Wow, there is a lot to unpack here. Where to start?
First, she didn’t quit. Mental health doesn’t work on a timetable. It’s not because she did poorly on the vault. She did poorly on the vault BECAUSE of her mental health. Twisties are a real thing and multiple gymnasts have come out over the last few days explaining how scary & dangerous it is. You’d be wise to listen to one of them. In summary, continuing and having one misstep could have resulted in grave injury or death. Which makes your football analogy ridiculous. Tom Brady missing a pass results in an incompletion. Her missing an element could lead to her death. And she’s not a quitter - she has competed with a kidney stone, broken toes, achilles problems. She wisely understood this wasn’t something she could just push through.
Second, understand the immense pressure she was under. Not only was she carrying the weight of this team, she is the lone member who suffered the abuse of US Gymnastics. And this was her first time back at an Olympics without her abusers. Repressed trauma is very real. Go back and look at the video of Keri Strug’s vault. Not only did they not need it to win gold, she asked not to do it again and was told she had to. She was then handed off to the team doctor, the one who sexually abused them. And it ended her career at 18. None of the other girls have any of that going on, so you can’t compare them. That said, if any of them needed to walk away, I’d applaud them too.
Lastly, she did it FOR the team. Even if she had put her own health aside and pushed through, she likely would have tanked it for them and they’d be walking away without medals. And they wouldn’t have placed higher than they did with an alternate. But you should be happy, she’s pulled out of the AA and Jade will take her place. So using your analogy, if a QB said “hey team, I’m suffering some blindness” your answer would be “it’s ok, go ahead and keep going”? Doubtful. You’d want them replaced with somebody who could see where to throw it. Twisties means she couldn’t tell spacial awareness. So you expected her to do flips, twists and blind dismounts when she couldn’t tell where the floor was?
You should really do some research on gymnastics and then on mental health. And know it’s ALWAYS ok to put your mental health first. That’s the lesson we should be teaching our kids.
This is from a former gymnast. Definitely worth the read.
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