What we can learn from Simone Biles setting her own career boundaries and prioritising her mental health
If you don’t already know who Simone Biles is, she’s a widely celebrated American artistic gymnast. In fact, she’s probably the most decorated gymnast in the world with 32 World & Olympic medals, and most recently pulled out of her campaign at the current Olympic Games in Tokyo. She cites ‘the twisties’ as the problem.
This has been so far a strange Olympics for many reasons, not least the pandemic causing a years delay, hence all signage telling us we are watching the Tokyo Games of 2020 in 2021. This occurrence alone has meant many athletes coming to perform having been through who knows what additional stresses in the last year!
We have seen world class athletes in tears due to problems in their run ups to the games or issues in the last 18 months or so with lockdowns and more. Dina Asher-Smith for one battling through injury and keeping it all a secret. Adam Gemili pulled out of his race having hardly started and with his thigh heavily strapped. He has been plagued with one injury after another. Katarina Johnson Thompson is the most recent in track and field to have suddenly abandoned her campaign in the heptathlon.
So Simone is not alone in her feelings but probably best known as an American great. Also perhaps her backing out of her events was the most dramatic of them all, since she was apparently in full flow when she decided to quit as a result of the ‘twisties,’ (gymnasts speak for ‘aerial disorientation’). This is something gymnasts apparently suffer with from time to time, where they get confused in the air while tumbling - the thought of that scares me to death! I immediately grasped how dangerous this situation could be for a gymnast – not knowing where you are in the middle of an acrobatic performance. How do you spot the floor and stay safe? You don’t, and that is the point!
The criticism Biles has received over the matter has shocked me. This is an elite athlete, the best gymnast of all times, who has proven herself over and over throughout the years. But the one time she has concerns she is jumped upon?! It’s a total lack of empathy if you ask me and I am sure her skin plays a part in the negative assumptions being made.
Simone Biles in her routines regularly performs acrobatics which no one else can do namely ‘The Biles’ and ‘The Yurchenko Double Pike’ but the judges mark her down apparently to stop other gymnasts from copying and getting injured! In her own words Simone says ‘...they mark me down because they don’t think it’s fair I win all the time..’ She gives a questioning shrug at the end as if to say, make of that what you will!
Another issue is being in a sport synonymous with a ‘Russian ballet aesthetic’ says Denne Michele Norris while having a powerful and muscular body. ‘In a sense....’ says Denne of Biles ‘she has freed gymnasts from the notion that only a wispy girl who looks like she belongs at the Bolshoi can be a champion.’
A similar athlete comes to mind when I think about the skater Surya Bonaly, who used to do flips and jumps that no one else could perform but got consistently marked down and told she lacked artistic style! I remember that so well because I love watching ice skating. Neither women look like ballerinas and both are dark skinned black women!
Biles says Naomi Osaka has taught her and others to care and speak out about mental health, especially their own under the immense pressures they face.
So this is the amazingly gifted, able, hard-working and efficient athlete being questioned and disbelieved. Including unfair comments from Piers Morgan who seems to be hell bent on bringing women of colour down!
But anyway a great champion will never be beaten. Simone was back on the Olympic stage, competing on the balance beam which demands less tumbling. She did it too, winning a bronze medal!
I say, all the best to you Simone, you are a true champion, keep it up while taking care of yourself and your mental health!
