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It’s Not Heroic to Choke and Quit
I don’t want to be overly critical of Simone Biles’ decision to withdraw from the Olympic team’s competitions. I haven’t followed gymnastics for years, but my impression is that Biles is widely considered to be the greatest female gymnast of all time. Her ability and achievements are extraordinary.
During the first rotation in the team all-around competition, Biles had a disappointing vault. She then pulled out of the competition, with varied explanations that seem unconvincing. It looks, to me, like she briefly lost her mojo. This would be, here’s that word again, disappointing, but understandable. Nobody’s perfect.
Biles set herself up for this, to some extent. She’s sometimes called the GOAT, meaning “greatest of all time.” She apparently leaned into this hype, like Muhammad Ali, by wearing leotards bearing an image of a goat. Humility is a wiser course, I think. But again, I don’t want to dump on Biles, who is quite young and the young rarely display notable wisdom.
The thing that is strange, to me, has been the reaction in much of the media. The narrative seems to be that Biles quitting was heroic, in order to take care of her “mental health.” Here’s a sample of this reaction:
- “The Radical Courage of Simone Biles’s Exit from the Team USA Olympic Finals.” The New Yorker.
- “Simone Biles’ Olympic withdrawal could be her greatest act of heroism.” SBNation.
- “The world was clamouring for the American to outdo her competitors as well as herself. It took exceptional bravery for her to step back.” The Guardian.
- “As athletes, we’re told to tough it out. It’s toxic masculinity at work, this idea that we should ignore our emotions and what our body needs. We call what she did heroic.” Time.
I dissent, not respectfully (yet). I do not find it heroic to choke, and I do not find it heroic to quit after choking.
It is understandable, a bit disappointing, fine. Maybe she was having a bad day, though all that we know is that she had a single bad vault. Biles might or might not have done well on the remaining events. We’ll never know, because she gave up.
We do expect more of our heroes.
But it’s the media reaction that is so bizarre, to me. What in the world is going on here? Is it just an attack on competence? Is it the typical resentful, sour-grapes attitude of the ordinary?
Is it the victim narrative? The silly Time article linked above says that gymnasts “are taught that their bodies are not their own.” In sport that “sacrifices bodies, minds and lives for perfection.” What?
Is it because Biles is female? Is it because she is black? Is it because the media had hyped a black woman as the greatest athlete ever, just unbelievable, wait ’til you see her, she’ll blow your socks off . . . well, not so much. Not that day.
So, apparently, the media has to lie about it. To pretend that failure and worse, quitting, is heroic. I do not see any justification for this narrative, and I do not see any reason to dissent “respectfully.” I am open to a counter-argument, as perhaps I’m missing something.
Again, I don’t want to beat up on Simone Biles. She’s had an amazing career. She appears to have cracked under the pressure, at these particular Olympic Games. That is sad, but not the end of the world.
You know, even Mighty Casey struck out. There was no joy in Mudville that day, but that’s OK. Casey was still a hero, just not a perfect one.
But I don’t recall anything about Casey walking away from the plate after his first strike, or making excuses. That’s not what heroes do.
Published in Sports
You apparently haven’t read the comments, just for starters. Gymnastics can be very dangerous if your balance is off, etc.
The “yips” is a term long used in golf, which I only casually follow. The seasoned athlete suddenly can’t get the head of the putter or iron to go the right way. The ball goes everywhere except where intended. It is a brain – body disconnect.
Go look at the times, this year, of the women’s gold medalists in every event, and compare them to the men’s times in the same event. There is no woman who could even make the men’s team in any of the major countries.
These are facts.
But the “yips” won’t cause a golfer to fall and possibly break their neck.
See Chuck Knoblauch. Much more dangerous for a gymnast:
Understood. I embrace these facts; all sports bear them out. However, to say that it’s ‘unwomanly’ to be competitive is frankly, insulting. Many girls love to go fast, to see how well they can do – and they go out and do just that. I was tapped to be a synchro swimmer but I had no interest. God made me fast and I wanted to swim fast – and I did, on the girls’ teams and on women’s teams. At my Masters Team, women swim head to head with the men and it is a blast. We love it. We swim fast and compete for its joy and sometimes a blue ribbon or a gold medal.
Do each of us have the guts to carry in the tough days ahead? Will we crack under pressure?
I would say that the two Olympic sports where women draw bigger than men are gymnastics and ice skating. I don’t know that that is true for any other sport, but the woman’s versions of both of these are more appealing and the market has spoken. Women’s gymnastics in particular are spectacular; ice skating, they are just more aesthetically appealing. They are not third rate athletes. I look forward to your other post.
Perhaps more importantly in the current era, “Who goes Nazi“?
Women’s (generally) lower center of gravity is beneficial in some situations, has anyone done a comparison of times etc for women’s ice skating vs men’s?
They are different athletes.
