Andrew Schulz and Akaash Singh debate Simone Biles' Olympic withdrawal, arguing her exit from the all-around event was a failure to persevere rather than bravery. They contrast her reaction with male legends like Michael Jordan, suggesting double standards exist where men face ridicule for similar lapses while women receive sympathy. The hosts dismiss claims of racist scoring regarding her "Biles" skills, implying she may hide physical injuries behind mental health excuses. Ultimately, they conclude that as the self-proclaimed GOAT, Biles bears a responsibility to control her state, viewing her decision as a significant character flaw despite societal shifts toward mental health acceptance. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Simone Biles and Selfish Pressure00:10:59
Okay, guys, let's have the conversation.
Let us do it.
Let's talk about Simone Biles.
This is going to happen more and more and more.
So get used to this.
Can you explain exactly what happens?
Yes.
So let's just go through a couple of things.
I actually have a couple notes so I can get this whole thing right.
Okay, ready?
Let's start again.
All right, guys, let's talk about it.
There's one story right now.
Everybody is obviously discussing Simone Biles, and let's just get to the bottom of it.
So Simone Biles has removed herself from the group event in gymnastics.
As of this morning, we're recording this Wednesday.
She's also removed herself from the individual all-around, which she was the defending champion of.
She still potentially can do the individual events within it, right?
But the all-around she's removed herself from.
She was supposed to win that.
She's regarded as the greatest to ever do it.
She said the reason why she did it was her mental wasn't there, said that she was stressed out and she felt immense pressure.
She did a vault the other day and she got lost in the air.
And she felt scared for her physical safety.
She didn't want to leave on a stretcher and she just doesn't trust her body.
She didn't want to hurt herself.
And you can't hurt yourself.
I mean, that sport is dangerous.
We see girls doing it, so we assume it's not dangerous, but it is an absolutely fucking terrifying thing.
You're doing backflips, lay on your head, break your neck, you never walk again, right?
It's some real shit.
So the question is, what's going to happen?
People are saying a million different things.
Obviously, there's this discussion whether she's brave, whether she's selfish.
The selfish discussion first happened when it came to the group all-arounds, because by her removing herself, the U.S. ends up getting the silver, right?
And since she's the best female gymnast of all time, you're going to put your team at a disadvantage because something you're personally going for.
People called it selfish.
Then also people are like, oh, you're taking your mental health seriously, so you're being incredibly brave.
Let's have the discussion.
Selfish or brave.
If her mental state is affecting her physical ability, I don't think you can call her selfish because if she physically is incapable of doing the things that help her team by removing herself, I think it's selfless.
I think that there are selfish people, especially in sports like basketball, that are injured but still want to be out there for glory.
I think that's selfish.
You're hurting your fucking team because you want to be the guy that hits the last shot.
You know, you are not in any way assisting your team winning, but you want to be part of that fucking group.
We have the narrative, my team needs me.
That's what we're all, my team needs me.
I got to be there.
Even if you're not sure if you're not.
Your team needs to win and you're not going to be able to do it.
Your team needs to win and you're hurting your team from winning.
I mean, a lot of people knock Kobe for this.
They're like, yo, Kobe, towards the end of his career, R.I.P., they're like, what you're doing is selfish.
You're breaking down these other players and you don't have the ability to dominate the game like you once did.
So I don't think that what she did was selfish, especially when she removed herself from the girls all-around event.
Right.
Okay.
Because that's just her.
She's defending her championship or her last Olympic gold medal.
The last person to do that, I think it was like in 1960 or something like that.
Crazy amount of time has went by.
So everybody was gearing up for that.
Everybody's really excited for that.
Is she brave?
Not in the least.
I don't think there's anything brave about this.
I think that, you know, I think there's like a specific definition of bravery, and I wrote this down, was the ability to confront something painful or difficult or dangerous without any fear.
She's doing the exact opposite.
She cannot confront it.
