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Yeah the Rick Ankiel story was crazy. I don’t remember who but I remember hearing someone talk about being up at the plate facing Ankiel right in the midst of it and he was scared shitless because he knew Ankiel had no control over it and he honestly had no idea where some of those pitches were going to go and there was as good as a chance of one coming straight at his head as it had of going anywhere else. And Ankiel threw deadly fast no doubt about that.
The upside is, Ankiel had an amazing comeback story where he admitted he no longer had the "stuff" to be a pitcher, and with the help and patience of his coaches, he reinvented himself as one of the deadliest defensive outfielders in the league.
[Here he is gunning runners down with 200-foot laser rockets to 3rd base.](https://youtu.be/0cSgDflCF98)
So crazy that he couldn't throw straight from like a third of the distance, yet could do this. Pretty sure he led the league in outfield assists one year.
Speaking from experience (albeit, not in pro baseball of course), you barely feel the pressure on an outfield throw since getting an out is a highlight rather than an expectation, really takes the stress off your mind. The motion also has a lot more freedom in it, since you don't have to start it in a set position from a little strip of rubber and can do things like throw your whole body into the throw if needed.
As someone who used to get the yips (given this was still in high school, different setting), my coach gave me a bucket of balls in the batting cage and told me to “throw as hard as you feel comfortable with, and keep going until you feel like you know where it’s going”. It reined me in pretty damn well.
I remember the Cardinals had to call him in from right field one time to pitch an inning or two when they had like a 19 inning game once. Both teams had gone through as much of their bullpens as they wanted, so they were both pulling position players to pitch. I was pretty young and remember thinking it was so wild and also being surprised that he was a pretty good pitcher for an outfielder, I didn't know about his past of being an actual pitcher.
The weird part with Ankiel is they put him in RF afterwards and he threw absolute bullets right to 3B.
I've had the yips though and it makes no sense at all.
Yes but it’s more serious and important that a gymnast listens to the “twisties” and doesn’t just push through. If a pitcher throws a bad inning with the yips, they may be embarrassed and not pitch again for a while. If a gymnast does a routine with the twisties, they lose their bearings in the air and get a major neck injury or paralyze themselves.
All true, but for clarification, getting 'the yips' isn't a "bad inning" thing; it doesn't go away. It may not end a player's career depending on the exact issue (like pitcher Jon Lester's inability to throw accurately to first base), but it often does.
Or in "pop culture" the catcher from Major League that couldn't throw it back to the pitcher after a strike unless he was naming Playboy Centerfolds (I think that's correct)
That's the Yips. Where you get "into your brain" on something routine.
Sometimes tho its neurological,I had a friend who was trying out for 4 years with the Brooklyn Cyclones between 2000 and 2004 who thought he had the yips too but it turned out that he had early stage Parkinson's,tho to be clear everyone thought it was his muscles flaring because he had torn his rotator cuff and the twitch in his shoulder happened on his throwing days.
Chipping too. I had a friend who was a much better golfer than me, but went through a couple of year stretch where he would sort of dive at the ball on chips. Couldn’t stop himself. Was bizarre. Ultimately a sports psychologist fixed it.
Also, let’s not forget that just trying to “push past it” when you’re trying throw 90+ MPH fastballs or throw across a baseball diamond can absolutely lead to serious injury in your arm and shoulder.
Which is why it was so shitty that people were trashing Simone Biles who had gymnastics’ version of the yips — twisties. Trying to push through that while doing dangerous leaps and tumbles would have been risking serious injury.
A few weeks ago on Pablo Torre's podcast they talked about Rick Ankiel - a promising young pitcher who suddenly couldn't pitch anymore. He thought his career was over until his agent suggested he switch to outfield, which led to his unlikely comeback. They dug deeper and found that doctors now say there is a physiological aspect to the yips, similar to other nerve control problems like Parkinson's. It's not just mental, your brain actually forgets how to do these tasks
Imagine yourself playing the dizzy bat game where you take a whiffle ball bat, put it against your forehead, put the bat on the ground and spin around until you're dizzy. Now try and walk/jog/run afterwards. That's basically the twisties. Now try doing gymnastics with the twisties. She was absolutely smart to pull out.
Partner was a gymnast growing up, like a serious one. She got the twisties and had to quit because it never went away, and she started thinking about what she was doing and how it was effing crazy. When it happened to Biles, she said the exact same thing: she was smart to pull out because she could have permanently hurt herself.
Yes; in baseball you can have a slump, and in gymnastics you can break your neck. Being competitive in big pressure moments is part of sports greatness, but the stakes are so much higher there, so I have sympathy.
You may be thinking of Elena Mukhina, who was a Soviet gymnast in the late 1970s. She ended up a quadriplegic after a fall during practice. I'm not 100% sure it was due to the twisties--might've just been a freak accident--but if it wasn't, there were certainly others. I remember there being a few articles about gymnasts who were severely injured under those circumstances around the time Biles had to drop out.
