Simone Biles Has Withdrawn From The Olympic Individual All-Around Final As Well

More bad news for people who love to gasp in awe as Simone Biles does her thing 20 feet in the air while spinning at 20 miles per hour. After announcing she’d be withdrawing from team events, Simone Biles has just announced that she’s decided to put her mental health first, and withdraw from the individual all-around competition as well.

Yesterday, Simone announced that she would not be participating in any further USA Women’s team events alongside her teammates Jordan Chiles, Sunisa Lee, and Grace McCallum. Originally, Team USA claimed that Simone was withdrawing because of an injury, but Simone later clarified that she stepped back because she wasn’t in the right place mentally, and couldn’t focus while performing. Simone added that she didn’t want to risk her team achieving medals, so it was her choice to back out and put her health first. It was still up in the air as to whether she’d be participating in the individual all-around this week. Well, she’s not, according to a statement released by U.S.A Gymnastics. via People magazine:

“After further medical evaluation, Simone Biles has withdrawn from the final individual all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympic Games, in order to focus on her mental health. 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. Her courage shows, yet again, why she is a role model for so many.”

Lots of people have expressed their support of Simone’s decision, including many current and former Olympians, who have stressed that a whole lot can go wrong when your head isn’t in the right space to perform. Like Olympic gold medal-winning gymnast Dominique Moceanu, who says she would have pulled out of an event after an injury on the balance beam, had she not felt the insane pressure to push through it and keep competing (warning, this video features a 14-year-old kid falling on their head).

In our sport, we essentially dive into a pool w/ no water. When you lose your ability to find the ground—which appears to be part of @Simone_Biles decision—-the consequences can be catastrophic. She made the right decision for the team & herself. @bisping

— Dominique Moceanu (@Dmoceanu) July 28, 2021

And in her Instagram Stories, Simone re-posted an Instagram post from gymnastics coach Andrea Orris, which explains that maybe Simone isn’t in a great place mentally, because the last time she competed in the Olympic games, in 2016, was right after predator Larry Nassar was outed as being an abuser.

Simone hasn’t said if she will compete in individual events or not. The individual event finals begin this Sunday.

This is why I think the Olympics should move to a more fun model. Who cares who wins? Just send everyone out, and let them fuck around and do whatever they like to do best, just for bragging rights. And we can all watch and pretend we could do that too, while we struggle to reach the bag of Doritos that fell off the arm of the couch. Everyone wins.

Pic: Twitter