She's succumbing to it.
She's saying my mental is too fucked up for me to compete at the level that I'm accustomed to competing in, so I have to withdraw.
The bravery is the scrutiny, the fact that you feel like you're letting your country down on some level.
It's exiting the Olympics, even though you are the best gymnast probably ever.
Jordan, if he made it a mental health thing, was like, yo, I'm walking away.
There's bravery required from that because the whole fucking league, David Stern, whoever's going to be like, yo, this is costing us a lot of money.
You get paid a lot of money.
Nike's going to be putting pressure on.
What the fuck is going on?
That's where the bravery comes in.
You're looking at it strictly physically.
She is this death-defying sport.
She's not participating in it.
That can't be brave.
The bravery could be.
Okay, so she's so there.
I hear what you're saying.
The scrutiny she faces is still making.
I understand what people are saying.
Like, it's brave of you to leave the sport knowing what you're going to go up against.
Yeah.
Or not compete, knowing what you're going to go up against.
How many people you're going to let down, blah, blah, blah.
I understand that.
So maybe in that regard, it's brave.
But I think it's the antithesis of bravery and going, I can't handle the pressure and I'm not going to find a way to persevere under this pressure.
And that's what the Olympics is about.
And that is perseverance under pressure.
It is the epitome of pressure.
This happens not once every year, not once every month.
This is the tournament that defines greatness.
It happens once every four years.
Nobody gives a flying fuck about gymnastics until one week every four years.
Now they give a fuck about it, and it's your job to perform under pressure right now.
Pressure that not only the media put on you, that you put on you.
And I think that a lot of people are undermining this.
When you start walking around with a sequence leotard that has a goat on it, when you start having goat on your sandals, when you start referring to yourself as the goat, the greatest of all time, you add that pressure.
I saw an interview clip where someone said, can you be beaten?
And then she said, she smiled and she was like, I don't know.
And it's like, yeah, that put a lot of pressure on you.
When I saw that, I was like, she's not going to win the gold this year.
Interesting.
I remember thinking, and it's not, I just, I feel like I see athletes hit that point mentally sometimes where they're really like, I don't know if I could be beaten.
I think I'm kind of in.
And it just seems like in my mind's like recollection, those people always end up falling.
There is a, real quick about that discussion to add on to that, is that there was discussion whether the Olympic scoring committee was racist.
Because the way that Olympic scoring goes for, or just scoring in general, goes for gymnastics, is the height of your score, like as high as your score can possibly go, is based on the difficulty of a trick.
And she was doing tricks that nobody had done before.
They were literally called the biles.
So they didn't know how to score them.
So what they were going to do is cap the scoring at where they were already.
So that, let's say, this is just, I don't know anything about fucking gymnastics, but let's say two front flips gave you 10 points back in the day.
And she was like, well, now I'm doing three points, three front flips.
The Olympic scoring committee was like, we just cap things at 10.
She's like, now you're giving somebody who I'm competing with an advantage over me.
Because they're doing something less difficult and they're still getting the same score as me.
So I'm not rewarded for taking this extra risk.
So then there was a conversation about whether that's racist or not.
It's like everything is gearing.
You're asking for this.
You're calling yourself the GOAT.
You're saying I'm way better.
I don't know if I can be beat.
You're doing all this.
And I'm sure people are in your head telling you that you are the GOAT.
You haven't been beaten.
The last time you lost, you were 16 years old.
She is the GOAT.
She's the GOAT.
There's no question.
But that adds the pressure that you feel.
Yeah, and the more you embrace that, the more people are going to be like, eyeballs on you.
And that's great.
You can pull it off.
But you're putting a lot on yourself in addition to what everybody else is putting on you.
And I'm sure she didn't start the, hey, that's racist scoring conversation.
Once that enters, that's other people's pressure.
So I get that.
But I think her saying shit like, I don't know if I could be beaten, that puts a lot of pressure on yourself.
