1. I've seen several people calling Biles soft. She has four Olympic gold medals IN GYMNASTICS. This obviously isn't a case where she just doesn't have what it takes to win because she's already done it.

2. She's 24 years old. Think about all the pressure and scrutiny she has. There's obviously all the pressure of the Olympics (you know, the biggest sporting event in the world), but think of everything she has to deal with on social media. "Athletes of the past never would have done thing. Jordan wouldn't have done this." They didn't have to deal with the same media interaction that modern athletes have to deal with. Yes, the whole world talked about Michael Jordan. But he didn't have a constant stream of news, opinions, and criticism about him, literally in his pocket. All I've heard about Biles is that she's the greatest ever. Every time they show her, announcers will talk about how exciting it's going to be because she is the GOAT. Not only is she expected to put on the best performance for the United States, and not only is she expected to win gold, she's expected to put out the greatest performance EVER.

Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. But he wasn't expected to be the GOAT every single game. In 1997 (I just pulled a random year from his peak) he scored under 20 points 7 times. He scored under 25 points 24 times. I don't say this to diminish Jordan, but just to show that he didn't have a GOAT performance every time he stepped on the court. More on this in a second.

3. I'm going to assume that CougarBoard is the most used form of social media by posters on CougarBoard. We have our jerks (myself probably included) but compared to most forms of social media (especially anonymously), we're pretty respectful. Some of the things that are said to/about women on social media are appalling. Social media is bad for all pro athletes; but for a famous, African American woman? Think of all the truly evil things that are said to her, threatening violence and attacking her because of her gender and race. I'm not trying to make this a race thing, but in this case, it's true. There was a post on Reddit yesterday that highlights this. The poster had made a comment about being a woman on a videogame page, and received over 100 DMs right after. Most of them threatened to kill or rape her. That was just to a random poster on Reddit who happened to be female. Think of what the other female athletes are getting, especially those in the spotlight. Biles is the most famous female athlete at the Olympics. I'm sure she gets this constantly.

4. She had a really bad day yesterday (comparatively). I can see how the pressure got to her. I can see why she would be hurt mentally. You all act like these athletes aren't human, without emotions or struggles. It's so easy for people to sit and criticize them from behind a computer screen, as if they're a different species than you. Sure, she's been training for this her whole life. Put with all these factors, it isn't crazy to see why she had to step back.