Very disappointing that Simone Biles has withdrawn "to protect her mental health". I was looking forward to seeing her flying through the air, and hope she's done the right thing.
If she has genuine mental health issues then I do sympathise. But presumably Biles has some very lucrative sponsorship deals. I don't think her sponsors will be so sympathetic, at least behind their PC veneers. To be honest, I think that the extreme mental stress of the highest elite level of sport is not healthy anyway. Has not been for decades.
I'd be surprised if the sexual abuse she suffered from her trainer when she was younger hasn't contributed to her problems.
Sadly intensive training regimes around elite sport also created opportunities for abusers to control and assault their victims. This has been rife in Gymnastics for decades, all over the world. But also in Football of course, and many other sports. If Simone Biles has withdrawn because she's struggling with memories of the abuse she suffered, then fans should put the blame on the person who did it, and the system that allowed him to.
I may have caught a touch of Woke (is it infectious?) Never been very comfortable about sports involving animals. Horses, greyhounds, and any others to be honest. 30 years ago I was quite bothered about farming animals as well. Now I have to admit that feeling is coming back again. Slightly off-topic I know, sorry about that.
Yes, but there's an App you can buy for £2,999 which warns you if you you've been in contact with a woke-infected person. For a further £5 you can get a virtual debriefing session run by The Sun.
Even Olympic hero Adam Peaty has been subjected to online abuse for taking a month off to protect his mental health. I expect Ben Stokes has too. Keyboard w*nkers.
While I'm not of course in favour of abuse towards people with mental health issues, I think it's unfortunate that those who are in the spotlight right now, do not have any pressing matters in their financial lives that they have to consider. In a nutshell, they are made up. They can afford to take a month off work, or a year off, or the rest of their lives off. 99.9% of folk are not in a position to do that. A penniless youth, or a single parent on universal credit living in a 12th floor flat on a sink estate, don't have the option to take an indefinite time off work. And they are just as likely to be suffering from mental illness as a superstar sports person. Yet poor folk don't get showered with media praise for being frank about their mental health. Coming out about mental illness could be seen as a privilege for those who can afford it.
Adam Peaty has had an average of two weeks per year off for the last seven years. It's not a lifestyle most of us can imagine. Likewise the sportsmen like Stokes who have to live in a bubble with their team-mates away from their family and friends for long periods in a foreign country. And there are plenty of less well-off people who are forced to take time off because of mental health issues. One of my former colleagues was off for 6 months with depression, when his manager wrote him a nasty letter threatening to sack him if he didn't return to work. Onhis third day back he had a fatal heart attack while loading his van. These problems really can affect anyone, and this is just one example, I could give others. Mental health services in this country are ineffective, mostly just a box-ticking exercise. I'm not sure about "showered with media praise". The media has reported sympathetic comments from fellow athletes who know what they're talking abahrt, and Scot Duncan makes the point that previously they would just pretend they had an injury. If the keyboard w*nkers were more frank about their own mental health issues social media would be healthier.
I think in some quarters Simone Biles has been praised more for withdrawing from her Olympic events than she would have been if she'd won Gold medals. Not saying that's right or wrong. Just that I think it's true, and a very new phenomenon. Sports people should not be taking two weeks off per year. Or spending months away from their families. Commercialisation of elite level sport has gone much too far. It's closer now to the Victorian exploitation of physical freaks than it has ever been. There are too many talentless middle men making too much money off TV sports rights and sponsorship.
If Peaty or Stokes had said "For the sake of my sanity" instead of "to protect my mental health" there would probably not been much reaction. Funny that.