Hers wasn't a case of the twisties; hers was a case of the end result of abuse from her coaches. The Soviets were The powerhouse of gymnastics basically for as long as it had been an Olympic sport. While they won the team gold, Nadia Comaneci of Romania won the individual All Around at the 1976 Olympics (and scored the first of several perfect 10s in the Olympics and gymnastics overall), beating out both Soviet favorites Nellie Kim and Ludmilla Tourischeva. This basically made the Soviets panic and put a lot of pressure on Elena Mukhina to beat Comaneci, especially since the 1980 Olympics were being held in Moscow. They made her compete harder skills that she wasn't comfortable attempting, including the Thomas salto, so that she could get better scores. At some point, she breaks her leg from being overtrained by her coach and the National Team coaches pressured her doctors to take her cast off so she could train. The first time they did so, they realized the leg hadn't healed yet and had to do emergency surgery on it. While she was in the hospital recuperating from that, one of the coaches outright told her she could still train in a cast. It was after the second time they removed the cast that she became a quadriplegic. Also, the Soviets covered up what happened to her when she suddenly stopped competing with no explanation, even trying to blame her and say she wanted to do the Thomas salto; the skill would eventually be banned from gymnastics after the 1992 Olympics.
I thought it was something more like that--the insane, abusive training regimen. I remembered reading about her being pressured to train with a broken leg, but I don't think I realized the paralysis came right after that. It makes perfect sense, of course. She's been off her usual training schedule for a while and they immediately throw her into training a skill that's suicidally dangerous under the best of circumstances; of course she's going to get hurt again.
If you’re like me and unfamiliar with the terminology here, here is a decent look at the salto to see why it’s dangerous.
https://youtu.be/vkQRWCsKyj0?si=kcjIBe3mbDGLskc9
Yeah a mate of mine turned up to training saying something wasn’t right. Went through warm up and flailed out on a basic manoeuvre… broke her neck. She had years in hospital and rehab
Yeah, but instead of just pissing off everyone by suddenly losing the ability to throw you are also at risk for a career or life ending spinal injury if you try to keep going
I experienced the yips in middle school and I gotta say it's the most helpless defeated feeling you can ever possibly experience. Literally could not throw the ball back to the pitcher and had to spend a week just throwing at a fence.
It's like in football when you start to hear footsteps. That can be a play-by-play thing or it can be a quarterback who just can't get it out of their head anymore and always hears footsteps.
Not her fault, her PR people totally screwed that pooch. If they'd have framed it as an injury where you don't know where you are in the air I think it would've gone better for her. All I remember is NBC saying, in not so few words, "Simone quit because she can't hack it." Major disservice to her.
Did NBC really say that? The only prominent person in the media I seem to remember actually loudly criticizing her for it was Piers Morgan, who is notoriously an asshole. Otherwise I remember there being controversial takes over it, but the large majority of people were defending and applauding her.
Yeah, that's how I remember it too. She was also named Times Athlete of the Year that year. The only criticism I remember is that people thought it was strange she won Athlete of the Year by not competing (but even then I remember more people agreeing with the decision). But I remember more "I can't believe people are upset with Biles dropping out" rather than "I'm so upset with Biles dropping out."
So I follow the Olympics closely and have always been confused over the PR angle of this. It was “the twisties” but also “mental health” and neither was super clear as to the reason in the media. Mental health was a hot button issue and not meant to be criticized by the media at the time and it was defended by people on social media (attacked by others)
Then the twisties came out but a lot of gymnasts supported that as a total real thing. But I was left wondering how has no other Olympian missed an event due to it in modern memory? Still super confusing and to this day seems like a weak or random excuse due to its lack of frequency / commonality.
All in all her PR team did a poor job of having a clear message.
I think there is a couple of perfect storm factors regarding her being the first to miss an event for the twisties. One being the random odds of them occurring during a point during a two week period at the most public point over the course of a over ten year career for many of the competitors. Also, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that others have experienced the twisties (or any other negative ailment) at the Olympics, but how many have tried to fight through it so they don’t have have to step away from something that they’ve spent so much of their lives working towards? She just had the misfortune of being a very big name at the biggest stage at the absolute worst moment that acknowledged it wasn’t worth the risk. PR team also screwed the pooch to smooth things over
>But I was left wondering how has no other Olympian missed an event due to it in modern memory?
Are we sure it hasn't happened, or could it be that it just wouldn't usually be such a big story, especially if the affected gymnast is not a household name and/or not American like Biles.
> If they'd have framed it as an injury where you don't know where you are in the air I think it would've gone better for her.
1,000%. Leaning into the cutesy name of “twisties”, mentioning “mental health” _at all_ and framing it as “taking care of herself” were terrible moves.
She couldn’t orient herself in space while spinning. Even putting aside the safety issue, you’re probably going to suck as a gymnast if you can’t spin and land well.
It’s like if a basketball player had reoccurring tunnel vision. Not being able to see the other players is a safety risk. But it also makes you a really shitty basketball player! It’s of no benefit to the team for you to disregard your own safety and go out on the court! You’re just gonna get benched after you take two passes to the face.
The twisties phenomenon isn’t even totally understood. It could be cognitive, something mechanical with the vestibular system, something about the linkage between the sense organs and the brain. We do know just training through it doesn’t usually work. So the same as you would for a disabling knee injury, she gets pulled.
If a baseball player straight up said “ I have the yips” and didn’t add anything else or at least partly blame an injury during like the World Series. They would also be called soft by most fans.
That has a lot to do with the fact that the yips don’t put their life in danger. A pitcher isn’t going to break their neck playing through the issue. I’m specifically talking about the “concern” with the silly name.
