Jul 27, 2021

  • Alyssa RoenigkESPN

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      Alyssa Roenigk is a senior writer for ESPN whose assignments take taken her to six continents and caused her to commit countless acts of recklessness. (Follow @alyroe on Twitter).

One vault, and Simone Biles' dark concluded.

The final U.Due south. gymnast to compete during the first rotation in Tuesday's Olympic women'south team finals, Biles opened early an Amanar and seemed to lose where she was in the air. The best vaulter in the world landed low on what became a Yurchenko 1½ (instead of ii½) and took a massive step forward.

Afterward, she sabbatum with the team doctor, surrounded past her teammates, and shook her head. "I'm fine," she said multiple times earlier leaving the arena.

If Biles is known for anything, information technology is her technical superiority and air sensation. What happened on vault was incredibly out of grapheme, but Biles would know improve than anyone else that her misfire was more than a fluke. Her routines are so hard and the skills she performs and then dangerous that had she continued to compete with her mindset shaken, she risked catastrophic injury.

"You lot accept to be at that place 100%," Biles told reporters later the run across. "If not, you lot become hurt. Today has been really stressful. I was shaking. I couldn't nap. I accept never felt similar this going into a contest, and I tried to go out and have fun. But in one case I came out, I was like, 'No. My mental is non at that place.'"

When she returned to the competition floor, Biles informed her teammates she had withdrawn from the meet. Then she took off her grips, put on her warm-ups and became Team USA'due south biggest cheerleader. She hugged and offered assistance from the sideline. She mirrored her teammates' routines equally they competed on floor and ran the chalk box to them betwixt turns on bars.

During the come across, NBC reported Biles' reason for scratching was "a mental upshot she is having" and added information technology was "non injury-related." U.s. Gymnastics followed the report and tweeted, "Simone Biles has withdrawn from the team final competition due to a medical event. She will be assessed daily to make up one's mind medical clearance for time to come competitions." It is likely that argument and the NBC report are saying the aforementioned affair.

It was a heartbreaking stream of news and the type of data it'south hard to imagine a gymnast and her coaches revealing under USA Gymnastics' former government. More dancing between rotations or showing upwardly to cheer on the men's team, the fact that Biles chose to identify her mental and physical health above all -- during the Olympics -- and reveal her struggles to the globe reminds gymnastics fans that if at that place is a cultural shift taking place within the sport, the athletes are leading it.

"It'due south been a long yr, and I recollect we are too stressed out. We should be out here having fun," Biles said. "Sometimes that's non the example."

From a competitive standpoint, the news of Biles' withdrawal from the meet was anything but practiced news for a team already chasing the Russian Olympic Committee, behind past more than than a point after the starting time rotation.

Merely from a human standpoint, the news striking harder. Biles has said throughout the past year that her return to the gym, particularly afterward the COVID-xix pandemic delayed these Games, was made only more than hard past the fact that in order to hunt her goals, she must stand for an organization that failed her and her young man survivors in the wake of the Larry Nassar abuse revelations. She has connected to call out the organization on its lack of transparency and has said that as long every bit she performs in an Olympic leotard bedazzled with "USA," she keeps a lite shining brightly upon the survivors and their want for answers they have yet to receive.

Biles has said, though, that this fourth dimension around, she wanted to compete for herself in a way she didn't in 2016, to push the limits of the sport simply to run into what her torso is capable of achieving. Later on Tuesday's meet, she broke down as she told reporters, "This Olympic Games, I wanted it to be for myself. Only I was yet doing information technology for other people. It hurts my heart that doing what I dearest has been kind of taken away from me to delight other people."

Tuesday in Tokyo, that weight became as well much to bear. And Biles responded by doing something gymnasts have been calling upon their sport to do for them for years: place athlete health and well-beingness ahead of gold medals. "I say put mental wellness first before your sport," Biles said of her determination. "I had to do what's right for me and non jeopardize my health and well-being. That's why I decided to take a step back and let [my teammates] do their work."

Biles said she will take Wednesday as "a mental residual day" and and so make a determination on the rest of the Games. "We're going to see about Thursday," she said in reference to the individual all-around final. Biles qualified first into the all-around, and if she decides to defend her gold medal, she will be joined by Suni Lee. If she withdraws, private athlete Jade Carey will have her place. "We're going to take information technology one 24-hour interval at a time," Biles said.

At the completion of the meet, as the teary-eyed members of the Russian Olympic Committee team celebrated their victory, Biles led her teammates toward them. "Good job, girls!" she said. She hugged each woman and congratulated her on her win. She lauded her teammates for winning a silver medal.

Instead of labeling this dark a disappointment for the American team, perhaps it's a time to gloat the ushering in of a new era: one in which gold medals take a backseat to mental health.

D'Arcy Maine contributed to this story.