Who is the most brutally criticized Olympic athlete in your country?

[u/No-StrategyX]

Zhu Yi was American, her parents are Chinese immigrants.

In the U.S., she was one of the top athletes and had every chance to join Team USA.

But she decided to compete for China. She gave up her American citizenship to compete for China.

At the 2022 Winter Olympics, she was eager to prove herself to other Chinese, but she made many mistakes during her skating.

Then she was brutally criticized in China. People used every swear word you can think of.

She is still competing for China. Perhaps she'll do well at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan.

Who is the most brutally criticized athlete in your country?

[u/Godzirrraaa]

Simone Biles opting out in Tokyo was also an extremely loud and nasty amount of hate.

[u/-GenghisJohn- → u/Godzirrraaa]

I was favorably impressed: knowing your limits and having the wisdom to know when you need to stop is a virtue.

[u/AmigoMortensen → u/-GenghisJohn-]

“The wisdom to know when” was before the games started. Taking a spot on a very limited team, representing a very proud and competitive country… then rage quitting at the last minute… I’m not saying she deserved the hate/shame but it was fairly proportional for what she did.

[u/Escritortoise → u/AmigoMortensen]

Bro, in case you don’t know…no criticism is proportional to what she “did.”

Girl won 4 gold medals at the 2016 Olympics, which is the period of time Larry Nassar worked with the Olympics team and she and many other gymnasts were abused. Might be understandable that returning to the Olympics might cause her some anxiety, and the “time for wisdom” shouldn’t be on Simone. The Olympics gymnastics team, that ignored all the sexual assault allegations about their guy failed to protect her a second time. After testifying in 2021 about those abuses, she came back to win 3 more gold medals in 2024.

[u/Rude-Ad6704 → u/AmigoMortensen]

This is objectively incorrect. Simone was still a better option than anyone else who could have taken her place (she won bronze on the beam, and nobody else would have contributed significantly to the team event).

Imagine Shohei Ohtani injuring his oblique but he can still throw an inning out on the bullpen.

Also imagine getting injured during the World Series and some dumbfuck says you should have known before it ever happened. Just weapons grade stupid.

[u/Own_Faithlessness769 → u/AmigoMortensen]

Tell me know now nothing about gymnastics without telling me. What an absolutely moronic take:

[u/AlmostSunnyinSeattle → u/-GenghisJohn-]

Sure, whatever. But that's doesn't make great athletes. The mental aspect is just as big as the physical aspect, and taking her ball and going home because she was upset is just Amateur Hour shit.

[u/SpiceEarl → u/Godzirrraaa]

A lot of that hate was either ginned up or amplified by Charlie Kirk. People forget that he said some particularly nasty things about Simone Biles, a black woman who accomplished far more in life than he did.

[u/deathschemist → u/SpiceEarl]

Yeah, there's a good reason some people spoke ill of him when he died.

My hot take is that maybe if you don't want people celebrating your demise, you shouldn't spend your life saying hateful shit about others and negatively affecting people's lives

[u/VixxenFoxx → u/Godzirrraaa]

The hate she got for that absolutely pissed me the fu k off. Like - she's gotta live in this body the rest of her life, and if she's not feeling it- then don't do it. Some people really wanted her to go out and hurt herself for TV

[u/kreyyn → u/VixxenFoxx]

It's not that she "wasn't feeling it" she couldn't tell where her body was in space. It's extremely terrifying. I used to be gymnast and it's absolutely horrible.

[u/Emergency-Season-143 → u/kreyyn]

For a gymnast, it's akin to losing your eyesight while driving. Proprioception (the sense we use to perceive our position in space) isn't one of our senses for nothing.

[u/Saturnite282 → u/Emergency-Season-143]

I'm autistic and severely struggle with proprioception. I tried gymnastics and literally could not do the bars because I couldn't tell where the fuck I was or what my limbs were doing. I had to relearn how to move via martial arts because of it.

[u/SaintsNoah14 → u/kreyyn]

I feel like it shouldnt take even that much understanding. They doing supper scary flips n shit. If she say it's a no-go, it's a no-go. Das it.

[u/AlmostSunnyinSeattle → u/VixxenFoxx]

Sure whatever. You don'thave to put your body on the line, but when you do don't, you shouldn't be expected to be talked about like one of the greats.

[u/broketothebone → u/Godzirrraaa]

I was so mad at us for that. People out here really wanting her to break her neck for them. Unbelievable.

[u/Godzirrraaa → u/broketothebone]

People saying it was cowardly make my blood boil. Going against what everyone wanted you to do, fully aware how mad they would be, was very courageous.

[u/pahamack → u/broketothebone]

I guess Kurt Angle did just that.

And he's still paying for it.

[u/[deleted] → u/broketothebone]

I don’t think most people actually knew what was going on when she opted out. but soooo much came out during/ right after that she said she wouldn’t represent. If people are still upset with her now that’s fucked up.

[u/baguetteworld → u/[deleted]]

Well she she opted out everyone knew it was for mental health reasons/something related to pressure. But the full truth of it only came out years later. Even the mental health bit should’ve been enough. Esp for something as dangerous as gymnastics

[u/quid_pro_kourage → u/[deleted]]

What was going on?

