US women’s gymnastic athlete Gabby Douglas has apologised for not putting her hand over her heart during the playing of the American national anthem, insisting that she meant “no disrespect” by not doing a thing that everybody does because people always do the thing that means another thing according to tradition.

Douglas was criticised on social media for not visually confirming her love for the United States, a country that is by no means engulfed in civil disharmony and a nightmarish ideological spaghetti junction during the build up to a Orwellian presidential election serving as an appropriate punchline to years of decadent moral decay.

She and her team had just won gold during the Olympic event in Rio de Janeiro, a glorified variety show in which hundreds of people from across the world jump better than most or lift things higher or fall for longer distances for the amusement and sometimes sexual arousal of millions.

But while her teammates loyally adhered to the ritual of placing a hand over the left breast, despite the fact that the heart intended to be signified is in fact in the centre of the chest protected by a sturdy sternum, Douglas clasped her hands in front of her vagina.

Writing on Twitter after the victory – and the backlash from infuriated patriots who felt their own fervent indentured servitude to the plot of land they inherited by chance was challenged by somebody better at cartwheels not doing the thing usually done – Douglas said she was “overwhelmed” by her team’s achievements and thus forgot to do the arbitrary stuff.

She added that she “never meant any disrespect” and apologised “if [she] offended anyone”, though she could now face punishment since the US code was revised in 2008 to include the requirement that you put a hand over your left tit to prove how much you love the land you were born on and that somebody else owns.

Whether that will come in the form of a criminal prosecution or being shot while running away is unclear, though it is understood that the US code is a similarly hollow practice which would rule out the former, while the latter is ordinarily reserved for the City of Baltimore and those without Olympian levels of strength and speed.

But the experience of a gold medal winning gymnast being lambasted for not performing a perfunctory gesture by quick witted viewers watching on from their proud and free homes may prove a sufficient punishment, to such an extent that an early survey shows that Douglas is best known as ‘the no hand girl’.

Dawn Wisdom on Twitter wrote “Gabby Douglas just standing there and not placing her hand over her heart while our anthem played was UN-olympic”, although our historical analysts have confirmed that the residents of Olympus did not use the Star-Spangled Banner as their anthem.

Angela said “there is NO excuse as to why you could not salute the flag of the country that gave you the opportunity to complete”, stressing the importance of a person from the free world selected for a sporting event through meritocratic means showing subservience to those they have glorified through individual achievement.

And a Mr Tonald Drump posted a message on his account saying: “I’m not seeing this girl put her hand to her heart, if you’re at the Olympics you represent America, you put your hand to your heart, I would, I would be a fabulous Olympian, I’d win the pole vault while breaking the javelin record, it’d be the greatest thing you ever saw in the world, my hair wouldn’t move an inch and I wouldn’t break sweat, I’m opening my own Olympics next year, it’s gonna be called DrumpGames, it’s great.”

In an unrelated story, a grave in Ris-Orangis, Paris marked with the name Jacques Derrida began emanating a strange humming noise that is baffling locals, and which forensic experts have stated has the heat properties of an object defying the laws of thermal dynamics to perform perpetually increasing motion.