The tearing down of Kerri Strug

12,498 Views | 155 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by Aggie Joe 93
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Fedup said:




Simone quit because she knew she was going to lose. She's a great competitor when she knows she's winning but obviously a terrible loser. If she wants the best for the team, she'd bowed out a month ago. Give the alternate a decent chance.
Don't worry, she didn't quit according to Houston ABC13. They just did a story on their 6:00 PM news that, through no fault of her own, she was simply broken by the "black tax" placed on black folks trying to succeed by white folks who expect/want them to fail.
APHIS AG
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So I guess the movie, "Miracle" will be now be classified as a coach who mistreated and abused his players in an effort to win.

We, as a country, will suffer in the next decades as we lose what made this country what it is.
TRADUCTOR
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Wait till guys play injured who identify as girls, cause that is what guys do.
Ag with kids
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TXTransplant said:

This makes no sense. Simone couldn't individually "lose" the TEAM competition, which is what she withdrew from first. However, if she performed poorly, she could have cost the ENTIRE team a medal. By withdrawing, she gave the rest of team, including the alternate, a better chance to medal, which they did.

If you don't think the alternate trains just as hard as the other girls, you are misguided. All of them are equally as prepared to compete, precisely for situations such as this. The alternate had no competitive disadvantage because Simone withdrew at the last minute.

Withdrawing from the all-around was an individual decision. Maybe she didn't want to "lose" that, but her withdrawing opened the door for another US gymnast to win the GOLD medal, which she did. Arguably, if Simone was in top form, she would have walked away with the gold. Withdrawing from the all-around had absolutely no negative effects on her teammates.

With the exception of a hypothetical scenario where the team ~might~ have won gold instead of silver had Simone competed, she didn't cause the team to "lose" anything. The only one who lost is Simone because she didn't get any medals. But if she was truly not fit to compete, then the team was better off without her. Since they did get a silver medal.

Also, if anyone actually cares, here is the story behind her withdrawal. And it's backed up by other gymnasts who say it's a very real and very dangerous phenomenon.

"When Simone Biles attempted her first skill of the gymnastics team event at the Tokyo Olympics, a 2 twisting vault, she quickly knew something was off.

Biles, 24, later explained to reporters that she "had no idea where I was in the air," and that she was "having a little bit of the twisties."

That term is familiar to gymnasts, who know it as a phenomenon where they lose their understanding of where they are in the air, putting them at risk of injury when they land. Biles made that clear in her post-competition comments, saying, "I could have hurt myself."

Carly Patterson, all-around gold medalist at the 2004 Athens Olympics, said during a Twitter Space hosted by PEOPLE on Thursday that she knew "exactly" what Biles was talking about.

"You basically start losing that air awareness," Patterson said. "It is very, very scary, especially when you're doing the difficult kind of skills that Simone is doing. [You] have no clue when you're going to hit the ground and how you're going to hit the ground."

Six-time All-American Katelyn Ohashi, who went viral for her floor routine as a gymnast for UCLA at the 2019 NCAA Championships, agreed, adding that the twisties are "not something to play with."

"She can't just go into a soft surface," Ohashi said, referencing how Biles could have landed off the mats. "When you have that doubt going into your head, anything can happen in that moment."

Biles has talked about struggling with the twisties before. In June, ahead of the Olympics, she said in an interview with Glamour that one of the toughest skills for her to learn has been a double-double flip on the floor, because she "would just get lost in the air."

"It took me a long time for my air awareness on that skill," she explained.

While Biles' decision to withdraw from the two events came as a shock, Patterson points out that you can't plan for the twisties: they just happen.

"Unfortunately it happened at the Olympic Games, it didn't happen three months ago when she could fix it, work those kinks out, work that mental block out," she says. "You can't do that in 24 hours, when you're at the Olympic Games, and rework your brain through that to really overcome it in such a short time."

The bronze medalist in the all-around, Russia's Angelina Melnikova, told reporters after the event that she's experienced the twisties too.

"I had similar problems when I was a kid and its really, really hard to get rid of this problem," she says. "It's very confusing and hard."