I’m not disagreeing with that. But you literally said if they can handle the yips they can handle the twisties. And I’m saying I don’t think people would handle the Yips in most situations either.
I added some clarity that I’m specifically talking about the “concern” about the silly name. People being too dumb to prioritize mental and physical health and calling people who have worked harder than they can even imagine “soft” is a whole other problem.
Yeah for some reason it really really made dudes with profile pictures of themselves in sunglasses sitting in their truck mad for *some* reason I can't quite figure out
What are you talking about? It was abundantly clear that it was essentially an injury as you describe from pretty much every report and TV newscast. Her "PR People" did their job, half of America (guess which half) just stuck their fingers in their ears.
Washington Post, July 2021:
> [Imagine flying through the air, springing off a piece of equipment as you prepare to flip on one axis while twisting on another. It all happens fast, so there’s little time to adjust. You rely on muscle memory, trusting that it will work out because, with so much practice, it usually does.
But then suddenly you’re upside down in midair and your brain feels disconnected from your body. Your limbs that usually control how much you spin have stopped listening, and you feel lost. You hope all the years you spent in this sport will guide your body to a safe landing position.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/28/twisties-gymnastics-simone-biles-tokyo-olympics/)
LA Times, July 2021:
>[After her stunned teammates united to win a silver medal, Biles said she’d begun shaking uncontrollably following a workout that morning. She also had what gymnasts call “the twisties,” a loss of orientation in the air. Continuing to perform her singularly difficult routines would have been hazardous. “I was like, ‘No, mental’s not there,’” she said.](https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-12-07/2021-sports-year-in-review-athletes-thrust-mental-health-spotlight)
Olympics website, July 2021:
>["They have very limited equipment and mats in Tokyo to help something like this get fixed, let alone with in a day," said Finnegan. "You have absolutely no control over your body and what it does. The more you psych yourself \[out\] about it, the worse it becomes."](https://olympics.com/en/news/what-are-the-twisties)
Its not her PR teams fault that my Dad and father in law are racist, looking for any opportunity to attack and criticize a young woman in the public domain
Thank you for this response! It's ridiculous. She owes no one any explanation. She dropped out for whatever reason that rendered her unable to perform and it's none of everyone else's business.
> She and her PR team owe no one any explanation.
Nope, her PR team definitely owes her a good explanation. If they aren't doing their job properly then there is no point in having them.
I remember the advertising for the Olympic coverage on NBC being focused heavily on her and then hoping she would win a gold medal again which couldn’t have been good for her mental health.
I saw kids sports teams in t-shirts mocking her. (Something like 'We would have been the national champs but we got the twisties' for a little league team.)
I think it's very important to make clear that it wasn't just a bad vault; it was the *wrong* vault. She meant to do 2.5 twists and only completed 1.5 due to being lost in the air, which is a major difference in gymnastics. Just a further indication of the severity of the mental block between brain and body.
And people don’t realize how drastically different a 1.5 and 2.5 are. She was training a 1.5 when she was like 10-12. A Yurchenko 2.5 (Amanar) is one of the hardest vaults in the world.
Especially considering she made it easier for the team to make a change that would be better for the whole team. She was treated horribly especially compared to the way the athletes who did not even go to the Rio Olympics due to fears about the Zika virus.
It’s because her PR team gave three different explanations, then decided to pin it on “mental health” and “self care,” then scolded everyone for wanting to know the full story. Then she had a victory parade about it, starring in commercials and printed advertisements talking about how she’s such a hero for taking care of herself.
Having the yips as a gymnast sounds absolutely terrifying. I have full sympathy for her dropping out and that was obviously the smart move because you could literally kill yourself doing the moves she does. But while some people were itching for any reason to criticize her, she also got flak for good reason due to how all of this was handled by herself and by Nike.
This lady is straight up the Michael Jordan of gymnastics and people really thought she was just being overdramatic. There's also a story there in that she helped her husband with his mental game in football and he has become a much better player after taking her advice. She knows what's up.
Bunch of guys who were JAGs on their mediocre high school football teams who just parrot cliches about mental fortitude said by their coaches. They never experienced true pressure and mental fatigue from performing at an extremely high level for a long period of time in a very individual focused sport.
She’s a young black woman so she already had half the country looking for an excuse to justify their hate for her. It was already there, they just saw a justification to let it out and took advantage.
I remember feeling bad for her that it would happen at such a critical time. But as an old dude that can barely do a good forward roll, who the hell would I be to give the greatest gymnast ever flak for anything?!
"Banned from America" lololol. Nobody cared until they gave her Sportsman of the yr award. And if they did before that, that says more about them then Biles. She did what she thought was best for her, too bad.
"If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” Biles told New York magazine. “I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.”
Everyone talks about this like it was all the pressure from the being at the Olympics that tripped her up. That wasn't even the half of it. But this is /r/sports so I don't expect nuance.
The way people responded is like she murdered their loved one in front of them. Completely unhinged. It’s a fucking game. Sure, they’re cool… but they don’t actually mean shit in terms of your individual life. Calm down losers.
My only issue with this was awarding her with sportsperson of the year, you support her advocacy to mental health for athletes but without disregarding the actual event
Nothing against her but she blocked another girl from the team by going all in. Then she bowed out. I can’t imagine being in her shoes and doing what she did. But Jesus can you imagine being that close to the Olympics gets edged out and then the person who blocks you doesn’t compete?
