Mental pressure on kids for sporting excellence unacceptable
Image Credit: Pixabay
The Simone Biles saga during the first week of Tokyo Olympics was, once again, an eye-opener as to what the pressure of expectations can do to young minds — even if you are the reigning deity of gymnastics.
Just ponder this — the precocious American was barely 19 years old when at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, Biles won individual gold medals in all-around, vault and floor; bronze in balance beam and gold as part of the United States team, dubbed the ‘Final Five.’ When she first shot into limelight in 2013 with two World Championship gold medals, she must have been 16 — and this effectively means the process of grooming must have started when she was possibly not even in her teens.
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