When you're putting the goat on your clothes, by all means, do that.
Just understand the pressure you put on yourself when you do.
I think, go, go, Al.
I do think we need to wait and see exactly why she dropped out.
I know she's saying mental health now, but I have a feeling there's something else to it.
I think she may be a little injured and she doesn't want to admit that.
And that is affecting her ability to perform the way she is.
And so she's going out this way.
That's way easier to admit.
Pushback, way easier to admit.
I'm hurt than I'm mentally not right.
We can't really say she's not brave for being able to live up to the moment because she has got the gold before.
She's done this.
So she's got to the mountaintop and has five years ago with different pressure than that.
She can acknowledge that, oh, something's off within her, either her mental or her physical, where she can't perform.
I do think it's brave of her to back out, even though everybody wants to see her go.
Everybody's injured.
Nobody's healthy.
Come on, bro.
No, Everybody's making all these fucking excuses.
And if this was a male athlete, none of y'all would be saying shit.
If this was Tom Brady, if this man Jordan, if this was Kobe Bryant, if it was anybody, and all those play, all those people, if you had a real, let me finish.
If you had a real conversation with any of those players right there, if Tom Brady came up to you, if Michael Jordan came up to you, if Kobe came up to you and they asked what was going on right here, you think they're going to be like, oh, she's having a rough day mentally.
She should say, oh, her foot hurts a little bit.
They say, no, you grit and bear it.
You push through that shit because we are fucking alpha dogs and we steamroll past these weak motherfuckers who can't handle the moment.
We handle the moment.
That's what we do.
And this is the moment.
And they are salivating for this.
They cannot wait.
They can't wait for the opportunity to look at every one of those other gymnasts or look at every one of those other athletes and go, I am going to bite your fucking head off.
That's what they live for.
And she's not living for this.
And I think there's a different pressure because I don't think Simone Biles, and maybe I'm not remembering correctly, but I don't think Simone Biles was the favored winner at that time.
I think she was.
I remember watching.
I thought she was.
You're talking about her like, this is fucking crazy.
Yeah.
That was the Olympics before.
And then I think by this one, it was kind of recognized.
By last time, I think it was kind of recognized.
Like, this is the fucking girl.
I thought it was Gabby Douglas.
And then Simone came out and shocked everybody.
And then we were like, oh my God, who is this?
And then she goes.
You can fact check me.
I'm pretty sure Gabby was like that nine years ago.
And then five years ago, she was still whatever, but people were looking at Simone like, this is fucking crazy what this girl can do at such, like at this age, it's crazy.
But it was still like unprecedented, right?
Like the expectations were there because she hadn't won the Olympic goal.
And now she's seizing the moment, right?
And it's like, when you're Tom Brady and you got to go for your seventh fucking gold, and I wish we could use female examples, right?
Like Serena Williams or something like that.
Like when you've already won a bunch of these competitions and you're going in as the killer and then you kill, that's different.
When you're like the young new kid and nobody has an expectation, like, whoa, what a wild ride.
There's no pressure.
Go out there, throw it.
Who cares?
Soka did this in the French tournament.
And she broke down in the Olympics too.
No, but I'm saying like she withdrew from it because of how her mental health or whatever the case was.
But I'm saying like that's a person who's at the top of their game.
We knew she was about to go in there and kill.
And she's like, you know what?
Mental Health Over Competition00:12:43
No, my mental health is more important.
And she backed out.
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I think it can be, yeah, it's brave to say to the, in the face of like the whole country, yo, I got to focus on my mental health.
I also think you can bring a decent amount of this pressure on yourself.
That's fucking up your head.
And maybe you could have thought that through before you're saying shit like, I don't know if I can be beaten and putting a fucking goat on.
To knock somebody for being confident.
I'm not knocking you for being confident.
I'm just saying there is also a responsibility that, hey, that's what I did.
