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I thought Adam spoke eloquently in this clip from his #TalkinTokyo show earlier today: https://twitter.com/NBCOlympics/status/1420452912690499586
ETA - many thanks to @BittyBug for transcribing what he said (I forgot NBC is geoblocked outside USA) in the Tokyo Olympics Gymnastics thread:
"We should trust Simone, with her resume, knows her own limits. As a culture, we need to redefine what it means to be brave and to be strong."
ETA - many thanks to @BittyBug for transcribing what he said (I forgot NBC is geoblocked outside USA) in the Tokyo Olympics Gymnastics thread:
ETA #2 - Adam has shared a longer 5-minute version via Instagram (Simone replied in the comments with "" ): https://www.instagram.com/tv/CR5dPboFyDD/"It's hard to believe that the overwhelming favorite or gold in multiple events sidelined herself during the team competition and now in the all-around. But as hard as it was to believe it's really not that hard to understand, and it was without question the right thing to do.
So for just a second, let's just try to image the amount of expectations that are put on athletes like Simone Biles and Naomi Osaka. Not many people can, if anyone. The extra scrutiny female athletes face, and specifically, black female athletes face, is unfathomable and it's unfair.
Stress and pressure have a price and the body keeps score. In gymnastics, mental and physical health are intertwined. Yesterday, Simone said that she had "the twisties." Having the twisties is when a gymnast can't find themselves in the air. They feel lost and they feel out of control, they tell their minds to do one thing and their body does another. They are physically and mentally not in sync.
Other gymnasts have weighed in and they've said that the vault that Simone performed last night was so off that had it been any other athlete, they would have blown out their knee or ended up with an injury that could have left them completely paralyzed. Thankfully, Simone recognized that danger and chose her safety over everything else.
We should trust that Simone, with her resume, knows her own limits. The mentality of "gold at any cost" doesn't come without a price, and as a culture we need to redefine what it means to be brave, and what it means to be strong. I, for one, am grateful that Simone Biles is showing us the way."
Leslie Jones re-posted the same video on her Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lesdoggg/status/1420733165346295820Thanks, Simone
During our rehearsal, I was warming up on the prompter before we filmed yesterday, and I read through an essay I wrote to prep for when we went live. On the live show I read a shorter version but I mean every word. Simone, you are more than just a gymnast. We’ve never met but I hope you feel how loved and admired you are.
Thanks to my #TalkinTokyo team for sending it to me and letting me share and @sarahhughes11 for helping me to organize everything I wanted to say.
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