The reaction of some in the US to their top gymnast’s mental-health problems in Tokyo is sadly Trumpian.
The reaction of some in the US to their top gymnast’s mental-health problems in Tokyo is sadly Trumpian.
The Highlanders rugby team were expecting big things from star recruit Solomon Alaimalo this season, but the classy outside back played only a couple ot games before disappearing from view. He eventually revealed he’d been dealing with depression and anxiety.
Alaimalo’s revelation was greeted with respectful silence. It was a similar story when loose forward Liam Squire opted out of the All Blacks in 2019, and this year when Silver Ferns captain Ameliaranne Ekenasio went public with her mental-health challenges. This month, all-rounder Amelia Kerr withdrew from the White Ferns’ upcoming tour of England to focus on her well-being.
Much credit for what seems to be growing acceptance among Kiwis that mental-health issues can hobble elite athletes as effectively as broken bones and wrecked joints must go to former All Black Sir John Kirwan, who opened up about his struggles in a 1992 autobiography and later became a public campaigner.
Alaimalo admitted his problems began with being too hard on himself. For Squire, it was being in the spotlight and “the added pressure of all of New Zealand critiquing how you play”.
Although there’s recognition that mental-health problems are very real and not uncommon, the notion persists that being a fan entitles you to be as critical as you like. When All Blacks captain Sam Cane observed that some Kiwi rugby fans can be brutal, he was lashed on social media and scolded by pundits because “fans are the lifeblood of the game”.
England’s talisman Ben Stokes is taking an indefinite break from cricket to focus on his mental well-being, meaning he’ll miss the muchanticipated five-test series against India now under way. Again, the reaction was respectful, although the death last December of Stokes’ Kiwi father, Ged, may have been a factor in that.
A section of the Trumpist media accused Biles of being a quitter, lacking courage and being a “selfish sociopath”.
There’s an obvious cause-and-effect relationship between bereavement or physical injury and an athlete’s ability to perform, but mental health remains an abstraction to some – as in the old, dismissive saying, “It’s all in the mind.” But neither ignorance nor lack of imagination explains the reaction of a section of the US media to gymnast Simone Biles’ withdrawal from most of her events at the Tokyo Olympics (she bounced back to claim bronze in the balance beam). Biles was deemed to be “not a true champion” even though she won four gold medals at the 2016 Rio games, has won more world-championship gold medals than anyone else and is widely regarded as the greatest gymnast of all time.
Then it got plain despicable. For a section of the far-right Trumpist media, she became a juicy target in the culture war. They accused her of being a quitter, lacking courage, shaming her nation and being a “selfish sociopath”. The author of that slur lamented that “we are raising a generation of weak people like Simone Biles”.
Charles Sykes, an anti-Trump conservative commentator, observed that “we are left with this moment of high absurdity, in which a symbol of human excellence and American greatness is being mocked by bloated white man-children for being ‘weak’”.
If you didn’t know until now, Biles is AfroA American. She’s also one of the hundreds o of girls and young women who were sexuallys assaulted by former US gymnastic teamt doctor Larry Nassar, now serving a de facto life sentence without parole. Nassar’sN predations were compounded byb shameful derelictions of duty on the part of US gymnastics’ governing body and the FBI. As Atlantic writer Adam Serwer titled a 2018 essay, subsequently expanded into a book, on Trump’s
America,A “The Cruelty is the Point.” l