And I own that, but that puts a pressure on you.
As an athlete, you have a responsibility.
I can't speak.
As an athlete, you're responsible for your mental as well.
What separates the greats is their ability to control their mental state.
That's what makes them great.
What makes Reggie Miller fucking amazing, and it breaks my heart as a Knicks fan, is that when the going gets tough, when everybody else's asshole tightens, his shit loosens up.
He's ready to go.
Pass me to rock.
I can't wait, you know?
So I think in these types of moments, you can't create a caveat for an athlete.
This has to be a ding because what separates them is the mental is part of it.
If nobody got nervous, then what's the big deal?
Why are you missing free throws at the end of the game?
Like not being nervous, being able to be stand up, locked in, checked in at the most important time might be the defining characteristic of a GOAT.
Okay, so I won't say it's not a knock.
I'm just saying two things can be right at the same time.
It's like, yes, this could be a knock on her.
Come on, you should live up to the moment, but also it is also brave because you know how many people want you to perform and the fact that you're putting yourself like doing a hard thing in this shit.
She's screwed either way, so she's going to be brave.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's what I'm saying.
So that's what's going on.
But we acknowledge that her stepping away in the face of immense scrutiny is brave.
Yes.
Because she knows that she has to face that scrutiny and facing that unbelievable, like just onslaught of criticism.
It's a lifetime of a lot.
Now, I will say this.
I think it's very important to recognize the more we start to understand mental health and the more that we give grace to mental health, the more that we're going to see this happen.
But this is also a function of society changing, right?
So it's like, this is something that we've created, but our brains haven't caught up to it yet.
Is Simone Biles under more pressure than Michael Jordan?
I don't think so.
But she's under more pressure 24-7.
Michael Jordan had to deal with Sports Center.
He had to deal with Sports Illustrated once a week or whenever that shit came out once a week.
Once a month, newspapers.
The newspaper in the morning.
But it was very easy to check out.
Yes.
Right?
It's not like you get a Google alert and all of a sudden you're trending.
Every time you go type in anything into Google, you type, you just want to know what happened in the news.
Yes.
Right?
There's going to be something about you.
Yeah, it's easy to unplug from social media, but at a certain point, you're going to look at your phone and get a notification.
Your fucking name's going to be on.
People sending you shit.
They might be doing it in a good way where they're like, oh, look at this article about you.
But then you're reading like, oh, but she fucked up this part.
And then you're seeing the negative stuff.
And as you said, your parents, your sisters, your brothers, your uncles.
And they mean well, but all these people exactly like speaking on behalf of you.
Maybe they're doing something fucked up on the side.
Now you're getting criticized, right?
The story is always the famous person's cousin.
Yeah.
Right.
If they can attach you to fame at any point in time, go.
And as you said, this is a sport that nobody gives a fuck about for four years.
So it's like it goes from nobody talking about to 100.
I'm the most talked about person of this fucking person.
And I was hyped to see Simone Biles.
I don't know anything about gymnastics.
I know her.
No, she's the best.
Oh, that shit is impressive to watch.
Yeah.
Fly mad.
But there was a quote to what you were saying.
Was a quote that I think Chifty sent us maybe from Tim Grover, who was Michael Jordan's personal trainer, Kobe Bryan's personal trainer.
The foremost killers mentally we've ever had, probably.
He said something like, Winning takes you to hell, and if you quit, that's where you'll stay.
So, I'm not saying what I agree or disagree with.
I'm saying the mentality of those guys.
Yeah, this is going to what Andrew was saying: the mentality of those guys is: I don't quit, I don't give a fuck.
Yeah, and she quit, she quit, and she quit for mental issues.
Like, I don't want to belittle that.
She quit because she couldn't control her mentals in the most important part of her competitive career at the Olympics.
Like, you can't undercut that in any way.
And I understand that people love her and care about her and concern for her mental health.
