My understanding is that "Twisties" is a spatial orientation or equilibrium issue where the athlete has difficulty knowing where they are in free space. It is not a tissue injury like a broken bone or a connective tissue problem. The athlete can be perfectly fine physically, but the "mental" aspect is in knowing where you are in the air so you grab the bar or land on the ground properly.

If you have been doing this for a decade with great success and then suddenly you can't because your spatial orientation is out of whack, then I would suspect it shakes your self confidence to the core.

My job doesn't require to me to risk landing on my neck if I have a bad day so I won't judge.

Whether or not this is a "mental health" issue or not I will leave to all the armchair psychologist jackhole experts on this board to figure out

It sounded kind of like what pro golfers refer to as "the yips". You can do something a zillion times, but for whatever reason, the signals between your brain and body go haywire.

There are some horror stories of gymnasts trying to go out there and gut it out and just getting hurt really bad, like imaging you were suddenly inserted midair into one of their routines, it would be carnage.

Maybe that ability breaks down over time like the rest of any athlete's can, or maybe it's just like a sepll of vertigo or whatever, but I don't see her as some kind of quitter or mentally weak, she's done way too much in her career for that to be the case. I could definitely see the distractions of protocols, no family around, and her being the face of the whole freaking broadcast being unique.

Seems like the issue with this all boils down to messaging.

If the ADHD meds she has been using for years were banned in Japan, and stopping them caused her to be disoriented, I think most people would accept her withdrawal without a second thought, and probably just be mad at the Japanese for not allowing her an exemption. Clearly gymnastics would be very dangerous for someone whose equilibrium has been compromised due to withdrawal from a psychoactive drug. This would also explain why the issues didn't become apparent until her warmup sessions in Tokyo.

The problem is that in the day of woke posturing, putting anything under the umbrella of "mental health" paints the victim as a hero, so there's a temptation to go that route.

I think gymnastics is a sport that probably requires an extreme degree of mental focus and fortitude, and having been the best in the world for so long should have earned her the benefit of the doubt. They should have just been more forthcoming of the underlying issues from the outset.

I meant to put that in my reply as well. Whoever has been communicating the issue has done a horrible job. In the absence of good communication people filling the gaps with assumptions, often bad assumptions.

It also explains why people are so pissed off and edgy about the pandemic. The government (both administrations) did a really poor job at communicating, partly due to lack of knowledge, largely due to politics.

Burdizzo said:

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I meant to put that in my reply as well. Whoever has been communicating the issue has done a horrible job. In the absence of good communication people filling the gaps with assumptions, often bad assumptions.

It also explains why people are so pissed off and edgy about the pandemic. The government (both administrations) did a really poor job at communicating, partly due to lack of knowledge, largely due to politics.

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We're in a doom loop of "mental health is super important, but completely private", so people talk in circles and suppositions and just nod along with the nonsense."

Her aunt also died

She getting a damn god free vacation! Her coach should have known about this before she was allowed to go to japan.

Thanks to corona the athletes aren't really allowed to go anywhere or do anything. It's not exactly a vacation.

She came in first at the US Classic, US Nationals, and at the Olympic trials. Even having an off day she qualified first in the All Around at the Olympics. This was something sudden and unexpected. She made the decision to withdraw, which gave the rest of the team a chance to medal in the team final, and worked hard to modify her beam routine so that she could still compete. After everything, she pulled out a really solid performance on the beam and was able to medal.

aeon-ag said:

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She getting a damn god free vacation! Her coach should have known about this before she was allowed to go to japan.

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Hooray...I'm a multi-millionaire and get a free trip to Tokyo. I don't think I could afford to go if it wasn't free. I'm so lucky. /Simone Biles

And vacation? I wouldn't exactly call it that when you have to be sequestered in the hotel and can only leave the premises if you're heading to the arena.

RealTalk said:

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aeon-ag said:

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She getting a damn god free vacation! Her coach should have known about this before she was allowed to go to japan.

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Hooray...I'm a multi-millionaire and get a free trip to Tokyo. I don't think I could afford to go if it wasn't free. I'm so lucky. /Simone Biles

And vacation? I wouldn't exactly call it that when you have to be sequestered in the hotel and can only leave the premises if you're heading to the arena.

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You can have all this for the low, low, price of being called a quitter by 10% of the country who claim they arent watching.

Spyderman said:

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Floor Jansen is amazing.