Everyone was talking yesterday about how the best gymnast in the world Simone Biles decided to pull out of the all-around women’s gymnastics final at the Tokyo Olympics citing mental health reasons after recording the lowest score in the competition in her opening round and everyone seemingly had an opinion on her actions.

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Obviously there has been a decidedly mixed reaction to her decision, with many people praising her for standing up and putting her mental health first, knowing that if she screwed up again she could have cost her team a medal or perhaps worse injured herself. Others haven’t been so kind, calling her a failure and a letdown for cracking under the pressure, with the USA ultimately losing out on a gold medal to Russia in the event.

I think it’s fairly clear if you read Sick Chirpse on the regular that I would be in the camp that respect Biles for making that decision and choosing to do what’s best for her and her own psyche in that situation, but then I guess if you’re going to compete at the elite level in sport then learning to deal with pressure is something that you should be able to handle. I can imagine that it gets much harder the older you get after having had so much success at a young age, especially in an individual event like gymnastics so I think you have to respect Biles for being brave enough to take a step back here. Don’t really see why dickheads who spend all their lives on the couch eating pizza and can’t even wear a mask for five minutes in Starbucks think they have any right to criticise her here.

The video below makes me respect her even more as it shows the moment that Biles told her teammates that she would be pulling out. The way that she handles the situation with her teammates and enthusiastically encourages them makes me rate her even more. Take a look at it:

Simone Biles: “I’m sorry. I love you guys, but you’re gonna be just fine.”

“You guys have trained your whole entire life for this, it’s fine. I’ve been to an Olympics, I’ll be fine. This is your first — you go out there and kick ass, okay?” pic.twitter.com/r2RxWQ2Dsy

— Kendall Baker (@TheKendallBaker) July 27, 2021

That really is inspirational isn’t it? It would have been so easy for her to fake an injury of just withdraw and be real moody or something, but instead she’s delivering rousing speeches like that and saying that they don’t even need her to win. Sure, it didn’t quite work out and they only *only* managed to get a silver medal, but even so she deserves all the props she can get. Let’s hope she comes back for the other event this week and smashes it and proves all her doubters wrong.

For more of the same, check out this Olympic triathlete celebrate his gold medal by puking everywhere at the finish line. You love to see it.