I love that girl for many reasons. Her story - the child of a drug addict mother - foster homes - adopted by her grandparents…
Even her “tiny-ness” may have been due to her birth mother’s drug addiction. Also, she is a Catholic, as I am. But we’ll leave that out for now.
There is no question that Simone is the greatest gymnast of all time. Simone had nothing to prove at the Tokyo Olympics.
Long ago (1968) the Olympics ceased to be a contest between individuals and their hard-earned prowess, and became another sham forum for evil politics - managed and ruled by “fat-ass” losers who puppeteer-ed magnificent persons like Simone, Comaneci, Phelps, Spitz, Keino, Ryun…
However, perhaps there is nothing new here. If memory serves, the Olympics were born not of a contest between individuals, but of a contest between Athens and Sparta - wherein magnificent persons were similarly puppeteer-ed by the same “fat asses” splatting upon their seats of honor, sucking on grapes, watching the games, and rotting in place.
Leaving history and fast forwarding to now, I am amazed (but perhaps not really) that none of the “great commentators,” have zeroed in on the real problem - and for whatever reason, dare not touch it: I.e. Simone’s opportunists.
Simone, essentially a child prodigy, appears to have been following the same tragic track of other young prodigies who were pushed, used, functionally prostituted, monetized, and ultimately discarded by the likes of those who did the same to Michael Jackson, Judy Garland, Macauley Culkin, Wolgang Amadeus Mozart…
Without getting too deep into all that (and not discounting their own adult choices), the tragedy of Simone is not Simone, but her managers, sponsors, and ultimately her coaches.
Ultimately, what is going on is a failure of Simone’s coaches - who - hitching their career wagons to Simone’s God-given and hard-earned abilities - were probably more than willing to overlook Simone’s health - physical or mental - to get her through one more Olympics so that their names and careers could last long after Simone Biles - who - given her age - was already at the tail-end of her abilities.
I believe it was Vince Lombardi who once said “there are no bad teams, there are only bad coaches.” Whether Lombardi actually said this or not isn’t important. What is important is that Lombardi proved this to be true. In the early 1960’s Lombardi took a team which was the laughing stock of the NFL and transformed the Green Bay Packers into the NFL’s winningest team by the end of that decade - with pretty much the same guys who hardly knew what a football was only a few years earlier.
Great coaches don’t coach athletes’ physical abilities. Great coaches coach athletes’ minds. It appears Simone’s coaches failed to do that. Perhaps they thought they could ride her to the top…one more time.
Simone, you don’t owe your “masters” anything - be they your coaches, your sponsors, even your “nation” - which sadly is a nation which has laws which would have had you slaughtered and sold for your body parts before you were born because of choices your mother made.
How often I have heard politicians - even right here in Guam - support the killing of unborn children because of situations just like your mother’s…and yours.
No. You don’t owe “America” anything. Today’s America would have had you killed and thrown in the trash before you ever took a breath.
The Olympics isn’t over. There is still time to do this just for you.
