US gymnast Simone Biles, the Olympic games and “the weight of the world”
The decision by American gymnast Simone Biles to withdraw from competition during the Olympic team final in Tokyo on Tuesday has drawn censure from various quarters, much of it politically or ideologically motivated.
This July 27, 2021, file photo shows Simone Biles, of the United States, waiting to perform on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women's final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, in Tokyo.
None of the criticism has the slightest validity. Biles felt herself disoriented and in physical danger in a sport where a fall from a height can lead to crippling injury or death. She had every right, even an obligation, to pull out.
Various right-wing pundits meanwhile have denounced Biles for supposed spinelessness, dereliction of duty and “letting down her country.”
Texas Deputy Attorney General Aaron Reitz termed Biles “our selfish, childish national embarrassment.”
African-American sports commentator Jason Whitlock, a Donald Trump supporter, denounced Biles as a “coward,” adding, “I don’t like what has been done to us and what we’ve allowed. I don’t like the brainwashing. The lack of accountability. The lack of expectations for greatness.”
Amber Athey, Washington editor of The Spectator, headlined her mean-spirited attack, “Simone Biles is a quitter.”
This is predictably filthy stuff from filthy people, all of whom are secure in the knowledge that condemning Biles will stand them in good stead with the fascistic right and the assorted corporate billionaire moguls who derive excitement from such rubbish, with, in many cases, its undoubtedly racist undertones.
The Biles affair concentrates within itself much of what is so horribly wrong about the Tokyo Olympics, contemporary sports and, more broadly, the social order as a whole.
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/07/30/bile-j30.html
