“So, we have to protect our mind and our body, rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do.”īiles competes on the balance beam at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on Sunday, July 25. “We also have to focus on ourselves, because at the end of the day we’re human, too,” she said. But Biles’s decision to protect herself marks a shift from the old way gymnastics worked in the US. When the twisties set in, it’s hard to know when they’ll go away. But her decision to scratch makes a lot of sense. Her natural talent is why her missed vault is so stunning. Other kids, you’ll just see them splat, or get lost in the air. “She’s always had incredible air sense, which is what you need in this sport,” her former coach Aimee Boorman told Houstonia magazine in 2015. In gymnastics, this is called “air sense.” And Biles is famous for how good hers is. This is proprioception, a sense of where your body is in space and what it’s doing. ![]() “I started to learn the twist again like a small child.” In 2016, she won an Olympic bronze medal on vault.įlipping and twisting at the same time can be extremely disorienting – you can’t just watch where you are with your eyes. She had to relearn it, starting with a simple half twist on floor. It was just strange for me, and it was horrible. “It was quite tough for me, because I didn’t understand why it came, and I couldn’t stop it. I was really scared,” Steingruber said in a 2016 documentary. “When I wanted to twist, especially on vault … I had no feeling where I am. Swiss gymnast Giulia Steingruber got the twisties in 2014. 'I have to focus on my mental health,' says Simone Biles after withdrawing from gold medal event (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images) Jamie Squire/Getty Images TOKYO, JAPAN - JULY 27: Simone Biles of Team United States stumbles upon landing after competing in vault during the Women's Team Final on day four of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on Jin Tokyo, Japan. ![]() USA Gymnastics said it supported her decision “wholeheartedly,” adding in its statement that Biles would be assessed every day. I feel like I’m also not having as much fun.”īiles later also withdrew from the individual all-around competition, again saying she wanted to focus on her mental health. “I’m a little bit more nervous when I do gymnastics. “I just don’t trust myself as much as I used to,” Biles told reporters in Tokyo. ![]() This made the possibility of winning gold very low, no matter how well Biles’s teammates rallied.īiles pulled out of the rest of the team competition. The US was a point behind Russia after vault, which is usually where the Americans secure a large lead. In the competition, it was worse: 1.5 twists again, but with less height, forcing a deep step out of it.Ī Yurchenko with 1.5 twists is worth much less than an Amanar, so Biles scored just a 13.766. But in warmups, she bailed out of it, doing just one 1.5 twists out of a vault that got pretty high in the air. The Amanar has taken out a lot of knees, but Biles has been competing the vault spectacularly since she was a 16-year-old with braces in 2013. ![]() Biles was supposed to compete an Amanar, a backward flipping vault with 2.5 twists. Vault was the first event for the US and Russia in the team finals. If her brain wouldn’t play along with what her body knows how to do, she could be seriously injured. It means that her psychological state put her at significant physical risk. This doesn’t mean she felt sad, or didn’t have her heart in it to compete. When Simone Biles scratched most of the Olympic team final, she said it was not because of a physical injury, but her mental health. Simone Biles' withdrawal reminds us that she's human - and still very much the GOATįor every perfect, floaty flip performed in competition, there are thousands done in practice, many of them ending with scrapes, crashes, and haunting near-misses. (AP Photo/Ashley Landis) Ashley Landis/AP Simone Biles, of the United States, performs on the vault during the artistic gymnastics women's final at the 2020 Summer Olympics, Tuesday, July 27, 2021, in Tokyo.
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