It's always awesome when you can explain to the media what happened days ago and there's no verification of your new story...
TXTransplant
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It was my understanding from the article that she said in a press conference/interview on Sunday when she withdrew that she had the "twisties", but no one knew what it meant.

I have no reason or desire to question her sincerity, though.
spud1910
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I thought some of you might find this interview with Keri, 20 years after her vault interesting.

https://www.secsports.com/article/17102194/kerri-strug-was-supposed-land-vault-anything-else-unacceptable
Aggies2009
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Strug has said many times that she decided to vault on her own. It's on her website. And she's said many times that that vault changed her life for the better. The revisionism is sickening and that guys daughters are going to grow to to be quitters just like their "role model".

In those same Olympics Kurt Angle won the gold with a fractured vertebra in his neck, if memory serves. Back then athletes had pride and competed because they loved their country and loved sport.
isitjustme
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One retired as an Olympic Champion and Legend.

The other, a former champ, will retire as an Olympic quitter. A perfect darling of the Left.
torrid
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Just watch this fall. NFL quarterbacks are going to start sitting out games, and they will be celebrated for it.
An L of an Ag
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torrid said:

Just watch this fall. NFL quarterbacks are going to start sitting out games, and they will be celebrated for it.

They'll only do it on the week I have them starting on my fantasy football team.
japantiger
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Squadron7 said:

This guy's (Byron Heath) hot take is all the rage on Facebook right now. Support Biles if you want...but don't tear down Kerri Strug to do it, you wanker.

Quote:

This realization I had about Simone Biles is gonna make some people mad, but oh well.
Yesterday I was excited to show my daughters Kerri Strug's famous one-leg vault. It was a defining Olympic moment that I watched live as a kid, and my girls watched raptly as Strug fell, and then limped back to leap again.

But for some reason I wasn't as inspired watching it this time. In fact, I felt a little sick. Maybe being a father and teacher has made me soft, but all I could see was how Kerri Strug looked at her coach, Bela Karolyi, with pleading, terrified eyes, while he shouted back "You can do it!" over and over again.

My daughters didn't cheer when Strug landed her second vault. Instead they frowned in concern as she collapsed in agony and frantic tears.
"Why did she jump again if she was hurt?" one of my girls asked. I made some inane reply about the heart of a champion or Olympic spirit, but in the back of my mind a thought was festering:
*She shouldn't have jumped again*

The more the thought echoed, the stronger my realization became. Coach Karolyi should have gotten his visibly injured athlete medical help immediately! Now that I have two young daughters in gymnastics, I expect their safety to be the coach's number one priority. Instead, Bela Karolyi told Strug to vault again. And he got what he wanted; a gold medal that was more important to him than his athlete's health.

I'm sure people will say "Kerri Strug was a competitor--she WANTED to push through the injury." That's probably true. But since the last Olympics we've also learned these athletes were put into positions where they could be systematically abused both emotionally and physically, all while being inundated with "win at all costs" messaging. A teenager under those conditions should have been protected, and told "No medal is worth the risk of permanent injury." In fact, we now know that Strug's vault wasn't even necessary to clinch the gold; the U.S. already had an insurmountable lead. Nevertheless, Bela Karolyi told her to vault again according to his own recounting of their conversation:

"I can't feel my leg," Strug told Karolyi.

"We got to go one more time," Karolyi said. "Shake it out."

"Do I have to do this again?" Strug asked.

"Can you, can you?" Karolyi wanted to know.

"I don't know yet," said Strug. "I will do it. I will, I will."

The injury forced Strug's retirement at 18 years old. Dominique Moceanu, a generational talent, also retired from injuries shortly after. They were top gymnasts literally pushed to the breaking point, and then put out to pasture. Coach Karolyi and Larry Nassar (the serial sexual abuser) continued their long careers, while the athletes were treated as a disposable resource.
Today Simone Biles--the greatest gymnast of all time--chose to step back from the competition, citing concerns for mental and physical health. I've already seen comments and posts about how Biles "failed her country", "quit on us", or "can't be the greatest if she can't handle the pressure." Those statements are no different than Coach Karolyi telling an injured teen with wide, frightened eyes: "We got to go one more time. Shake it out."

