Quote Originally Posted by Irondawg View Post
http://www.espn.com/video/clip/_/id/31897392

Has to be an injury and she didn?t want to aggrevate it before going into the individual events is my guess. Which is fine but don?t make up a lame excuse when everyone knows you tweaked and ankle.

You don?t train endlessly for the Olympics and then just decide ?I don?t feel like it? on competition day. Especially when you are the best person on the team. Just says I was a little banged up and thought that steeping back gave the team the best chance to win and that it?s personally disappointing to not get to compete but unneeded to put the team first. That?s what you would have heard 10 years ago.

This is why I?m having trouble getting into the Olympics - too many athletes have soured me lately by their attitudes.

A pilot is not allowed to fly if he is having trouble concentrating. If there is even a hint you need Zoloft you are grounded even as a private pilot. I had my medical pulled for getting a prescription. I was dealing with my wife's death and my daughter's diagnosis of cancer of which she eventually succumbed. I was barely starting to fly with only about 100 hrs as a pilot and I gotten my medical pulled. I have not pursued it again because my last flight I got disoriented, I could not find the sky or the ground. I worked my way through it by looking at my gauges and flying as a IFR (Instrument)pilot even though I am only a VFR (Visual) pilot until I could get myself clear. That was dangerous as freak, so I am not flying anymore. That was all mental, I was in a mental fog and could not concentrate. My work suffered and so did everything else.

Gymnast are flying around and doing all kind of things that require complete concentration and if you can't concentrate properly it could be very dangerous. You do not want her out there if she can't get her mind cleared. Not only would she most likely fail, she could get hurt badly.

It was obvious to me from the very first time I saw here competing in the Olympics that she was struggling with something. When you are in a fog, you have no business doing dangerous things or stuff that require extreme concentration.

I applaud her for having the strength to say, "I have a problem." There have been definitions of this type of thing for centuries from shell shocked to post traumatic stress but I sincerely do not think she made this up. Mental issues are real and so many people don't understand it. As a society we have done a horrible job dealing with it over the years because there is a stigma to it that does not get associated with other issues.

This kind of thing has happened many times over the years but most say things like, it's time I hung it up. I am ready to retire or they lie and fake an injury. They won't say what's really going on. She did and some people can't handle the truth.

That's what I think.

But but but what if there was war and she quits. First of all, this ain't a war., it is a game, A GAME!

Secondly, it does happens in war and the outcome can be very bad for everyone involved. I have heard some horrific stories from my Father, he spent 3 tours and 2 1/2 years fighting hand to hand in the armored infantry in WWII. War is different, don't compare a game to war.