What happened in Team Finals

[JaJa]

Amazing how the 4 young women can do what Tom can not. Especially amazing how Simone could face the press after what happened and handle it so very well.

 

[ucrgirl]

That was the right decision. He doesn’t really know what is going on so why should he comment? (Plus, he is bad with the press and that isn’t going to improve right now.)

 

[alc]

It may actually be better for humanity as a collective that he sat it out. Hearing him trying to answer questions on this one would’ve probably been damaging for us on a species level.

Fully agree, even without the witty-as-always wording. I am unapologetic about SJW’ing but the one truth I’ll grant to their detractors is that pushing someone for a quick answer when they’re in full-on deer-in-headlights and have no fucking clue what to say rarely ends well.

Whatever’s going on, Tom is allowed to take his time as far as I’m concerned.

 

[rlayt]

Imagine how Marta would be talking to Simone right now. Ugh I’m glad she’s gone.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

That’s a terrifying thought.

 

[Sasha]

I suspect that under Martha, Simone would have bottled up and pushed through but paid for it later, like Maroney.

 

[cats]

Positively, Martha is not there, but Aimee is.

 

[Buckthorn99]

Haha NOW I can assume MyKayla talked to him…. Good.

 

[Jack]

I’m wondering if Tom even had a say in what happened today. My perception was that the decision was made without him.

 

[Puffin]

I find it astonishing that Tom seems to be MIA. He didn’t even attend the press conference to state his support for Simone or publicly congratulate the team for winning Silver.

I guess that he was only there to take credit for the expected Gold medal and not to do any of the hard bits of his role

 

[Gymnbf]

Am I the only one who thinks that this was planned, somehow? Something about this just does not track for me.

First, I don’t understand the narrative of “I wanted to do it for myself but I was doing it for other people” when she’s spent all season talking about how part of why she came back was to 1) see how far she could push herself and 2) keep a Nassar survivor in the USAG system. Both those narratives fall apart based on today’s comments.

Second, it was utterly bizarre for her to say that team USA was “hoping for top 3.” Again, not at all along the narrative that Simone herself has been pushing since her comeback. And this was an intentional statement.

Third, that post-meet media event was…something. We’ve seen her get extremely and rightly emotional and candid over the years, from “You had one damn job” to the fluff about being older and more scared of her skills (full prefrontal cortex development has entered the chat.) Is it not strange to anyone else that there was a nonchalance in her answers? It all sounded so…rehearsed. Yes, there are bigger things in the world than the Olympics after the Olympics and your career are over. But you can’t be an Olympian and have it not be the biggest thing in your world. I supposed I would have expected more devastation if this was something that hit her unexpectedly today.

Tom’s absence also seems to indicate that there is at the very least, a huge breakdown in communication between him and the athletes OR he’s putting out fires we don’t know about.

I’m not saying she made the wrong call. And for casual viewers, it’s really easy to forget that the difference between Michael Phelp’s mental health struggles that he pushed through to win and Simone’s could be literal paralysis or death. But I still think that this is extremely weird and that something else has been going on since they arrived in Tokyo, possibly before. The lush in me really wants to find out, but we likely never will (or it’ll take a while.)

Also, I bet Grace is seething. She didn’t say a damn word during the post-meet conference, and her coach has commented on how quiet but brutally competitive she is.

 

[IratePanda]

I can honestly say that I respect Simone more for today’s decision than for anything else she’s accomplished as a gymnast. How many people have the courage and self-awareness to say “no” in the face of incredible pressure? It’s difficult enough for an ordinary person, let alone an Olympic athlete.

I say this as a truly ordinary person. Life just freaks me out sometimes. And when it does, it’s okay to say, no. So, thank you, Simone, for helping me realize this.

 

[Doug1233]

Can someone here summarize WHAT JUST HAPPENED???

She completely lost her head.

View attachment 1938

This angle shows it perfectly.

Look at her head scan to the left as she opens out of the 1.5.

She got lost.

 

[JaJa]

I can honestly say that I respect Simone more for today’s decision than for anything else she’s accomplished as a gymnast.

I don’t know if i would go that far, but I totally respect what she did today and this is in line with the respect I have had for Simone all along. My sense is she realized that whatever those “demons” were that are now showing up would do serious harm to her performance and she did not want to harm her Team or the chances of her Teammates to medal. That’s what I took from her saying to them something like “Its ok, I’ve had my Olympics.” This is their time and she did not want her own drama to take it away from them. She behaved like a true GOAT.

 

[cats]

Amazing that she still landed facing forward.

Maybe she’s confused because the lighting in the arena isn’t weird. /s

 

[Doug1233]

Twitter is literally full of absolute crazies.

It was an twattish entitled social media post, yes. But the gymternet is out for blood today. It’s not PC to blame Simone or Jordan today. So Jonas gets it.

I actually hate the Twitter gymternet.

 

[rlayt]

I’m not doing Twitter, Facebook or Reddit. I know they are a cesspool right now. I went once to check the Harmer twit. No more.

 

[ArnoldRimmer]

I don’t think there’s any way this was planned. She could’ve seriously injured herself with that vault and it simply isn’t credible that she’d willingly take the risk for the sake of pretence. I do think it might not have come from nowhere. She may well have expected another under par performance.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I’ve stayed off Twitter almost completely. I’ve been on Facebook and Instagram a little.

 

[Doug1233]

She had no idea where she was or where the floor was.

Crazy that she didn’t put her hands down.

I had 8.8 E.