The subtext here is: "Our gold medal is more important than your well-being."
Our athletes shouldn't have to destroy themselves to meet our standards. If giving empathetic, authentic support to our Olympians means we'll earn less gold medals, I'm happy to make that trade.

Here's the message I hope we can send to Simone Biles: You are an outstanding athlete, a true role model, and a powerful woman. Nothing will change that. Please don't sacrifice your emotional or physical well-being for our entertainment or national pride. We are proud of you for being brave enough to compete, and proud of you for having the wisdom to know when to step back. Your choice makes you an even better example to our daughters than you were before. WE'RE STILL ROOTING FOR YOU!

Toolbag...pain heals, chicks dig scars, glory lasts forever.
“It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.”
Joseph Heller, Catch 22
isitjustme
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torrid said:

Just watch this fall. NFL quarterbacks are going to start sitting out games, and they will be celebrated for it.
They already do in the NBA, so much that they started to place restrictions on the practice.
Definitely Not A Cop
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This issue has just gotten out of hand. Guys, let's all recognize this is women's gymnastics we are discussing. In less than a week, nobody will care about this anymore. Should people have talked **** to Simone to her face and social media account? Probably not. Should she have joined a team if she knew she wasn't in the best head space? Probably not. Should she be praised for quitting on them? Probably not. Should Keri Strug have her character assassinated by the same people who are mad people are attacking Simone Biles? Probably not.

This is turning into another deflate gate. Nobody really gives a **** about what actually happened a week later, but the media will drive the story down our throats because they are a bunch of aholes.
Upperdeck Critic
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Wow, now a person has to make a choice between Strug and Biles.
Simply ridiculous!
What a waste of time!
pagerman @ work
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AG
1. I think the article in the OP is frankly massively sexist. If a male gymnast had done something similar there would be no hand wringing re-analysis. But suddenly an 18 year old adult woman is made into some kind of pathetic little girl victim. At the end of the day she could have refused to make the vault. Just because her coaches didn't make it easy for her to do so does not make them abusive. She chose to do it. These people are competing at the absolute peak of their sport, quite literally the very best on planet earth are gathered at this event. The sacrifices they have made to get to this point are unimaginable to the vast majority of people, particularly at the ages most of them start gymnastics, which means none of us has ever been in a situation to have to weigh the cost of all that previous sacrifice, hard work, pain & discomfort over untold years against that one moment where you could walk away and no one would blame you because you are legitimately hurt, or you can choose to attempt immortality.

I don't know how I would react in that moment (although I can unfortunately guess) but I also know I can't possibly second guess that situation. I don't have anything approaching the information necessary to do so honestly.

The author unfortunately looks at the situation and chooses to see a little girl victim rather than a heroic adult choosing to go for greatness. Part of that is sexist and part of that is because the author hill never be good enough at anything to stand at that particular crossroads.
“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy. It's inherent virtue is the equal sharing of miseries." - Winston Churchill
Squadron7
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Quote:

Guys, let's all recognize this is women's gymnastics we are discussing. In less than a week, nobody will care about this anymore.

Character building and perseverance in the face of adversity is the sole reason there are sports in schools. Unless you want to try and make the case that Pop Warner and Little League baseball is mostly to train people up for the majors for our own beer-soaked weekend entertainment.

If the only point of team sports is to generate viewers then the schools have zero business doing any of them.
Aggie Joe 93
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Kerri Strug says that landing that 2nd vault and earning the gold was an experience she used her whole life to understand that she could do anything she put her mind to.

Coach is supposed to push you to get you to do the best you can; not to keep you down with a mere good-enough safe 'effort'.

Kerri's vault is an excellent example of taking risks to achieve what you want. Yeah, they could have settled, quit and been beaten. If you only do what is 100% guaranteed then you will excel at nothing. It's the communist dream where everyone is 'safe' and only does what is approved for them and nobody needs to think or risk and everyone is the same. The problem is that it can't happen that way and there is always a secret elite class that is needed to run everyone's life for it to work. Communism is the biggest lie for control out there and it permeates everything. And it's popular because so many people believe they'll be part of the secret elite or they are dumb or lazy enough to believe that everybody doing the same half-ass effort will make everyone happy.
 
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