I do not really know enough to have an opinion about what Biles did , or her reasons. However, I did find all the comments on my employer’s internal social media stating that it was “Brave” to be passing strange. Many comments about “how she did the most important thing, and put herself first”. Again, I don’t know her situation, but to me the reaction to her decisions was weird. Military people, Policeman, Fireman, Search and Rescue People — these are all Brave. They risk their lives for others. Sports is just Sports — enjoyable, sometimes admirable, but not “Brave”. Didn’t it used to be considered the honorable thing to focus on your friends, family, team or nation and not yourself? Wasn’t an over-focus on your own self considered shameful rather than something to be praised ? Again, I do not know enough to evaluate Biles decision, but I thought the praise of it to be very wrong headed.
I’d bet most these people who call her brave occasionally take a “Me” day. I hate these people. They don’t schedule time off before hand, call in their “Me” day in the morning and suddenly thrust their workload on those who aren’t as selfish as them. I guess their mental health isn’t riddled with guilt making their coworkers life worse.
Yeah. Used by male golfers to describe such a phenomenon. It’s also quite commonly used in baseball to describe those —-males–(particularly pitchers) who suddenly lose their mojo. I’m from Pittsburgh, and I well remember Steve Blass’s suffering from same. There have been a number of others, in multiple sports, over the years.
I don’t think the “yips” is sex-specific.
I do think, although I haven’t seen much made of it, that a cultural climate in which athletes who have trained, sometimes for decades to be proud of and honor their country by their achievements, and in which they are (rather suddenly) put at the center of a maelstrom of rejection and hate for everything they have stood for all their lives, must be very dispiriting and difficult to deal with, no matter which sex you belong to. Couple that with the (very real) matters of sexual abuse of athletes in the more “artsy” (figure-skating, gymnastics) forms of sports by coaches, doctors, and others in authority, and I think it’s only a matter of time before the pot boils over.
I give Simone Biles credit for not hiding behind a physical injury story, something which would have been much easier, and about which her critics would have been much kinder, had she done so.
Great reply!
Well, I was going to let this one pass originally. But here goes.
I don’t think that this is a great reply, unless you’re a feminist. It is a simplistic one-liner, and a put-down, built on feminist presuppositions. I doubt that either of you consider yourselves to be feminists. This thinking is widespread in our culture, however, even among those who are not feminists — or perhaps, more accurately, do not realize that they are feminists.
Competitive sports are, in essence, a form of simulated or ritualized combat. Combat is a male endeavor.
There are manly virtues, and womanly virtues, at least for those of us with a Biblical world view. Both are important, but they are different. I think that it is a mistake to teach women that they should pursue male activities, like high-level competitive sport. I think that it is a mistake to assign excessive admiration to female sports champions, who are usually far inferior to the men competing in the same sport, as this points our daughters in the wrong direction.
Men should strive to be first-rate men, and women should strive to be first-rate women, in my view.
I have been asked to comment on this in a few different spaces and each time my answers have developed. I agree with many of the sentiments of the post and comments that we seem to be over-glorifying the situation, as well as (perhaps reflexively even) over-vilifying it. I have heard about the possibility of her experiencing the “twisties” in the air–a condition that would make gymnastics quite difficult and likely dangerous. I have a great deal of empathy for her.
I do think the narrative is overblown and being used to attack success and, as the author pointed out “toxic masculinity.” (Which is an odd take.) Of course, many activists seek to blame almost anything on “toxic masculinity.” There is a cultural attack on American greatness, so I think our cultural institutions saw this an opportunity to advance their agenda.
It’s pretty simple. I think your statement, “Women aren’t actually supposed to be competitive athletes. It’s unwomanly. It is manly.” is stupid and insulting and I am no feminist. Your first instinct was on the money…you should have let it pass.
Agree heartily. The “women shouldn’t do sports” attitude is just bizarre.
According to Jerry, you are a feminist, but you just don’t realize it.
It doesn’t even need to be biblical, that should be a basic biological point of view too, aka The Science!
Gets in the way of all that baby-makin’!
And then to say it’s Biblical . . . yeah, I don’t think God would appreciate being credited for that view.
Jerry’s posts and comments are usually well thought out and cogent. His view on this is bizarre.
It’s also biological/scientific.
If it was biological/scientific then women either wouldn’t be interested in sports or wouldn’t be able to participate.
Something messing with the inner ear, like even a mild sinus infection, would affect the balance and spacial awareness. I don’t know if that’s what it is, but in high end gymnastics, even small, rapid physical changes could throw something off.
How is women (or girls) participating in competitive sports different in kind from women (or girls) participating in dance? Presumably once you get above a novice level, there is plenty of competition: slots in recitals, slots on high school dance teams, roles in musical theater productions. All of these activities demand focus, time, dedication, training, athletic ability and conditioning, etc. But I guess it’s okay to let girls dance because it’s… womanly? Do I have that right? What if the chick dancers aren’t “the best”? What if the dudes can jump higher and spin faster? Or does that not count because they’re not being manly? I’m confused.
I want to hear this, particularly in light of 2 Samuel 6:14-22.
Is that David leaping and dancing before the Lord? (I didn’t peek first!)