Gymnast Social Media Megathread

[Angelika]

She does look dreadful in that middle photo!
By getting her body weight so low she has made herself look prematurely middle aged. Her face looks as though she is about 45-50

 

[JaJa]

she’s looking more like Barbie these days than like her former self.

Its not that. She clearly either has a severe eating disorder at this point or has some serious illness. I suspect the former.

 

[makam]

I generally try to not comment on people’s bodies and appearance, so I’ll just say that i hope she has friends and family who can help her.

Also, i did not understand the instagram video. Handstand attempt, weird pose, another handstand, weird pose. Is that how instagram videos go? Some genre/trend i don’t get?

 

[MaryClare]

It looked to me she was trying to teach the guy?

 

[Sasha]

My point is that she’s approaching a beauty standard that is widely acknowledged to be wildly unrealistic. I’m not trying to judge her on her aesthetic choices.

 

[makam]

Maybe but it was the pauses to pose and look at the camera that were weird. Do you capture still images off your insta videos to monetize somehow? The guy was just randomly in the background and she didn’t really interact with him, the little i watched.

 

[KristyJ]

In a forum devoted to gymnastics, there’s a non-zero chance that these images may be super triggering for some. Putting this out there as a word of caution against just posting pics to show extreme skinniness.

 

[MaryClare]

Oh yes. It’s 2023 and I still want to drag and drop those photos to a folder marked thinspo

 

[KristyJ]

I am two decades removed from my time as a competitive gymnast. My brain still immediately hits “compare” space. Silly brain, but it does.

 

[Sasha]

Fair point. I’ve replaced mine with a link - is that safe enough?

 

[Gymnbf]

There was a voice over telling them to “do a stag handstand, do a tuck handstand” etc.

She looked drunk to me, probably off of half a white claw.

 

[KristyJ]

I think so, it’s something people could Google, sure, but it’s nice not to have it basically put out there unavoidably

 

[Hatsumomo]

I think the posing was just something she was doing to spend the time before the next instruction and to (poorly) mask the fact that she can’t even do a handstand anymore. She’s not even fully vertical before she’s falling over like she’s somebody who’s never taken a single gymnastics class as opposed to being a quadruple Olympic medalist in the sport. It’s like Hollie Vise who went from being co-World Champion on UB in 2003 to not even being able to do a kip in 2005.

 

[MaryClare]

I don’t think she’s seriously trying to do a handstand, it looks like messing around to me. She was doing aerials within the last year.

A Kip is an easy skill to lose if your strength to weight ratio goes. But the Vise story was clearly Nunnononsense

 

[KristyJ]

To be fair, if I was drunk and being silly, I don’t know how well I would be able to do a handstand. Equilibrium kind of goes sideways in that situation.

 

[Denn]

Just a reminder to people to avoid crossing the line into snark or derision of anyone, including Liukin. It’s one thing to criticize people’s statements or actions, and it’s fine to be concerned, but it’s another thing to put them down. A couple comments are pushing the line on that. Let’s keep it clearly on the non-evil side

 

[JoseM]

Well said Denn.

In my case, I was expressing my concern for Liukin. I wish her well. I support her.

I truly hope all will be well for Liukin very soon.

José M.

 

[MaryClare]

Simone got married. Well just the court house bit. They are having a big ceremony some place else

 

[rlayt]

 

[dweiss324]

Does that say liked by 250,000 people?? Good lord. I’m not surprised, but man that is a different life.