A gift from the GOAT: Simone Biles shows it’s OK to choke

It was the greatest choke of all time. And the athlete who admitted as much, Simone Biles, is now being admired and celebrated around the world for it.

Biles deciding not to compete in the gymnastics team final in Tokyo on Tuesday night told us more about this remarkable woman than had she performed brilliantly to win another gold medal.

It also showed the culture of this exacting sport, in what it expects of its athletes and how athletes see themselves, is dramatically changed from just five years ago when Biles, seemingly impervious to pressure, was near perfect in Rio.

Simone Biles is consoled by American coach Cecile Landi after pulling out of the team final.Credit: Ezra Shaw

Had any athlete, back then, abruptly withdrawn from Olympic competition to “work on my mindfulness,″⁣ as Biles put it, they would have been greeted with derision and scorn.

Biles will be, too, in some quarters, where commentators who can’t touch their toes will sit in judgement of Biles being unable to attempt a two and a half twist off the vault. For a generation of gymnasts and athletes in other sports, Biles has given voice to something they have all felt. She has also given them licence to do something about it.

“This is Simone sending a message to the world that it’s OK not to be OK,″⁣ Australian gymnast Mary-Anne Monckton told The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. “I feel like the decision that was made by her and her coaches was absolutely the right one.

“Being a gymnast myself I can tell you that if you don’t trust yourself to do the skills and land them you can’t keep going because you could really get seriously injured. No medal is ever worth that risk and I think Simone showed that. Such a powerful athlete making that decision is really important for the next generation.”

Mary-Anne Monckton competing at the Glasgow Commonwealth Games in 2014.Credit: James Brickwood

Biles did not pull out of the women’s team final to make a statement. What Biles realised, in her first involvement in the competition, was that she simply couldn’t do it. Not on this night.

In her opening vault, Biles tried to complete two and a half twists. Instead, she awkwardly landed after one and a half rotations. Biles’ teammate from Rio, Aly Raisman, described it as “getting lost in the air”. She told CNN it was a common problem in gymnastics, where for reasons no one entirely understands, an athlete’s body refuses to do in the air what it has been trained so long and hard to do.

If Biles was an author, you would call it writer’s block. Monckton said that in gymnastics, they call it the twisties. “It is like a miscommunication between the brain and the body and in a sport like gymnastics, that can be very dangerous.″⁣

Biles understood this the moment she landed. She decided the best thing to do, for herself and her American team, was to withdraw from competition and allow a teammate to take her place.

“I say put your mental health first because if you don’t you are not going to enjoy your sport and you are not going to succeed as much as you want to,″⁣ she explained after the Americans finished second to Russia in the team final. “It’s OK sometimes to even sit out the big competitions to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are, rather than just battle through it.

“I just felt like it would be be a little bit better to take a back seat, work on my mindfulness and I knew that the girls would do an absolutely great job and I didn’t want to risk the team a medal for my screw-ups because they worked too hard for that.”

USA Gymnastics issued a statement on Wednesday confirming Biles had also withdrawn from Thursday night’s individual all-around final, one of four Olympic titles she won in Rio.

Raisman said she was proud of her friend.

“I think it just shows unfortunately that even the best athletes in the world, they have good days and bad days and I commend her for her bravery and speaking up and doing what was right for her and and what she felt was right for the team,” Raisman said. “It is not easy but even the greatest athletes of all time are not perfect and they are human too.”

US Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief executive Sarah Hirshland, backed Biles’ decision not to compete. “Simone, you have made us so proud. Proud of who you are as a person, teammate and athlete. We applaud your decision to prioritise your mental wellness over all else, and offer you the full support and resources of our Team USA community as you navigate the journey ahead.”

Jamaican gymnast Danusia Francis, who leaves Tokyo as an Olympian despite tearing a cruciate ligament in training on the day of the opening ceremony , tweeted that Biles, not for the first time, had changed the game: “Don’t know about you but I think Simone just empowered everyone to put their mental well-being above everything else.”

It is increasingly accepted in many sports that mental health is a legitimate reason for an athlete not to compete, illustrated powerfully by Naomi Osaka’s decision to withdraw from the French Open and sit out Wimbledon. However, the Olympics is not any competition and gymnastics is not like most sports.

Simone Biles in full flightCredit: Getty Images

For the past five years, since the Indianapolis Star newspaper published the first of a series of investigative reports exposing the abusive culture in gymnastics, the sport has been forced to confront how it sees and treats its athletes, from young girls learning the sport to its brightest stars.

Gymnasts like Biles, Raisman and Monckton, a former Australian team member who blew the whistle on problems in the sport in her country, have been at the forefront of an athlete-led revolution. For 24-year-old Biles, the first black American to win a world all-around title, being an abuse survivor and a racial trail blazer has made her an irresistible force for change.

Monckton said the sport has significantly changed for the better as a consequence. She believes that Biles’ decision not to compete on Tuesday night is evidence of that. “The culture has been revealed over the last few years. Now I feel that gymnasts, especially adult gymnasts, are much more in control of what they are doing and have a say. If she didn’t feel safe in performing the skills then pulling out is absolutely the right thing to do.″⁣

Biles and Raisman were two of hundreds of American gymnasts sexually abused by Larry Nassar, a former US team doctor now jailed for life. Where Nassar’s despicable actions could be condemned as those of a monster, he was aided and abetted by a gymnastics administration which failed to report his abuse to police and a domineering coaching culture that gave athletes no agency over their bodies.

In the lead up to the Games, Biles in a television interview with Today explained that part of her reason for coming to Tokyo was to ensure that a witness to Nassar’s abuse was represented on the sport’s biggest stage. She also admitted that that stress of being Simone Biles, the face of these Games, the most successful gymnast in the history of the sport and an athlete that everyone expects to win, was taking a toll.

“For me, I think it is more stressful whenever I go out and compete because I’m trying to be better than I was at the last meet. So I’m trying to beat myself. And sometimes, you get caught up in that moment.

“And it’s just scary because I go out and I’m like ‘Can I do it again? Can I be this good?’ And can I repeat what I did last year, last time, last Olympics.″⁣

Biles said at the time these thoughts motivated her. Inside the Ariake Gymnastics Centre in Tokyo, they overwhelmed her. By revealing and admitting to her frailties, Biles gave us something beyond a perfect routine.

Never miss a medal or great sporting moment with our Olympic update emailed daily. Sign up for our Sport newsletter here.