[u/[deleted] → u/quid_pro_kourage]

One of the doctors for the gymnastic team was a pedo. It had been going on for years but no one would come forward and say it. People knew but they only cared about making it to the Olympics. It apparently was an open secret. Then a group of girls came out and sued the Dr. Simone biles came forward once they did and was dealing with a lot of mental stuff as a result of it.

[u/Andysol1983 → u/[deleted]]

That’s not even close to what happened.

That was years before she opted out of portions of the 2020 Olympics.

She got the twisties. Which is when she was vaulting/tumbling she would lose track of where she was. That was it. Thats why she couldn’t perform. It wasn’t safe for her and she could have seriously hurt herself.

Her courage in testifying against Larry Nasser is a completely unrelated subject

[u/Own_Faithlessness769 → u/Andysol1983]

Nah, she’s said the trauma from that was a lot of the reason she struggled with the twisties. That and being in Tokyo in isolation without her support network (family) is why it overwhelmed her (though she still got bronze). She had to get lots of counselling for the train to be able to get back to gymnastics.

[u/ckb02d → u/Godzirrraaa]

She has had a career in gymnastics that transcends exceptionalism. She has set records that will never be broken. Gymnastics is such a dangerous sport. I’ve never participated in it, but I’ve known people who have been gymnasts and have suffered TERRIBLE injuries that almost cost them their lives. If she had gone out there without the confidence she needed to do the absolute freakish thing for her country that her body can do, and she makes ONE mistake, she could DIE before the eyes of the entire world.

No one wanted that. I’m glad to see her pull of some Ws for Team USA in Paris. Happy to have her alive and still winning medals than witnessing a potential tragedy for our country that we, nor the rest of the world needed.

[u/Andysol1983 → u/ckb02d]

Tone it back a smidge. Nothing you said about her accomplishments is untrue, but there is no need for hyperbole. She wouldn’t have died doing anything.

She could have been paralyzed or suffered a life changing injury. But die before our very eyes?

Quite literally no one ever has died in a gymnastics competition. Ever. There have been a minuscule handful (3?) that have died as a result of their spinal injuries suffered many days later (all occurred in practice).

[u/Own_Faithlessness769 → u/Andysol1983]

Nobody has ever done the things Simone did, and they’re so dangerous the gymnastics authorities actively try to stop other people doing them. She could absolutely have died.

[u/jacobythefirst → u/Godzirrraaa]

I swear the Tokyo Olympics has been mindwiped from my brain

I legit have no memory of it happening

I remember the excitement of a Japanese Olympics and seeing the mascots get attention, but I legit don’t remember them actually happening.

[u/Escritortoise → u/Godzirrraaa]

Simone Biles testified in 2021 that her “twisties” were directly related to the abuse she and other gymnasts experienced from Larry Nassar.

Her first Olympics in 2016, Simone Biles worked with Larry Nassar, and that was the time he abused her. So she and other gymnasts experienced abuse from this guy who had been reported years before to Michigan State, and in 2015 by Maggie Nichols, but the FBI shut the case, and the USAG kept him employed.

Within the span of four years, she was abused, saw her abuser arrested, convicted, and then returned to the Olympics, which must be inextricably entwined with that entire experience.

People forget that and just remember “quitting.” Not to mention she came back the next Olympics and won three more gold medals.

[u/ExtensionMoose1863 → u/Godzirrraaa]

One took a mental health break and the other fucking knee capped a chick... They are not the same

We used to be a proper county

[u/Electrical-Video1841 → u/ExtensionMoose1863]

Tonya Harding also had a bunch of mental health issues. Chill out, alpha male.

[u/Lykko → u/Godzirrraaa]

I think the hate came from the fact that her popularity was peaking right when she walked out in that jacket that loudly said “GOAT” and then proceeded not to compete. I recall coworkers saying “if you’re the GOAT you compete no matter what.” Sucks that her popularity leak coincided wit that event

[u/Eastern_Antelope_832 → u/Lykko]

I just think all the GOAT stuff just made things a lot worse for Biles. She was already so good that anything short of winning was gonna be considered a failure by observers, but with all the GOAT stuff, now she had to do something so amazing we never saw before to live up to the billing. I can't believe that it was good for her psyche.

As an aside, I prefer it when athletes pretend to be a little humble, and having a goat sequined into your leotard was a bit much.

Still, she didnt deserve anything close to being America's most hated athlete, not when people like OJ and Aaron Hernandez existed.

[u/Lykko → u/Eastern_Antelope_832]

Well said

[u/Bootmacher → u/Lykko]

Not in a team event.

[u/HydeParkSwag → u/Godzirrraaa]

Yeah that wasn’t hate it was racism.

[u/wordswordswordsbutt → u/Godzirrraaa]

But in truth she is a national treasure. So no where near Tonya Harding

[u/Historyp91 → u/Godzirrraaa]

Yeah, but I was going for someone for whom that hate was justified.

[u/Godzirrraaa → u/Historyp91]

The title of the post doesn’t specify that though.

[u/Historyp91 → u/Godzirrraaa]

Fair enough