TOKYO: Simone Biles, the greatest gymnast of all time, will not participate in Thursday’s (July 29) women’s all-around final here at Ariake Gymnastics Centre.
USA Gymnastics confirmed that Biles will not participate in the all-around final. She wants to focus on her mental health, according to USA Gymnastics. No decision yet on whether she will compete in next week’s apparatus finals, as per Olympics.com.
Athletes such as tennis superstar Naomi Osaka and now Biles have highlighted the immense pressures on them, raising questions about whether global sporting figures get enough support for mental health, Reuters reports.
“More could be done” on athlete mental health, the spokesperson for the International Olympic Committee, Mark Adams, said. He said mental health remained a big issue and that it was a matter the organisation had been working on for some time.
“After further medical evaluation, Simone Biles has withdrawn from the final individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games, in order to focus on her mental health,” the governing body stated. “Simone will continue to be evaluated daily to determine whether or not to participate in next week’s individual event finals. Jade Carey, who had the ninth highest score in qualifications, will participate in her place in the all-around.”
“We wholeheartedly support Simone’s decision and applaud her bravery in prioritizing her well-being,” USA Gymnastics added. “Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many.”
Biles was scratched from Tuesday’s women’s team final after a rocky opening vault at the team final on Tuesday night. Team USA picked up without its star in the final three rotations (uneven bars, balance beam and floor exercise) and claimed the Silver medal behind eventual champions ROC.
“I didn’t want to go into any of the other events second-guessing myself,” she told reporters later.
“I’ve just never felt like this going into a competition before,” she said. “I tried to go out here and have fun … but once I came out here, I was like, ‘no, mental is not there, so I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself.'”
Biles later told Olympics.com: “I think they get a Gold medal in fighting. They never gave up. And look at them, they did exactly what I said they would do, they were going to go out there and do what they were supposed to. Now, they’re Olympic Silver medallists.”
Biles said her main concern in withdrawing from the team event was costing her teammates a medal.
“I was like, ‘I think the girls need to do the rest of the competition without me,’ and they were like, ‘I promise you, you’re fine. We watched you warm up.’ And I said, ‘no, I know I’m going to be fine, but I can’t risk a medal for the team, so I need to call it’,” Biles explained in a post-event press conference. “And you usually don’t hear me say things like that because I’ll usually persevere and push through things, but not to cost the team a medal.”
Biles has qualified for all four of the apparatus finals with the vault and uneven bars finals set for August 1, floor exercise on August 2. The balance beam is the last women’s artistic gymnastics final of the Olympics and is scheduled for August 3.
