We’ve seen this movie before. Media hypes up gymnast right in front of Olympics and the egg cracks. Today it was Simone Biles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Featured image by diema<\/a> from Pixabay<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Today the news is all a tither about Simone having to bail. Physically fine, mentally not okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are of a certain age, you remember a pretty young blonde girl the media hyped relentlessly. Doing a big spread with her by the balance beam because she was the world’s best on it or something like that. She was the new hope after Mary Lou Retton got out of competition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Honestly I don’t remember her name. I remember the big video spread the media did on her. Proper lighting, all staged, designed to showcase. Sure kid, no pressure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The balance beam was supposed to be hers and hers alone. All the commentators hyped it. Right out of the gate she fell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Guess what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The very next day a rather hastily put together looking video spread on one of the other girls on the team was splashed all over the broadcast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some years later there was another Olympics or World Games or whatever. This girl and Mary Lou Retton were invited to be with the girls gymnastics team on the floor. All of the girls flocked around Mary Lou for advice and praise. They seemed to shun this girl. The scene sticks with me because I remember the tragic hurt look on her face and the quote she gave when the microphone and camera were shoved in her face.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I don’t want to be remember as the girl who fell.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n She’s probably glad I forgot it. The Internet certainly seems to have mostly forgotten it. Hey, I can understand. You were built up to be perfection incarnate and the pressure made you crack, or simply lose focus. You could have fallen every day in practice and the world would never have known. There on a world stage and in front of global media, you fell on the event you were supposed to own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My abject apologies if I have the wrong video here. I seem to remember a much younger girl. The comments by the commentators in this video seem to match the story I remember though.<\/p>\n\n\n\nI feel bad not remembering her name <\/h2>\n\n\n\n