On Simone Biles and Intense Media Pressure on Athletes
Simone Biles is easily the most decorated gymnast on both the World and Olympic level. And NBC made sure that the average viewer wouldn't forget it. NBC's talking points on Simone Biles ranged from assuredness to cockiness to downright ludicrous: There's really only three spots on the team left; With Simone on the team, a gold medal is almost guaranteed; Simone could walk away with the most golds ever earned by any female athlete. Even running commercials with Simone standing next to a goat, emphasizing the claim that NBC would too often repeat: Simone was the greatest of all time and anything less than perfect was just not good enough for Simone. So when Biles announced she was pulling out of the team competition after losing herself in the air on her vault, it was both shocking and not so shocking at all. The pressure for Simone to be perfect night in and night out, heaped on by a network whose only duty is to show the event, had finally caught up and left a young woman ...