Simone Biles may or may not be the best gymnast in the world after withdrawing from the team final and the individual all-around at the Tokyo Olympics this week, but she is the gutsiest.
It took guts to pull out of the team final after blowing her vault and avoiding what might have been a catastrophic injury.
It took guts to withdraw from the individual all-around, an event she has dominated and was favored to win.
Most of all, it took guts to guts to acknowledge that her mental health is not what it needs to be for her to compete at the highest level; she felt the “twisties” during her vault, the sensation gymnasts feel when they lose track of where they are in space; she has felt the weight of the world on her shoulders; that she needed to step back and take care of herself before she can resume taking care of her teammates, the U.S. Olympic team and the expectations of Americans who watched her dazzle in Rio de Janeiro in 2016 and wanted a repeat performance in Tokyo.
I say bravo, Simone, for placing greater value on your mental health than on another Olympic medal.
Elite athletes like Biles must be completely focused, zoned in, at one with their sport to perform at their best. This week, she was not. And for an athlete competing in a dangerous sport like gymnastics, lack of focus can mean a crippling, possibly fatal, injury. Most of us have no idea what it’s like to launch, leap, twist, turn, tumble and land as gymnasts do. Most of us would have trouble mounting a balance beam, never mind performing on one. The Olympians we have watched make it look easy.
Reaction to Biles’s announcement has been largely supportive. Her teammates rallied around her. In the team final they came together and finished second, the first time since 2010 the U.S. had not won in the Olympics or World Championships but under the circumstances a fine result. And there was no guarantee that the Americans would have finished ahead of the gold-medal Russians had the sub-par Biles competed. She even said she withdrew in part because she did not want to jeopardize their chances. She lauded them on Instagram, writing that “they stepped up when I couldn’t.”
Sitting out the individual all-around opened the door for her teammate Suni Lee to give the performance of her life and win the gold medal. And what a story! Lee, 18, the daughter of Hmong immigrants from Laos; her father wheelchair-bound after falling off a ladder while cutting down a tree in 2019; her family, immediate and extended, watching at home in St. Paul, Minn., and then celebrating their Olympic champion with cheers and tears. Whew! A tissue, please.
Tiny-minded individuals criticized Biles for not sucking it up and competing, for abandoning her team, for taking a spot that could have gone to a healthier gymnast. The worst was Aaron Reitz, a Texas deputy attorney general who on Tuesday tweeted a video of the injured gymnast Kerri Strug competing and helping the U.S. to Olympic gold in Atlanta in 1996. Then he wrote: “Contrast this with out selfish, childish national embarrassment, Simone Biles.”
Are you kidding? In an instant Reitz became the national embarrassment. He tweeted an apology on Wednesday. Too little, too late, Aaron.
After decades in the shadows, mental health is finally receiving the attention it deserves. Sports psychologists have become fixtures on professional teams and in college programs. Doctors are studying and treating the devastating neurological impact of chronic traumatic encephalopathy on football players. Coaches are becoming sensitive to mental health as they are to torn ACLs.
And athletes have begun to realize they do not have to be stoics when it comes to their state of mind. Thank you, Olympic champion Michael Phelps, for talking to the public about your depression. Thank you, tennis champion Naomi Osaka, for putting your mental health above winning the French Open or Wimbledon and then competing in the Olympics for Japan.
Simone Biles has been the smiling face of U.S. gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic movement since Rio five years ago. She has supported fellowed gymnasts abused by the former team physician Larry Nasser. She has remained at the top of her game through injuries and her own molestation by Nasser. Until now.
Biles has withdrawn from the individual vault and the uneven parallel bars events next week. USA Gymnastics is monitoring her condition regarding the balance beam and floor exercise. Her career as an Olympian may be over, but that’s okay. She is taking care of herself now, which is more important than medal counts. She is only 24 with a long life ahead of her. A long, healthy life, I hope.
