By Wendy S. Thompson, Editor-in-chief
Photo by DC Spotlight Newspaper

It’s official!  Simone Biles is now the most celebrated Olympic gymnastics medal winner in history. When Biles stepped onto the Olympic stage in the “city of lights”, she lit up Paris and brought her team along on a self-titled “Redemption Tour”. The tour of redemption resulted from a word that has become all too familiar: Twisties. For Biles, it was the horrible twisties that ended her attempt at the gold during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and could have ultimately ended her career. Yet, today at age 27, she is the oldest gymnast to compete in the Olympics.

The twisties is formally described as a loss of spatial awareness or physical orientation, resulting in an inability to execute gymnastics skills previously within an athlete’s repertoire. In layman’s terms, the twisties could easy be described as the worries of “lifing”. During the Tokyo Olympics, due to the stresses of life and pressures to meet public expectations, Biles said she began to feel small and inundated with mental anxiety, and that affected her ability to perform. She explained, “(The pressure) feels heavy. It’s like the weight of the world on your shoulders and I’m very small, so I feel like, at times, it’s very overwhelming.” She continued, “But whenever you get so overwhelmed and have triggers, it’s just like — I have to focus on my mental well-being and that’s what I did.” Four years ago — devastated after dropping out of the Tokyo Olympics — that’s exactly what she did.

In four amazingly short years, with the help of therapy, family, coaches, and friends, Biles made a quantum leap back onto the Olympic stage in Paris. Not only did she bring a sound mind and body with her, but also a dynamic A-Team with Jordan Chiles, Hezly Rivera, Jade Carey, and Suni Lee by her side. Within minutes of the finals on Tuesday, it was evident that the 2024 team was not the team of 2020. This upgraded team was in Paris to win the gold and nothing less. One after another, each teammate performed heroic feats with scores that shouted, “We came to win”…and they did. By the end of the day, the United States women’s gymnastics team had taken the gold, dominating in the field where Italy and Brazil won the silver and bronze medals, respectively.

Biles openly credits her meteoric rise from the dust to the pinnacle in Paris to getting good mental health. Unfortunately, many in America discredit the value of mental wellness as a key component to ultimate success. Instead, oftentimes, the public chastises anyone, including Biles, who fights for the right to take a break for the sake of mental health. Yet for Biles, by taking care of her mental wellness, she was able to forge her legacy into the stratosphere of legend. Like this Olympic gold winner and many others, good mental health was not the end, but the beginning of winning.

Yes, those suffering from mental anxiety and anguish might have to stop or pull back, as Biles did at the 2020 Olympics.  She did pull back enormously.  Like an arrow in a bow, she pull back as far as she could, and many thought this would be the end.  Many criticized her, including vice presidential hopeful J. D. Vance.  In a lost Fox News interview back in 2020, after Biles withdrew from the Tokyo Olympics, Vance remarked:

“It’s understandable that she was going through an incredible amount of pressure,” he said.  “What I find so weird about this – and it reflects on the media more than it does on Simone Biles – is that we’ve tried to turn a very tragic moment, Simone Biles quitting the Olympic team, into this act of heroism.  And I think it reflects pretty poorly on our sort of therapeutic society that we try to praise people not for moments of strength, not for moments of heroism, but for their weakest moments.”

With suicide rates skyrocketing in teens and young adults in the U.S., the message that humans should only be supportive of others when they are winning is simply wrong.  In life, and definitely with mental health, sometimes you have to take 2 steps back to go 3 steps forward.  The media, for once, got it right. Supporting getting good mental health and recovery in all people, not just athletes, results in winners.  It is true that in 2020, like an arrow, Biles pulled 2 steps back, but in 2024, that arrow took a massive quantum leap right into history and legend.  That’s what “getting your mind right” can do for performance.  That’s what good mental health does.

Now Americans must embrace the notion and the evidence that getting mentally well is what winners do. Biles has taught the world a invaluable lesson, as she ascends into legendary status. When life hits us with the twisties, as it will for most humans, there is honor in getting help. This young woman, now a 2024 Olympic champion many times over, can attest to the evidence, as she stands waving the American flag on a beautiful summer day on a Paris stage, while posing for thousands of photographers from around the world…patiently waiting to receive her gold medals. Undoubtedly, the proof is in the pictures.

Sidenote:

I interviewed Simone a few years ago for a DC Spotlight article, when we worked on an event for kids in the Boys and Girls Club. It was a fun day then, and today was just as awesome to watch her go from great to greatness in becoming a historic figure in our lifetime.  The staff of the DC Spotlight Newspaper could not be more proud.

Wendy Thompson, Editor-in-chief

To the Olympic Gymnastics Team   

Congratulations Simone, Jordan, Suni, Hezly and Jade!

FROM OUR TEAM TO YOUR TEAM