So the world was shaken today by Simone Biles's withdrawal from the Olympics team final. I think Biles made the right call, for reasons I explain below. As someone who practiced gymnastics at a decent level many years ago, I wanted to make a couple of comments. Those comments are informed by the fate of Soviet gymnast Elena Mukhina. You may never have heard of that name. To us in the gymnastics world of a certain decade, she is hard to forget. She was the 1978 World Champion and then she broke her leg. It was a long recovery from that injury and she had much pressure to master a difficult move, the Thomas salto, which "caused her to break her neck two weeks before the opening of the 1980 Summer Olympics, leaving her permanently quadriplegic." (in the words of her Wikipedia page) Mukhina died of complications in 2006, at age 46.
I don't think someone like Biles, performing at that level, in the middle of the Olympics, representing her team, would withdraw unless told by a trainer that it was for her own safety that she should. She wouldn't have let her teammates down. She did start signaling in some comments to the press that her mental health was taking a hit (when she said she felt she had the world on her shoulders), and I am glad someone took action on that. In Olympic competition, she missed her vault (completing only 1.5 turn instead of 2.5) just like she had in practice. This is huge on a mental standpoint. If you can't pull through for the Olympics, you're clearly in need of a break. I say this without judgment. I've had some heavy pressure on me this past year, although I was very strong mentally when the year started, and frankly this year was absolute hell. In the end the highest priority is to keep ourselves safe.
What I am trying to say is, we are lucky as a nation that Simone Biles started the team final on vault because if she had started on the uneven bars or balance beam, things may have turned out very differently health-wise for her. But she was on vault and she went on safety mode (going for 1.5 turns) and a trainer saw it and knew he/she had to pull her out. And I just wanted to write this post to acknowledge this trainer since no one has really talked about that person. In spite of the pressure to get Gold for Team USA, that trainer pulled Biles out because her safety (her not ending a quadriplegic like Mukhina, to be blunt) was more important than a medal. And we are lucky to have that trainer on Team USA.
To Simone Biles, I wish a prompt mental health recovery and many more medals. But if a choice has to be made between the two, mental health comes first.
This is a really good documentary about the whole episode.
https://youtu.be/ErTP5-1K9x4
Posted by: Aurelie | July 27, 2021 at 08:41 PM