Simone Biles shouldn’t have to explain herself, but the Internet Age means there are a whole lot of people who get winded walking to the car giving big opinions on why she didn’t compete. When she pulled out of the Team competition, I hoped it was a very temporary setback and she would compete for the All Around and Individual medals. I wanted her to be the first woman to successfully defend her All Around title since 1968. When she didn’t compete again, I wasn’t really sure why, but I also didn’t really need the details.
Simone Biles is inarguably the most impressive athlete in the history of women’s gymnastics. She won a World Championship title with a kidney stone. She’s competed with fractures and strains over and over. She’s fallen completely off of an apparatus (sometimes more than one apparatus!) and still pushed forward to ultimately win the competition. Given her talent, work ethic, and determination, if Simone Biles says she cannot compete, then that’s the final word. If there was a way for her to push through, she would.
I was under the (misguided) impression that the pressure of the competition coupled with the blatantly discriminatory undervaluing of her skills alongside her status as the last of Nassar’s victims still in elite competition finally got to her. She was carrying the weight of the sport on her shoulders and it got to her at the worst moment. That was fine with me because she doesn’t owe me or anyone else anything. Watching her documentary on Facebook gave me fresh insight into who she is as a person, and I felt that if she reached her mental limit at the Olympics, then so be it.
Good job, Simone. You did your best and it must be devastating for you to have finally buckled a little at the most inopportune moment.
But she didn’t buckle at all. She didn’t collapse under the moment. I’m sure she would be devastated if she couldn’t close out her career the way she wanted to because her nerves got to her, but the truth must be even more devastating: Simone Biles got The Twisties. I’ll let this thread from a former gymnast/diver explain.
A quick aside about that penultimate tweet: comparisons to Kerri Strug competing on a broken leg are not making the point you hope they are. Kerri Strug 1) didn’t even need to vault, because if the Karyolis could do math, they would’ve known the US had already won gold and 2) it ended her gymnastics career. Keri may have retired after Atlanta anyway, but the choice was no longer up to her. Is a gold medal really worth that kind of sacrifice? These young women don’t get any prize money. No trust funds, no scholarships, no pensions. They compete for a week and are largely relegated to the dustbin of history unless they find a way to become a meme or America’s Sweetheart for a few endorsements.
Athletes do not owe the US a medal. Bodies don’t get pushed to the breaking point so people on the couch can feel a burst of patriotism for thirty seconds. Athletes compete for themselves, not for you. You aren’t doing anything. It’s not your medal.
Simone chose not to compete because Simone could not compete safely. Kerri Strug was not given that choice. She told her coaches that she couldn’t feel her leg and they pushed her to vault anyway. Simone told her coaches that she couldn’t feel herself in the air and they respected her as an athlete and as a person who knows her own body.
Back to the twisties…
There hasn’t been enough explanation, in the coverage I’ve seen anyway, of what Simone is actually experiencing, so I wanted to pull that thread out for y’all. If you’ve been an athlete in any sport, you may already have a name to put to it (the yips in baseball, the yanks in golf). If you’re a musician, you may have experienced a similar phenomenon where your body just randomly forgets how to play a piece, and you have to re-train or re-practice to help your body remember what it’s supposed to do. The neurons just aren’t firing the way they’re supposed to, and after the Team and All Around competitions, Simone still can’t feel herself in the air.
.@Simone_Biles shared footage of herself at practice in #Tokyo this morning via Instagram, still struggling to find herself in the air.
— Gymnastics Now (@Gymnastics_Now) July 30, 2021
The š also took the time to further communicate the severity of her condition to the world. pic.twitter.com/xULcvS7s4F
If Simone landed that way in competition, she could die. I’m not sure people recognize how dangerous gymnastics is because the athletes make it look so effortless, but death is an actual risk anytime they compete. If your kinesthesia is off in golf, you might hit the ball too hard. If your kinesthesia is off in baseball, you might throw the ball too short. In both cases, the ball feels the effect. If your kinesthesia is off in gymnastics, you might land on your head and break your neck.
I’m proud of Simone Biles. I don’t know that I would have the mental fortitude or depth of spirit to work for something for five years, have my body fail in the 11th hour, and face the public with grace and positivity. She’s smiling, she’s cheering, she’s in Tokyo with her chin up as though she just won a gang of gold medals.
Oh wait — she already has.
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