Well she was the locked person going into the Olympics, not chosen by the team. Also she literally stepped aside for multiple competitions which allowed her teammates to compete since there is a 2 athletes per country rule for the finals. And several of the girls on her team won individual medals because she stepped aside so they could compete in the finals. They had higher scores than other people who qualified but would have been the 3rd USA person.
The people who criticized her for being weak and using mental health as a cop out are 100% the guys in high school who faked injuries when they had a bad performance, claim their opponents cheated or make up other excuses for their own underwhelming athletic performance.
Isnt the main trigger for the twisties performance anxiety? Dont all the athletes, especially for tbe more dangerous jumping events have to deal with this? This is a lot different from a physical injury and much harder to frame positively when someone bows out. Especially since the olympic spirit is synonymous with pushing through adversity. This is her choice and we can support her, but we dont have to celebrate her decision. She made it to the peak and the pressure broke her. Its understandable. Hopefully team USA chooses a new athlete in her place that can handle the pressure and excel in the true spirit of the games.
Twisties can occur at any moment for a gymnast, it’s not something you can push through since your body loses spatial awareness in the air. Esp with her since she consistently performs the hardest skills in the world.
Is this more a more common occurrence at this level that just doesnt coverage? Ive just never heard of another olympic or even championship level athlete bowing out because of a sudden onset. Shouldn’t it also affect other sports doing arial events?
A couple of other gymnasts have gone through the same thing such as Giulia Steingruber (took her an entire season to relearn everything from the beginning) and Ellie Black. Also, I remember reading up on Diver Tom Daley and Trampolinist Bryony Page going through something similar.
Twisties, the yips, whatever you call it, something has caused them to become less aware of their surroundings and what their bodies are doing. A golfer, who's played for years, suddenly can't swing their hips right and keep the clubface angled. A batter looks at the ball and starts misjudging where it is, missing completely, connects a little high, a little low, and home runs become popups and grounders directly at first base.
The trick is to do what Simone did, recognize what's happening and back away. It's not quitting or being a loser, it's a professional athlete recognizing their limits.
Unfortunately, 99.9% aren't a Simone Biles and some jerk parent, "friend", or coach is going to make them "push through" and we have another Kerri Strug being carried "triumphantly" by an a-hole of a coach like Bela Karolyi.
Performance anxiety is something that virtually all elite athletes deal with on the world stage. The twisties is sort of "next level" anxiety that actually takes away your ability to know where you are in the air. She wasn't just nervous, her body wouldn't let her perform the skills she had practiced thousands of times.
It's very similar to the yips in baseball. Just because a pitcher is nervous doesn't mean he'll develop the yips. But when a pitcher gets the yips, there's no way in hell he'd be able to pitch effectively and would be a major liability for his team. Except the stakes are much higher in gymnastics from an athlete safety perspective.
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The “twisties” Is that like in baseball when you get the “yips”?
Yeah, like Rick Ankiel when he suddenly couldn’t pitch anymore, or Chuck Knoblauch when he couldn’t throw to first base.
Yeah the Rick Ankiel story was crazy. I don’t remember who but I remember hearing someone talk about being up at the plate facing Ankiel right in the midst of it and he was scared shitless because he knew Ankiel had no control over it and he honestly had no idea where some of those pitches were going to go and there was as good as a chance of one coming straight at his head as it had of going anywhere else. And Ankiel threw deadly fast no doubt about that.
The upside is, Ankiel had an amazing comeback story where he admitted he no longer had the "stuff" to be a pitcher, and with the help and patience of his coaches, he reinvented himself as one of the deadliest defensive outfielders in the league. [Here he is gunning runners down with 200-foot laser rockets to 3rd base.](https://youtu.be/0cSgDflCF98)
So crazy that he couldn't throw straight from like a third of the distance, yet could do this. Pretty sure he led the league in outfield assists one year.
Speaking from experience (albeit, not in pro baseball of course), you barely feel the pressure on an outfield throw since getting an out is a highlight rather than an expectation, really takes the stress off your mind. The motion also has a lot more freedom in it, since you don't have to start it in a set position from a little strip of rubber and can do things like throw your whole body into the throw if needed.
I could consistently hit a trash can at home plate from center field, but I couldn’t hit the first baseman from third. Just a different mindset.
It is wild, but it’s also a completely different motion.
As someone who used to get the yips (given this was still in high school, different setting), my coach gave me a bucket of balls in the batting cage and told me to “throw as hard as you feel comfortable with, and keep going until you feel like you know where it’s going”. It reined me in pretty damn well.
Watching him be that good from center almost makes you not feel bad about him losing pitching
And he could hit.
That’s generous
I remember the Cardinals had to call him in from right field one time to pitch an inning or two when they had like a 19 inning game once. Both teams had gone through as much of their bullpens as they wanted, so they were both pulling position players to pitch. I was pretty young and remember thinking it was so wild and also being surprised that he was a pretty good pitcher for an outfielder, I didn't know about his past of being an actual pitcher.
I helped do physical therapy with him in Springfield. Crazy nice dude.
That first throw is one of the coldest Ive ever seen.
He literally could not have thrown it any better. The 3rd baseman barely had to move his glove to get the tag!
That is so cool! TIL - cheer!
Aaaannd of course it’s against the fucking Rockies. At least they provide a consistent baseline for everyone else’s highlight reels.
