Not even on a gold medal stand has U.S. gymnast Simone Biles ever stood taller than now | Opinion
The most stunning disappointment of the Tokyo Olympics is Simone Biles. Yet not even on a gold medal stand has she ever stood taller, or been a better role model.
There is bravery in admitting anxiety, inner turmoil, the things no one else can see. There is bravery in admitting human frailty when the rest of the world looks at you and expects only strength, perfect landings, perfect endings. When the very ethos of sports has always been to run through proverbial brick walls, play with pain, tough it out.
How long overdue is the dawning new reality: That athletes are not bulletproof. That they hurt like the rest of us beyond the injuries and physical pain that make the headlines.
That there is nothing wrong and everything right about someone prioritizing their mental well-being, whether that someone works slinging fries or going for gold.
For every young girl Biles has inspired to pursue Olympic greatness, there are an equal number or more who will now take heart that they have a new champion in their own struggles with mental health
A gold medal is a pipe dream for the vast majority, but mental health issues are too common — and too often kept hidden due to the stigma that champions such as Biles are helping to erase.
So on Wednesday came the announcement Biles has also withdrawn from Thursday’s individual all-around competition — as reigning champion and an overwhelming favorite for gold again. That was after she had earlier removed herself from the team final, after which the U.S. women won the silver medal behind the Russia Olympic Committee.
(Russia is banned from the Olympics due to a doping scandal, yet its athletes are allowed to compete as the ROC. Seems preposterously unfair. But that’s for another column).
It remains uncertain if Biles will compete next week in the individual events. She qualified for the finals in all four, which she did not even do in winning five medals in the Rio De Janeiro Games in 2016. The first two individual events (vault and floor exercise) are Sunday.
Biles is the G.O.A.T., the all-time greatest in women’s gymnastics. I would argue she is the American face of these Games, ahead of Kevin Durant or Katie Ledecky. And Biles’ stature won’t be dashed or dimmed by what she does or doesn’t do in Tokyo. Her legacy is set. No. Wait. Her legacy grows with the painful honesty she has shown this week.
“It’s OK not to be OK,” is what Olympic swimming great Michael Phelps likes to say. He can relate, having been open about his own inward struggles.
Biles posted on social media this week that she felt “the weight of the world” on her shoulders.
Empathy is needed. Deserved. For so many reasons that might contribute to what she has felt this week.
A Summer Olympics already delayed a year and now played in empty buildings. No fans. No family. In a city in the grips of COVID and a spiking pandemic. Biles at 24, old for this sport. “The grandmother,” she kiddingly called herself.
And please consider, and do not underestimate: Biles is the only athlete on this U.S. team who was among the victims of disgraced U.S. Gymastics team doctor Larry Nassar. She is competing on this biggest stage for the first time since Nassar was sentenced in 2018 to up to 175 years in prison for decades of sexually abusing young athletes during medical “exams.”
Biles has the right to whatever all of those factors caused her to feel this week.
Support from her teammates and most others has been terrific.
Not from everyone, though.
Social media can be a Petri dish for toxicity and negativity, and so many have bullied Biles from afar, calling her weak. A quitter. Not all of the shots have been from the safety of anonymity. Some of the ignorance has been out front.
Professional contrarian Clay Travis of Outkick.com, on Twitter: “USA Gymnastics should pull Simone Biles’ ability to compete as an individual going forward & elevate the next best gymnast to the all around competitions. Reward the gymnast who didn’t quit on her teammates.”
(That is only the second most ill-informed thing Travis has put his name on in recent memory, trailing the time he called the COVID pandemic “overrated,” saying it was less severe than the seasonal flu and predicting fewer than several hundred Americans would die of the the coronavirus. As of Wednesday, the U.S. death toll had topped 611,000).
In an age of misinformation and divisiveness, Biles’ honesty could be a rallying point if we take the opportunity.
Mental health struggles are real, and not something to be hidden or shamed.
No matter if she competes again in Tokyo or the result of she does, Simone Biles has won the Summer Games.
This story was originally published July 28, 2021 at 11:18 AM.
