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The Radical Courage of Simone Biless Exit from the Team USA Olympic Finals
Biless decision not to compete on Tuesday is, to many spectators, a heartbreak. It is also a welcome example of an athlete setting her own limits.
By Eren Orbey
July 27, 2021
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Anyone who has followed the tumult of USA Gymnastics in recent years knows the immense, inhumane pressure that Biles and her teammates have borne. Since the revelations of Larry Nassars abuse, athletes say they have struggled to get reassurance, from both the sports governing body and the United States Olympic Committee, that their health and well-being is a priority. USA Gymnastics has relied on Biles to buoy its reputation in the midst of scandal and to boost its scores in international competition. At qualifications, despite several uncharacteristic errors, Biles finished first as an all-around competitor. (If she decides to compete in that final, on Thursday, she is still the favorite to win.) But, as the qualifying round revealed, counting on Biles as a buffer is not always enough to guarantee victory for the womens teamnor should it be. On Monday, before the team final, Biles wrote on Instagram that she felt the weight of the world bearing down on her: I know I brush it off and make it seem like pressure doesnt affect me but damn sometimes its hard hahaha! The olympics is no joke! The endless praise that Biles receives for her superhuman abilities can lead to a kind of dehumanization, enforcing an incessant expectation that she not only perform but outperform and a sense of bafflement in the rare instances that she doesnt.
On Sunday night, NBCs primetime broadcast of the womens qualifications largely elided routines by Biless teammates and lingered on her mistakes, in an effort to explain Russias surprising lead. The big reason? Tim Daggett, a veteran commentator who competed in the 1984 Olympics, said. Because Simone Biles is not being Simone Biles-like today. And yet a remarkable element of Tuesdays competition was the grace with which Biless teammates, a trio of first-time Olympians, collected themselves to complete the meet without their leader. Sunisa Lee, an eighteen-year-old, nailed a dizzying connection that she had missed on the uneven bars during qualifications and stuck her dismount, a full-twisting double tuck. Grace McCallum, also eighteen, anchored the team with clean routines on every apparatus. Perhaps the most moving competitor to watch was Jordan Chiles, a twenty-year-old, who had at one point considered quitting gymnastics after failing to qualify for an international roster. I didnt think the sport wanted me anymore, she recently told the Times. Instead, she moved to Texas to train with Biles, and the duoChiles and Biles, as they have been calledestablished themselves as sisters on and off the floor. Last weekend, Chiles, too, made several errors in the Tokyo qualifications. But, on Tuesday, when Biles withdrew, Chiles readied herself at a moments notice and delivered a hit routine on the uneven bars. On the beam, in the next rotation, she maintained her poise, and wisely decided to end her routine with a simpler dismount, a double pike instead of a full-twisting tuck, to guarantee a steady performance.
In a conversation last week, the gymnast Aly Raisman, a two-time Olympian and a former teammate of Biless, told me, Gold medals shouldnt be the most important thing. Gymnastics is a notoriously punishing sport: as Raisman explained, athletes are often encouraged, if not forced, to compete despite injuries. Perhaps the most famous athlete to do so was Kerri Strug, who, in the 1996 Olympic team final, performed a second vault on an injured ankle before being escorted off the mat by her coaches and by Larry Nassar, a team trainer at the time. That year, the U.S. women won gold, and the moment has since been mythologized as an exemplar of athletic grit. Today, though, Krugs painful hop landing reads differently, less as a heroic sacrifice than as an unnecessary and essentially career-ending strain. To many spectators, Biless decision not to compete on Tuesday is a heartbreak, but it is also a welcome example of an athlete setting her own limits.
After Biless rocky vault performance, some observers speculated that she had been suffering from the twisties, a gymnasts term for a loss of air awareness during routines. Continuing to compete in that state would have been downright dangerous; its easy to forget that the skills gymnasts strain to render seemingly effortless could, with even minor slips, leave them paralyzed or worse. At a press conference later in the morning, standing beside her three teammates, Biles said that she had exited the competition because the pressure had become too much. She cited as inspiration Naomi Osaka, the Japanese American tennis champion who withdrew from two Grand Slam tournaments earlier this year to prioritize her mental health. We have to protect our minds and our bodies, and not just go out and do what the world wants us to do, Biles said. Her withdrawal from the team final was not the handy victory that the public, or USA Gymnastics, was expecting from her at the Olympics. But it was its own kind of achievement, one that has the potential to affect the next generation of gymnasts more than any single medal could.
LisaL
(44,973 posts)"She said in morning practice that she had a little bit of the twisties. The twisties are a mysterious phenomenon -- suddenly a gymnast is no longer able to do a twisting skill she's done thousands of times before. Your body just won't cooperate, your brain loses track of where you are in the air. You find out where the ground is when you slam into it."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/28/us/simone-biles-olympics-gymnastics-physical-mental-health/index.html
Withywindle
(9,988 posts)follow the link and read her whole thread, it's worth it. Really helps explain the stakes.
Link to tweet
mopinko
(70,069 posts)not sure if it was the broken necks or the costumes that set off my alarm bells, but i put my foot down hard on all of them.
Scrivener7
(50,934 posts)She did show radical courage.
Withywindle
(9,988 posts)Simone Biles was one of his victims and she's still carrying that.
When we think about consent, it's sexual but not ONLY sexual. The right to say no is sacred. I think there were times in her life she knew she would be highly penalized for saying no, so she didn't or she couldn't, no matter how much she wanted to. Now she is strong enough to say no, I know my own limits, something is off, I am not willing to risk my life for TV ratings. I have faith in my team to do well without me. I have the right to choose not to do something I believe is not safe for me.
She is setting an example for young athletes and all young people who look up to her, that it's okay to say no and walk away if you don't feel safe. That's not cowardice, that's courage. And it's so much more valuable and worthwhile than the message of "power through no matter what." That message is toxic, and I applaud young people for seeing it for the garbage it is.
TheRickles
(2,053 posts)She's been coping with PTSD at the same time that she's trying to train and compete. An almost impossible combination, and it's shocking how heartless some of her critics have been.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)Made the right decision, for herself and the team.
Incredible courage.
forgotmylogin
(7,522 posts)More times than not the commenters are like, "She's gonna attempt the vault even with the sprained ankle because that's what is expected and she doesn't want to let her team and country down..." That's barbaric.
Cracklin Charlie
(12,904 posts)If she wasnt ready to go, that would only hurt the team. With possible disastrous implications for Simone.
She made the right move.
roamer65
(36,745 posts)If anything affects your inner ear, the world can take on quite a spin.
Simone made the right decision. Her safety over a stupid chunk of metal.