The purpose of this rant is not to opine in anyway on whether or not Simone should have skipped the Olympics if she was having mental issues related to the enormous pressure placed on her. If you have an opinion, I am sure you can find countless people who either agree or vehemently disagree with you. I don’t care. My brother who was a PE major, and remember that is an education degree and you know my position on that fraud, has all kinds of gobbledygook saying Biles choked etc., but that’s not my point at all.

So what is my point? Gymnastics is a highly dangerous sport even on your best of days with all your faculties working at 100%. I have twins who did gymnastics for four years and I got to see the sport up close and personal. Likewise one of the twins switched to diving and was a scholarship athlete at NC State.

You need to have extreme air sense in order to have any real chance of success flipping, twisting multiple times in the air with the result of losing your place being potential disastrous injury. It’s why the one twin became a scholarship athlete and the other switched to fencing at which he excelled. Twin number one was said by all who saw and coached to have the best air sense of almost anyone who who they ever saw. Just so it’s clear air sense is knowing exactly where you are spatially in the midst of multiple twists and turns and flips in midair.

Now I don’t know if you have seen it but look it up. Whatever event she was doing, when she came out of whatever flipping and twisting she was doing it is clear she had absolutely no idea where she was or how she got there and was scared. That’s the recipe for catastrophic disaster and Simone was right to withdraw All you armchair quarterbacks who couldn’t do a cartwheel if your life depended on it need to shut up. Simone doesn’t need to endanger herself so you can cover some xenophobic bet you made. It is much more important that she protect herself than to act like some gladiator in the Roman Colosseum for your pleasure!!