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simone biles exits olympic final for her mental health

'we have to protect our minds and our bodies and not just go out and do what the world wants us to do,' the gymnast said.

simone biles exits olympic final for her mental health
simone biles shocked the world by withdrawing from an olympics event for her mental health.
one of the world’s best athletes just withdrew from a highly-anticipated final event at the olympics to focus on her mental health.
simone biles, the 24-year-old american gymnast with four olympic gold medals and 25 world championship medals, shocked viewers around the world when she withdrew from the olympic team final while it was underway on tuesday. her first vault rotation didn’t go as planned, and she knew she had to stop, she said.

“after the performance i did, i just didn’t want to go on,” biles told reporters. “i have to focus on my mental health and well-being. i just think mental health is more prevalent in sports right now…. we have to protect our minds and our bodies and not just go out and do what the world wants us to do.”

she said she was inspired in part by tennis star naomi osaka , who withdrew from the french open in may when organizers wouldn’t let her skip post-game press conferences, which she said were difficult for her at a time when she was under enormous pressure. “i’ve often felt that people have no regard for athletes [sic] mental health ,” osaka said at the time.

withdrawing from olympic competition is “very uncharacteristic of me,” biles said on tuesday. “so it just sucks that it happens here at the olympic games than have it happen at any other time. but, you know, with the year that it’s been, i’m really not surprised.”

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she has spoken about the heavy emotional toll of the pandemic, telling glamour in june that she thought about giving up gymnastics during the seven-week lockdown when she couldn’t train. when she did return to the sport, she made a conscious effort to strike a work-life balance, she said: “before i would only focus on the gym… but me being happy outside the gym is just as important as me being happy and doing well in the gym.”

being extraordinary comes with high stakes . professional athletes are under incredible pressure, even when they’re not competing at the olympics — arguably the highest-level, most scrutinized sporting event in the world. “stress-related illnesses are extremely common in professional sports, and they are becoming more so as the pressures on athletes increase,” dr. barry cripps, chairman of the sports and exercise division of the british psychological society, told the independent . “the expectations are enormous and sometimes people cannot handle it.”

on monday, biles wrote on instagram that she had had a hard day, and that the olympics are “no joke.”
“i truly do feel like i have the weight of the world on my shoulders at times,” she added.
 simone biles / instagram
simone biles / instagram

biles also has to carry another kind of stress. she was one of more than 150 girls and young women sexually abused by larry nassar, who was the team doctor for the u.s.a gymnastics women’s national team for 18 years. many victims said that the organization looked the other way and failed to protect the young athletes.

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“biles had dedicated herself to gymnastics, sacrificing a normal life of school, dances, football games and friends for the grinding pursuit of perfection,” a new york times profile read. “she also came to believe that her sport didn’t care for her at all.”

when the tokyo olympics were postponed a year because of the pandemic, that meant biles’ uncomfortable association with u.s.a. gymnastics was also prolonged.“i think that’s been the hardest part,” she told glamour.
biles, the only one of nassar’s victims competing in tokyo, also said she chose to go to the olympics this year in part to keep the focus on how u.s.a. gymnastics should be changing for the benefit of young athletes. “if there weren’t a remaining survivor in the sport they would’ve just brushed it to the side,” biles said.
she’s spoken before about the benefits of therapy, which she brought up again on tuesday.

“therapy has helped a lot as well as medicine and i feel like that’s all been going really well,” she added . “but whenever you get in a high stress situation you freak out and you don’t really know how to handle all of those emotions, especially being here at the olympic games.”

it’s not clear yet if biles will choose to compete in other events. following her withdrawal, when a reporter asked what her olympic goal is now, biles replied, “to focus on my well-being. there is more to life than just gymnastics.”

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