Superstar Simone Biles in Tokyo Olympics 2021 (image source - newsweek)
Simone Biles, 24 years old restrained herself from the individual Women’s Gymnastics Tokyo Olympics final owed to a medical concern.
On Tuesday, she concluded to quit after one rotation on vault and headed back to the gymnasium with the team doctor. She saw the rest of the event from the arena in her drill uniform.
Biles shared earlier in July on Facebook that the reason behind the mental struggle was due to the sexual abuse by Larry Nasr, an ex- doctor of USA gymnast. He was charged with maltreating dozens of girls and women gymnasts. He was put behind the bars in 2018 for life imprisonment.
image source - reuters.com
However, the US acrobatics team affirmed that Biles could still be in the competition in four more finals and could join the event next week.USA Gymnastics promoted her decision and quoted that Biles has the liberty to be in the other single events which are yet to happen, having efficient for particular finals in each category of acrobatics like parallel bars, vault, balance beam and floor exercise.
Simone Bile's Tweet (image source - newsbinding.com)
Jade Carey, who stood ninth in qualifiers, will replace Bile in the same category. According, to International Gymnastics Federation Law, only two amateurs are permitted in each event for the finals. Hence, Carey could not qualify as she ranked third trailing Bile and Sunisa Lee.
Many American sports professionals glorified Bile’s decision of withdrawing her position from the Olympics due to health concerns.
Michael Phelps, 23 gold medals Olympian stated that it broke his heart watching Biles leaving the stadium but health is above all the priorities in life. He said that it requires a lot of courage for a sportsperson to face focus lights, cameras and eyes of every person of your countrymen levied upon them. He also recollected his combat with mental health and how hard it was to ask for support when he required it the most.
Phelps also stated to teach the kids from a very young stage to balance their physical and mental health. He said nobody is perfect and every sportsperson is a human being.
Katie Ledecky, six gold medals in 1500m expressed the amount of pressure Biles was possessing that forced her to come to this decision.
She also stated that it is not easy to face the world when everyone has eyes on their role models. Every move, decision judged by them is not only theirs but millions of people's hearts are also connected to it.