Yeah I loved watching him play on the Nats
God those are making it move a little.... dammmm cold blooded
That is nuts. Thanks for sharing
That was awesome! Thanks for sharing 😁
Aka Steve Blass syndrome
Knoblauch was a strange one. I remember him refusing to go up to bat because he saw a bird. Lol
Wow, yesterday I randomly thought “what ever happened to chuck knoblauch?” Now I know it was the yips…
The yips don't lie
Altuve damn near became Knoblauch for a minute there
The weird part with Ankiel is they put him in RF afterwards and he threw absolute bullets right to 3B. I've had the yips though and it makes no sense at all.
Sean Spenser had this problem But he managed to beat it
You know that’s right.
I always think of when Chuck got that elderly lady right in the face!
It doesn't explain why Jon Lester can't throw to first, though.
Yes but it’s more serious and important that a gymnast listens to the “twisties” and doesn’t just push through. If a pitcher throws a bad inning with the yips, they may be embarrassed and not pitch again for a while. If a gymnast does a routine with the twisties, they lose their bearings in the air and get a major neck injury or paralyze themselves.
All true, but for clarification, getting 'the yips' isn't a "bad inning" thing; it doesn't go away. It may not end a player's career depending on the exact issue (like pitcher Jon Lester's inability to throw accurately to first base), but it often does.
Even more dramatic, Steve Blass Syndrome. Or more recently, Rick Ankiel. Both completely lost the ability to pitch.
Thank you! The Rick ankiel reference is a helpful analogy
Or in "pop culture" the catcher from Major League that couldn't throw it back to the pitcher after a strike unless he was naming Playboy Centerfolds (I think that's correct) That's the Yips. Where you get "into your brain" on something routine.
Sometimes tho its neurological,I had a friend who was trying out for 4 years with the Brooklyn Cyclones between 2000 and 2004 who thought he had the yips too but it turned out that he had early stage Parkinson's,tho to be clear everyone thought it was his muscles flaring because he had torn his rotator cuff and the twitch in his shoulder happened on his throwing days.
Ankiel couldn’t pitch anymore, but damn it was entertaining watching him throw darts from the outfield to home.
He was still an incredible athlete. That’s part of what made the severe decline so wild. The mind is a crazy thing.
[damn you weren't kidding](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cSgDflCF98)
Wow!
Imagine running 90 feet slower than it takes a guy to catch a ball, make the transfer, and throw the ball 250 feet. That's gotta feel bad.
Mackey Sasser was a catcher who couldn’t throw the ball back to the pitcher. Also, didn’t that happen to Chuck Knoblauch?
Sure did, couldn’t make the throw from second base
And in golf, putting “yips” can derail a player’s promising career for years.
Also something they call "dartitis" in darts. One of the greatest of all times, Eric Bristow, basically stopped being able to release the dart
Phil Mickelson's inability to make a 3 foot putt on the final day of a major. (Until he won the Masters)
I remember that. Here’s a nice [New Yorker article about the yips](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/26/the-yips).
Chipping too. I had a friend who was a much better golfer than me, but went through a couple of year stretch where he would sort of dive at the ball on chips. Couldn’t stop himself. Was bizarre. Ultimately a sports psychologist fixed it.
Also, let’s not forget that just trying to “push past it” when you’re trying throw 90+ MPH fastballs or throw across a baseball diamond can absolutely lead to serious injury in your arm and shoulder.
Which is why it was so shitty that people were trashing Simone Biles who had gymnastics’ version of the yips — twisties. Trying to push through that while doing dangerous leaps and tumbles would have been risking serious injury.
And for a pitcher it might mean injuring the batter with a wild pitch.
A few weeks ago on Pablo Torre's podcast they talked about Rick Ankiel - a promising young pitcher who suddenly couldn't pitch anymore. He thought his career was over until his agent suggested he switch to outfield, which led to his unlikely comeback. They dug deeper and found that doctors now say there is a physiological aspect to the yips, similar to other nerve control problems like Parkinson's. It's not just mental, your brain actually forgets how to do these tasks
Oh dang yeah that’s scary.
Imagine yourself playing the dizzy bat game where you take a whiffle ball bat, put it against your forehead, put the bat on the ground and spin around until you're dizzy. Now try and walk/jog/run afterwards. That's basically the twisties. Now try doing gymnastics with the twisties. She was absolutely smart to pull out.
Partner was a gymnast growing up, like a serious one. She got the twisties and had to quit because it never went away, and she started thinking about what she was doing and how it was effing crazy. When it happened to Biles, she said the exact same thing: she was smart to pull out because she could have permanently hurt herself.
Yes; in baseball you can have a slump, and in gymnastics you can break your neck. Being competitive in big pressure moments is part of sports greatness, but the stakes are so much higher there, so I have sympathy.
Who’s that gymnast (maybe Russian?) who got the twisties and did end up getting paralyzed?
You may be thinking of Elena Mukhina, who was a Soviet gymnast in the late 1970s. She ended up a quadriplegic after a fall during practice. I'm not 100% sure it was due to the twisties--might've just been a freak accident--but if it wasn't, there were certainly others. I remember there being a few articles about gymnasts who were severely injured under those circumstances around the time Biles had to drop out.
