Times athlete of the year

originally posted by: JAGStorm
a reply to: ketsuko

I am not talking about an athletic failure. Obviously she's not. I am talking about having failed in that situation. She did. The two are not mutually exclusive. What I take exception to is that she's not being rewarded for her athletic successes but for her glaring failure.

Maybe her failing in that situation was a win for so many people. Maybe saying, I’ve just had enough, pushing myself beyond the point of insanity isn’t OK, it’s OK to say you’re not OK, that you need help, rest, food, to get stronger, clearer, better, and a thousand other things.

I’m tired of seeing these wrecked athletes all for what? A few moments of fame for our amusement?
Maybe what she is teaching everyone, especially young girls is so much more!

lol, no. She isn't teaching anyone anything they didn't know already. I'm surrounded by competitive athletes most of the time, I'm a tennis athlete myself. Most of us know when we've had enough and we must take a a little time off or not to compete at a certain competition because we feel our body or our mind isn't at the right place.

And if you follow most top athletes in social networks like instagram, you will find a lot of posts over the years about them deciding to withdraw from competitions because of personal or professional reasons. There's nothing new or ground breaking about what Simon did, it's just that most of them don't go out there pretending and kidding themselves about having done something reaeeeally important like having "given athletes a platform to talk about mental health" by withdrawing.