Tokyo Olympics 2021: Simone Biles shows courage in pulling out of competition

Simone Biles has copped disgusting abuse since announcing she would not compete in a second event. She deserves gold for the change she is pushing for.

American gymnast Simone Biles has pulled out of Thursday’s individual all-around competition.

In a statement, USA gymnastics said they wholeheartedly support her decision.

“Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many,” the tweet said.

“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritising her well-being.”

Biles will decide at a later stage if she will compete in the individual events next week.

So you think Simone Biles is soft? You are wrong

For too long sports have kept their sadistic secrets hidden; but athletes such as Simone Biles have worked mercilessly to expose the truth.

Biles became a gymnastics’ superstar when she won four gold medals at the Rio Olympics, she was dubbed the G.O.A.T, but in recent years has also been a warrior for her fellow survivors of the USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nasser’s sexual abuse.

Biles is the last self-identified survivor on Team USA at the Olympics in Tokyo. And she also came into these Games in the thick of a battle with USA Gymnastics.

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Coach Cecile Landi embraces Simone Biles after she pulled out of the team event. (Picture: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

When Biles confessed on Tuesday that while her body could compete, her mind couldn’t, there were critics who mistook it for softness.

They are wrong; the 24-year-old is nothing but fierce. A fighter.

Last month Biles told the Wall Street Journal she went into the Tokyo Olympics to keep the spotlight on the way the sexual abuse scandal was handled by USA Gymnastics and for it not to be brushed to the side. She said the same thing back in April to a reporter from USA Today.

“I just feel like everything that happened, I had to come back to the sport to be a voice, to have change happen,” Biles said in April. “Because I feel like if there weren’t a remaining survivor in the sport, they would’ve just brushed it to the side.”

What Biles has done, trying to change the system while competing, including suing them, takes immense strength but it is also clearly taking its toll.

On Tuesday we all saw it. The woman, who has competed with a toe shattered in five places, torn calf muscles, broken a rib, basically lives with pain, was spent.

This fight with her sport’s governing body was of course coupled with the expectation of being the one who will bring home the gold. Add to this the weight of a year-long delay and it’s been anything but a dream run into the “pandemic Olympics”.

“It‘s been really stressful, this Olympic Games,” Biles said, noting the public can’t attend competitions.

Grace McCallum and Simone Biles react during the Women's Team Final. Picture: Laurence Griffiths/Getty Images

“It’s been a long week, it’s been a long Olympic process, it’s been a long year.”

“I think we’re just a little bit too stressed out … but we should be out here having fun — and sometimes that’s not the case.”

Some have openly called out why Biles would withdraw now — at a time her USA teammates need her most — but mental health runs to no one’s clock and doesn’t take a hiatus on a whim. Biles, who has openly battled depression, said therapy and medication had helped her, but it hadn’t been enough.

“I feel like that’s all been going really well but then whenever you get in a high stress situation you kind of freak out. You don’t really know how to handle all of those emotions, especially being at the Olympic Games.”

“Once I step up onto the mat it’s just me and my head, dealing with the demons in my head.”

Biles said it shows the “power of the athlete” in protecting her mental wellbeing.

Grace McCallum, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles and Simone Biles collect their silver medals. Picture: Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Her exit from the team event comes as fellow Olympian Naomi Osaka recently withdrew from the French Open citing mental health concerns, noting the anxiety she felt particularly in front of the press. She also missed Wimbledon.

Osaka exited the Olympic tennis competition on Tuesday admitting the pressure “was a bit much”.

“I definitely feel like there was a lot of pressure for this,” she said.

“I think it’s maybe because I haven’t played in the Olympics before and for the first year (it) was a bit much.”

The woman that defeated her agreed.

“I can’t imagine that kind of pressure. She is the face of the Olympics,” No 42 Marketa Vondrousova said.

Biles competes in the vault before eventually pulling out. Picture: AFP

There’s a reckoning happening on a few levels in world sport right now; there’s the fact athletes are being honest about their mental health more than ever and there’s the calling out of disturbing behaviour of officials, which has been mostly by young female athletes.

Australia hasn‘t been immune to this uprising.

It is right about now, we should all remember one of our star swimmers, Maddie Groves, bowed out of the Olympic trials because of cultural issues.

The withdrawal of an Olympic silver medallist on the eve of Australia’s Olympic swim trials, when she claimed a misogynistic, pervy culture existed, one where she was also body shamed and suffered “medical gaslighting”, has gone some way to lifting the lid on troubled sport – but not far enough, yet.

News Corp has since reported how an Olympic coach wasn’t stood down despite numerous complaints against him, while other young female Australian swimmers have told harrowing stories of abuse and being left suicidal.

Swimming Australia and the Australian Sports Commission are overseeing an investigation into the sport — they announced their panel on Wednesday — but there are demands that Sports Integrity Australia should do a truly independent investigation into our most popular Olympic sport.

USA Gymnastics never looked into how their superstar athlete was abused on their watch. Biles in the lead-up to these Games has repeatedly called on her social media and in the media for an “independent investigation”.

While USA Gymnastics hierarchy has been overhauled, Biles is still demanding answers as to why she was subjected to shocking abuse.

Sports may say they have changed, that they have policies to prevent abuse of athletes, but really the only thing that will shift a culture is people like Biles, like Groves and Naomi Osaka speaking their truth.

And it is a burden, it is tiresome, and really it is unfair; why do the people, usually young women, who have suffered so much already, have to be the ones to break the system?

The pandemic, the expectations, the fight — there are many things that stopped the brilliant Biles from taking the Olympic stage on Tuesday. But she made a major statement in not competing which is powerful on a number of levels.

“At the end of the day, we’re human, too, 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,” she said.

For that statement, Biles deserves a gold medal.

Originally published as Tokyo Olympics 2021: Simone Biles shows courage in pulling out of competition