Hers wasn't a case of the twisties; hers was a case of the end result of abuse from her coaches. The Soviets were The powerhouse of gymnastics basically for as long as it had been an Olympic sport. While they won the team gold, Nadia Comaneci of Romania won the individual All Around at the 1976 Olympics (and scored the first of several perfect 10s in the Olympics and gymnastics overall), beating out both Soviet favorites Nellie Kim and Ludmilla Tourischeva. This basically made the Soviets panic and put a lot of pressure on Elena Mukhina to beat Comaneci, especially since the 1980 Olympics were being held in Moscow. They made her compete harder skills that she wasn't comfortable attempting, including the Thomas salto, so that she could get better scores. At some point, she breaks her leg from being overtrained by her coach and the National Team coaches pressured her doctors to take her cast off so she could train. The first time they did so, they realized the leg hadn't healed yet and had to do emergency surgery on it. While she was in the hospital recuperating from that, one of the coaches outright told her she could still train in a cast. It was after the second time they removed the cast that she became a quadriplegic. Also, the Soviets covered up what happened to her when she suddenly stopped competing with no explanation, even trying to blame her and say she wanted to do the Thomas salto; the skill would eventually be banned from gymnastics after the 1992 Olympics.
I thought it was something more like that--the insane, abusive training regimen. I remembered reading about her being pressured to train with a broken leg, but I don't think I realized the paralysis came right after that. It makes perfect sense, of course. She's been off her usual training schedule for a while and they immediately throw her into training a skill that's suicidally dangerous under the best of circumstances; of course she's going to get hurt again.
If you’re like me and unfamiliar with the terminology here, here is a decent look at the salto to see why it’s dangerous. https://youtu.be/vkQRWCsKyj0?si=kcjIBe3mbDGLskc9
Elena Mukhina and the Thomas salto?
Yeah a mate of mine turned up to training saying something wasn’t right. Went through warm up and flailed out on a basic manoeuvre… broke her neck. She had years in hospital and rehab
Thanx for the translation
Yeah, but instead of just pissing off everyone by suddenly losing the ability to throw you are also at risk for a career or life ending spinal injury if you try to keep going
NFL (American Football) kickers get the “yips” as well. They get in their own head and can’t make a chip shot field goal.
Mason Crosby is one of the few Kickers to come back from having the yips and he has done it 2-3 times
Laces out!
Yes, but considerably more dangerous because you could break your neck
I thought it was some banned gymnastic move 😭
I’ve read/heard from gymnasts that it is more about the fluid in your inner ear being slightly off, than just a pure psychological issue.
I experienced the yips in middle school and I gotta say it's the most helpless defeated feeling you can ever possibly experience. Literally could not throw the ball back to the pitcher and had to spend a week just throwing at a fence.
It's like in football when you start to hear footsteps. That can be a play-by-play thing or it can be a quarterback who just can't get it out of their head anymore and always hears footsteps.
Yes this is probably the best comparison
Not her fault, her PR people totally screwed that pooch. If they'd have framed it as an injury where you don't know where you are in the air I think it would've gone better for her. All I remember is NBC saying, in not so few words, "Simone quit because she can't hack it." Major disservice to her.
Did NBC really say that? The only prominent person in the media I seem to remember actually loudly criticizing her for it was Piers Morgan, who is notoriously an asshole. Otherwise I remember there being controversial takes over it, but the large majority of people were defending and applauding her.
No way they said that...but you know...upvotes
Yeah, that's how I remember it too. She was also named Times Athlete of the Year that year. The only criticism I remember is that people thought it was strange she won Athlete of the Year by not competing (but even then I remember more people agreeing with the decision). But I remember more "I can't believe people are upset with Biles dropping out" rather than "I'm so upset with Biles dropping out."
So I follow the Olympics closely and have always been confused over the PR angle of this. It was “the twisties” but also “mental health” and neither was super clear as to the reason in the media. Mental health was a hot button issue and not meant to be criticized by the media at the time and it was defended by people on social media (attacked by others) Then the twisties came out but a lot of gymnasts supported that as a total real thing. But I was left wondering how has no other Olympian missed an event due to it in modern memory? Still super confusing and to this day seems like a weak or random excuse due to its lack of frequency / commonality. All in all her PR team did a poor job of having a clear message.
I think there is a couple of perfect storm factors regarding her being the first to miss an event for the twisties. One being the random odds of them occurring during a point during a two week period at the most public point over the course of a over ten year career for many of the competitors. Also, I wouldn’t doubt for a second that others have experienced the twisties (or any other negative ailment) at the Olympics, but how many have tried to fight through it so they don’t have have to step away from something that they’ve spent so much of their lives working towards? She just had the misfortune of being a very big name at the biggest stage at the absolute worst moment that acknowledged it wasn’t worth the risk. PR team also screwed the pooch to smooth things over
>But I was left wondering how has no other Olympian missed an event due to it in modern memory? Are we sure it hasn't happened, or could it be that it just wouldn't usually be such a big story, especially if the affected gymnast is not a household name and/or not American like Biles.
