People that aren’t built for the pressure shouldn’t actively refer to themselves as the goat.

If she has a legitimate mental condition that sucks. And she has my sympathy. Fortunately the rocks rattling around my dome work. The again I’m obviously no world class athlete

But that’s all the more reason to not call yourself the goat and shit. Just do your thing. I honestly haven’t thought about her since 2016, so maybe I’m only picking up part of the message she’s sending.

Bottom line if you’re going to try to publicly embrace greatness, which she’s entitled to do, it reflects poorly if you quit.

I didn’t know she was raped. Christ. Fuck whatever dickface would do that to a kid.

No argument from me. It’s just the whole goat thing just looks really really bad.
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It's marketing, Dude. She IS the greatest American gymnast of all time.

How do you think it would have been accepted if she completely bailed before the Olympics?

Considering all of the hate and anger in this thread directed her way, I'd say not well.
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Yea, but it still looked stupid.
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Larry Nassar. She was sexually abused by him for years.
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Fuck that dude with a D9 Cat.

Child rapists are the worst. Ever.


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I went to business school. I’m familiar with Marketing. There are also concepts of managing the message that goes out to consumers. And there was a different way to do it. I don’t know what agency she had over her hype video but she’s the one big name on the team.

Frankly it would have missed me if she dropped out before the olympics. They wouldn’t have ran the hype video and I’d never have been the wiser.

I’m not throwing around a bunch of hate, especially in light of the Rape stuff, but it’s a bad look.
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Really, 4 gold medals in the Olympics and about a billion in world championships "can't handle the pressure"?
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Casey at the Bat should be mandatory reading for anyone interested in sports.
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Not my argument. I was just responding to the supposition.
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Aryan bloodlines at their finest. We need her in the off/on thread immediately.
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It's the new Long John Silvers platter pic.
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I think the final number of minor girls that have come forward to say they were molested by Nassar is 200+. Most had it happen for years.
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All good points. Agree, the goat thing is/was cheesy, especially more so now. But she legitimately, unquestionably is the greatest, even after today.

As far as the Larry Nassar stuff (Wikipedia Link), yeah, its pretty insane. Not only the fact that he sexually abused and photographed/videotaped 265 girls for decades, but the victims also had to deal with the fallout of their own families and friends not believing them, the other coaches and leadership at USA Gymnastics not believing them and covering it up, and even Michigan State not believing them and covering it up. It was some pretty insane, traumatic stuff.

I think the above is why I was so willing to give her a break on the panic attack or whatever. Not because she's black, like the goober from earlier said.
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I get where you're coming from and don't necessarily disagree that it was a bad look, it's just that I don't think that anyone could have predicted that she'd have an anxiety attack at the Olympics.
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You're one of my favorite people on here, but I don't think you're qualified to judge her if you don't even know who Larry Nassar is and what he did to **hundreds** of girls. And how USA Gymnastics - which she represents - went to great lengths to ignore it and cover it up which only meant more and more abuse.

So, let's just say you have a job where you need to be flawless in everything you do. If you're a split second slow, it could mean serious injury or paralysis. You've been doing this your entire life. You hoped it would be over in 2020 but it was delayed a year. You pushed through it. But you've also felt conflicted representing an organization which exploited you and others for its own gain. But you pressed on believing you could do it, under the world's most powerful microscope, to live up to what everyone thought you should be. For your country.

The girl was molested by a team doctor. As a fucking child. You now know you were one of hundreds of gymnasts who suffered the same fate. And the adults who were supposed to protect you and all of your friends hide in the shadows? But enjoy the accolades and benefit from trappings of your success?

And yet you're supposed to represent them proudly? And just brush it off?

Pretty easy to see how she could reach a breaking point easily. And to blame her for it and act like it minimizes her accomplishments? Her going out there again to try to continue to prove herself as the greatest ever in her sport is so many million miles beyond what any of us are able to comprehend.

And for those comparing her to Mahomes? Saying there's no precedent? Completely ridiculous. Mahomes will never, ever need to be as perfect in every motion as Simon Biles is to avoid catastrophic injury. He might get into a terrible mental space and the worst thing that happens to him is a 1 TD/4 INT game. Mike Trout might go 0-20. Jordan once went 2/22. Tiger might, be, well, what he became when he hit his breaking point.

Good for Simon Biles for being honest about it and not half-assing things. Being honest about mental health is probably a lot more inspiring to people who need it than anything else she could've done in these games.
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