But if that is an important component in being a successful athlete and you don't live up to that, it's no different than somebody being injured all the time.
Yeah, I bet Greg Odin would have been a great NBA player if his knees held up.
They didn't.
They didn't hold up.
And that's a knock on Greg Odin.
They didn't hold up when you needed them to.
So criticizing her for this, I don't think is rude or mean or hurtful.
It's no different than criticizing some NBA player for not being able to shoot well, not being able to dribble.
It's just a fact.
And I can support your decision and still be a little critical of it.
Hey, he got to do that, man.
Absolutely.
Like Andrew said, this is a death-defying sport.
If you injure yourself, you're fucked.
Nobody wants that.
Take care of your mental health.
Also, that could be a little critical of a decision.
I think the issue with her is that socially we look at mental health and we don't see it as an extension of their physical body.
We don't see it as like an extension of their athletic game.
We see it as like a personal decision.
So like, oh, she just chose to be weak instead of like, oh, no, her mental was objectively like the knee situation.
Like you can't choose for your knee to be injured.
But the public perception is like, oh, she's choosing for her brain to be.
No, I understand the public feels that way.
I don't think of it that way.
I think that she has the responsibility to control her mental state and do all the work leading up to this to make sure she's on point, right?
Like if it was a joint in her knee, like she should be doing physical therapy and 100% care.
Exactly.
If you know your knees are weak, you're going to like increase the muscle mass around your knee, right?
Increase your calves, increase your quads, increase your anything you possibly, your hamstrings to take the pressure off that knee.
So if you know that you get nervous in moments like this, make sure you're doing the work.
Like there are certain people, Jamal Murray, right?
Jamal Murray did meditation his whole life.
When he goes to the line, the free throw line, he meditates.
He tries to drop his heart rate.
He tries to get in a state where he's not really thinking.
I think he's like a 90% free throw shooter.
You know, so it's like, understand what you have to do and conquer that part of the game.
But the mental is part of the game.
So to just write it off, like, oh, yeah, mentals weren't there.
So now that's not a knock in any way.
No, no, no, no.
It's a knock.
And it's a big fucking knock, especially when you walk around with goat shit everywhere.
Because the GOATs don't let that happen.
And I know people can say, hey, Jordan walked away because his mental wasn't there.
That's true.
And that's a good knock.
That's a good knock.
His mental wasn't there.
He couldn't focus on the game.
We look at it and we go, oh, he was just bored with it.
He didn't really care, blah, blah, blah.
And maybe that was the case.
Maybe he just didn't want to play basketball.
That's what we believe because he's such a fucking killer.
Maybe it was too much for him.
Did he say that?
I think he was just like, my brain was elsewhere.
Like my father died.
I didn't have anything to focus on.
No challenges left.
And you're right.
We should call that out the same way.
I think we as basketball fans look at him and we're like, oh, LeBron had a bad series against the Mavs because mentally, but he's weak.
Jordan walked away for damn near two years.
In his prime.
And after a three-peat.
He didn't want to defend his title.
I'm done.
I mean, if we're going to criticize LeBron, I think that's a great example.
If we're going to criticize LeBron's mental lapse in that series where Delante West was allegedly just crushing his mom's puss, I think that it's completely reasonable to criticize Simone Biles for a mental lapse.
And I don't think that we should be like, you know, sexist by holding women to a lower standard.
If this was a dude, if this was a dude, what?
I don't think we should.
If this was a male gymnast.
I was just conversation up with the most sexist thing.
I forgot what he said.
What did he say?
Women's sports.
Oh, women's sports.
If this was a male gymnast, yo, be honest.
If this is a male gymnast that said, I have to step away from this sport.
I have to step away from this sort.
I can't do this because my mentals aren't there.
Do you understand the ridicule?
Get on those uneven bars, bro.
Get on it.
Saddle up, dog.
Let's do it immediately.
Uneven, like your state of mind.
