments and accept the lie of “institutional racism” or perform as a trained monkey for guilt ridden white progressives and accept her token role as a ‘pet’ for the progressive race hustlers, I don’t blame her one bit for quitting. She earned every success without a benevolent white master handing her affirmative action points and the progressives can’t bear she earned it all on her own. That is hell on a young woman’s mind. Progressives ruin everything.
This young lady has so much happen in her young life.
She is a fantastic athlete, the best.
I don’t know what’s going on with her but with her history and her hard work, she deserves all the understanding that we can give.
She deserves support until she tells us that’s not what she wants or kicks sand in our face.
She was already a woke whiner....
Great article. Thanks for posting it.
I suspect she was hoping last year's scheduled olympics was going to be her last but since it was canceled she had to force herself thru another year of training and competition.
I think she's just plain burned out........
A good friend's grandson was an all state baseball player who was offered scholarships to both U. of Michigan and MSU but he turned them down and gave up the game when he graduated high school.
His teenage years were constant travel teams and tournaments that burned him out.