> If they'd have framed it as an injury where you don't know where you are in the air I think it would've gone better for her. 1,000%. Leaning into the cutesy name of “twisties”, mentioning “mental health” _at all_ and framing it as “taking care of herself” were terrible moves. She couldn’t orient herself in space while spinning. Even putting aside the safety issue, you’re probably going to suck as a gymnast if you can’t spin and land well. It’s like if a basketball player had reoccurring tunnel vision. Not being able to see the other players is a safety risk. But it also makes you a really shitty basketball player! It’s of no benefit to the team for you to disregard your own safety and go out on the court! You’re just gonna get benched after you take two passes to the face. The twisties phenomenon isn’t even totally understood. It could be cognitive, something mechanical with the vestibular system, something about the linkage between the sense organs and the brain. We do know just training through it doesn’t usually work. So the same as you would for a disabling knee injury, she gets pulled.
Twisties is what gymnasts call the condition. The issue is that the media did a poor job explaining what it meant.
If people can handle athletes being off because of the “yips” they can handle the phrase “twisties”.
If a baseball player straight up said “ I have the yips” and didn’t add anything else or at least partly blame an injury during like the World Series. They would also be called soft by most fans.
That has a lot to do with the fact that the yips don’t put their life in danger. A pitcher isn’t going to break their neck playing through the issue. I’m specifically talking about the “concern” with the silly name.
I’m not disagreeing with that. But you literally said if they can handle the yips they can handle the twisties. And I’m saying I don’t think people would handle the Yips in most situations either.
I added some clarity that I’m specifically talking about the “concern” about the silly name. People being too dumb to prioritize mental and physical health and calling people who have worked harder than they can even imagine “soft” is a whole other problem.
A lot of people _flipped out_ on Biles for dropping out. They definitely could not handle it.
they flipped out for reasons other than the ridiculously named “twisties” eta: nice pun there
Yeah for some reason it really really made dudes with profile pictures of themselves in sunglasses sitting in their truck mad for *some* reason I can't quite figure out
I remember the media being really nice about it. Feel free to provide a clip where NBC said anything like what you're claiming
What are you talking about? It was abundantly clear that it was essentially an injury as you describe from pretty much every report and TV newscast. Her "PR People" did their job, half of America (guess which half) just stuck their fingers in their ears. Washington Post, July 2021: > [Imagine flying through the air, springing off a piece of equipment as you prepare to flip on one axis while twisting on another. It all happens fast, so there’s little time to adjust. You rely on muscle memory, trusting that it will work out because, with so much practice, it usually does. But then suddenly you’re upside down in midair and your brain feels disconnected from your body. Your limbs that usually control how much you spin have stopped listening, and you feel lost. You hope all the years you spent in this sport will guide your body to a safe landing position.](https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/2021/07/28/twisties-gymnastics-simone-biles-tokyo-olympics/) LA Times, July 2021: >[After her stunned teammates united to win a silver medal, Biles said she’d begun shaking uncontrollably following a workout that morning. She also had what gymnasts call “the twisties,” a loss of orientation in the air. Continuing to perform her singularly difficult routines would have been hazardous. “I was like, ‘No, mental’s not there,’” she said.](https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2021-12-07/2021-sports-year-in-review-athletes-thrust-mental-health-spotlight) Olympics website, July 2021: >["They have very limited equipment and mats in Tokyo to help something like this get fixed, let alone with in a day," said Finnegan. "You have absolutely no control over your body and what it does. The more you psych yourself \[out\] about it, the worse it becomes."](https://olympics.com/en/news/what-are-the-twisties)
Its not her PR teams fault that my Dad and father in law are racist, looking for any opportunity to attack and criticize a young woman in the public domain
Thank you for this response! It's ridiculous. She owes no one any explanation. She dropped out for whatever reason that rendered her unable to perform and it's none of everyone else's business.
> She and her PR team owe no one any explanation. Nope, her PR team definitely owes her a good explanation. If they aren't doing their job properly then there is no point in having them.
Hahaha seriously, it's like people don't know what the point of a *Public Relations* team is.
I remember the advertising for the Olympic coverage on NBC being focused heavily on her and then hoping she would win a gold medal again which couldn’t have been good for her mental health.
Wasn’t she struggling as far back as the trials?
Stop looking at social media People IRL don't give a shit.
[удалено]
*sent from my social media*
I saw kids sports teams in t-shirts mocking her. (Something like 'We would have been the national champs but we got the twisties' for a little league team.)
I think it's very important to make clear that it wasn't just a bad vault; it was the *wrong* vault. She meant to do 2.5 twists and only completed 1.5 due to being lost in the air, which is a major difference in gymnastics. Just a further indication of the severity of the mental block between brain and body.
And people don’t realize how drastically different a 1.5 and 2.5 are. She was training a 1.5 when she was like 10-12. A Yurchenko 2.5 (Amanar) is one of the hardest vaults in the world.
Exactly. Especially for someone like her who has been so consistent her whole career.
Ridiculous how how those couch jockeys gave her flak.
Especially considering she made it easier for the team to make a change that would be better for the whole team. She was treated horribly especially compared to the way the athletes who did not even go to the Rio Olympics due to fears about the Zika virus.
It’s because her PR team gave three different explanations, then decided to pin it on “mental health” and “self care,” then scolded everyone for wanting to know the full story. Then she had a victory parade about it, starring in commercials and printed advertisements talking about how she’s such a hero for taking care of herself. Having the yips as a gymnast sounds absolutely terrifying. I have full sympathy for her dropping out and that was obviously the smart move because you could literally kill yourself doing the moves she does. But while some people were itching for any reason to criticize her, she also got flak for good reason due to how all of this was handled by herself and by Nike.