Get in there.
All you gotta do is just go like this on the rings.
Why is that fucking hard?
Prance around.
You're in tights.
What the fuck is wrong with you, you pussy?
What do you mean your mental state is weak?
You've been called a cuck your whole life.
You remember when Kevin Love stepped away during the regular season, very low stakes from the Cavs?
And then when he came back, Isaiah Thomas was like, nah, man, he's not for us.
He's not a part of the team.
He took care of his mental health.
His teammates were like, nah, Kyrie.
So did you.
Kyrie.
Kyrie, we rip him every time.
Oh, my mental health is weak.
I need to step away from the game.
Shut the fuck up.
Get back out there and play.
Simone is just GOAT status.
And she does what the GOATs do.
Yeah, that's one way.
That's one way of looking at it.
I don't think Kevin Love is a GOAT, but I hear what you're saying.
I think that, like, I just think that there's a lot of sexism at play here, man.
I think there's a lot of sexism.
Some people say, oh, should we hold Simone to the standards of men or should we just hold men to the standards of Simone?
Which is letting them get off the hook if their mental game isn't there and taking like some generosity with them.
I mean, like, look, I'm more of a savage, but Western society is going to gravitate towards understanding these mental conditions in the same way we understand physical ones.
And we're going to have way more grace, right?
Are they going to do that in fucking China?
No.
Right?
They're going to be absolute savages.
But what do you mean you're sad?
What is sad?
We don't do sad.
Yeah, we tell you what to feel.
Yeah, you feel happy.
You feel happy.
I love China.
I am happy.
Go flip.
That's it.
Yeah.
You know what helps depression?
Winning.
Winning makes me feel good.
Go out there and win.
Okay.
So I think that as we create a society that's way more understandable, it's going to be better for people.
People are going to live a more joyful life.
It's better for life, but it's worse for competition.
And we will start to get smoked the more that we understand.
And then we'll just be essentially what Europe is.
Europe's not good at anything, right?
Like, realistically, what are they good at?
I mean that sincerely.
I mean this.
Soccer because they're the only ones who play it.
I've thought about soccer.
They're not good at soccer.
The players from countries that don't have that grace for mental weakness.
Yeah.
Right?
The offspring of those people who come to a new country and take those values of, we're not letting you cry and bitch about this.
Go out there and kill.
All the African parents of the kids on the French national.
Do you think they're allowing mental illness or mental weakness or a rough mental state to stop them from succeeding?
Why are you gay?
Yeah.
You're not gay.
Right?
Like, so don't get me wrong.
It's probably much more pleasant.
People understand.
People are happier for sure.
They're way happier in Europe.
It is better for the average person.
And what is better for the average?
As you increase the average, you decrease the extremes.
One extreme could be the incredibly depressed, the suicidal.
Maybe those are decrease.
Maybe those people are pulled back in because what they're going through is understood, right?
There's some compassion for it.
You know what else you decrease?
The psychos on the other end, right?
You decrease the Michael Jordans.
You decrease the Kobe Price.
I think that's just.
You decrease the Jeff Bezos.
None of them come out of Europe.
And I'm not just trying to knock Europe here.
We're going to go.
I'm very excited.
I want to tour Europe.
I think it's amazing.
Those people are happy.
They're happy.
And we should learn from them.
And I hope as America gets older, we actually gravitate in that direction.
I think that's just the general trend of society.
Society Decreasing the Greats00:00:23
Agreed.
And I think at one point they were the most savage.
I mean, they were going around the world just to colonize themselves.
Objectively, the most savage.
We're the most savage people.
We're all here because of how savage they're.
Invented capitalism, invented colonialism, all that shit.
And then they're like, all right, let's chill.
Let's share the wealth.
You have to get excess to realize it doesn't really solve anything.
Yes.
And we're still in the process of that.
I think you need excess in order to get the economic conditions in order to bring everyone up to then make everything.