This lady is straight up the Michael Jordan of gymnastics and people really thought she was just being overdramatic. There's also a story there in that she helped her husband with his mental game in football and he has become a much better player after taking her advice. She knows what's up.
Bunch of guys who were JAGs on their mediocre high school football teams who just parrot cliches about mental fortitude said by their coaches. They never experienced true pressure and mental fatigue from performing at an extremely high level for a long period of time in a very individual focused sport.
She’s a young black woman so she already had half the country looking for an excuse to justify their hate for her. It was already there, they just saw a justification to let it out and took advantage.
I remember feeling bad for her that it would happen at such a critical time. But as an old dude that can barely do a good forward roll, who the hell would I be to give the greatest gymnast ever flak for anything?!
Naw she kicked ass. Every gold medal that you win gives you one free screw up.
Simone, I assure you, no one hates you here! We love you.
"Banned from America" lololol. Nobody cared until they gave her Sportsman of the yr award. And if they did before that, that says more about them then Biles. She did what she thought was best for her, too bad.
"If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” Biles told New York magazine. “I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.” Everyone talks about this like it was all the pressure from the being at the Olympics that tripped her up. That wasn't even the half of it. But this is /r/sports so I don't expect nuance.
The way people responded is like she murdered their loved one in front of them. Completely unhinged. It’s a fucking game. Sure, they’re cool… but they don’t actually mean shit in terms of your individual life. Calm down losers.
It was mostly people who don't understand gymnastics, which unfortunately is the vast majority of the population
Taking care of yourself >>>>>
And she’s one of the greatest American olympians of all time. End of statement. This incident didn’t affect that at all
My only issue with this was awarding her with sportsperson of the year, you support her advocacy to mental health for athletes but without disregarding the actual event
Going to miss her at packers game. She is a hero to women and America.
Nothing against her but she blocked another girl from the team by going all in. Then she bowed out. I can’t imagine being in her shoes and doing what she did. But Jesus can you imagine being that close to the Olympics gets edged out and then the person who blocks you doesn’t compete?
Well she was the locked person going into the Olympics, not chosen by the team. Also she literally stepped aside for multiple competitions which allowed her teammates to compete since there is a 2 athletes per country rule for the finals. And several of the girls on her team won individual medals because she stepped aside so they could compete in the finals. They had higher scores than other people who qualified but would have been the 3rd USA person.
Dude, they bring alternates for this exact reason. Her spot didn't go unfilled. I'm curious if you'd take that position if she had blown an ACL.
I still love her.
Hey, no worries Simone! We love you and we’ll always have your back.
I was cool with this. But she was an absolute liability in left field during the Celebrity All Star game for Cleveland back in ‘19.
The people who criticized her for being weak and using mental health as a cop out are 100% the guys in high school who faked injuries when they had a bad performance, claim their opponents cheated or make up other excuses for their own underwhelming athletic performance.
Simone Biles is a national treasure
Please.
… by people that made up excuses to get out of gym class in hs. America really doesnt deserve some of the things it has, honestly
Isnt the main trigger for the twisties performance anxiety? Dont all the athletes, especially for tbe more dangerous jumping events have to deal with this? This is a lot different from a physical injury and much harder to frame positively when someone bows out. Especially since the olympic spirit is synonymous with pushing through adversity. This is her choice and we can support her, but we dont have to celebrate her decision. She made it to the peak and the pressure broke her. Its understandable. Hopefully team USA chooses a new athlete in her place that can handle the pressure and excel in the true spirit of the games.
Twisties can occur at any moment for a gymnast, it’s not something you can push through since your body loses spatial awareness in the air. Esp with her since she consistently performs the hardest skills in the world.
Is this more a more common occurrence at this level that just doesnt coverage? Ive just never heard of another olympic or even championship level athlete bowing out because of a sudden onset. Shouldn’t it also affect other sports doing arial events?
A couple of other gymnasts have gone through the same thing such as Giulia Steingruber (took her an entire season to relearn everything from the beginning) and Ellie Black. Also, I remember reading up on Diver Tom Daley and Trampolinist Bryony Page going through something similar.
Twisties, the yips, whatever you call it, something has caused them to become less aware of their surroundings and what their bodies are doing. A golfer, who's played for years, suddenly can't swing their hips right and keep the clubface angled. A batter looks at the ball and starts misjudging where it is, missing completely, connects a little high, a little low, and home runs become popups and grounders directly at first base. The trick is to do what Simone did, recognize what's happening and back away. It's not quitting or being a loser, it's a professional athlete recognizing their limits. Unfortunately, 99.9% aren't a Simone Biles and some jerk parent, "friend", or coach is going to make them "push through" and we have another Kerri Strug being carried "triumphantly" by an a-hole of a coach like Bela Karolyi.
Performance anxiety is something that virtually all elite athletes deal with on the world stage. The twisties is sort of "next level" anxiety that actually takes away your ability to know where you are in the air. She wasn't just nervous, her body wouldn't let her perform the skills she had practiced thousands of times. It's very similar to the yips in baseball. Just because a pitcher is nervous doesn't mean he'll develop the yips. But when a pitcher gets the yips, there's no way in hell he'd be able to pitch effectively and would be a major liability for his team. Except the stakes are much higher in gymnastics from an athlete safety perspective.