Simone Biles is an artistic gymnast from the United States of America. She has prestigiously won four gold medals in the 2016 Rio Olympics. This year in the Tokyo Olympic Games, she was participating in gymnastic events until she withdrew her name.
Simone along with her teammates bagged a silver medal in the team event. Unexpectedly, she withdrew her name from the team final because of a ‘medical issue’. Simone has posted a picture of the USA team on her Instagram account. She captioned it with, ‘OLYMPIC SILVER MEDALISTS. I’m so proud of these girls right here. You girls are incredibly brave & talented. I’ll forever be inspired by your determination to not give up and to fight through adversity! They stepped up when I couldn’t. Thanks for being there for me and having my back! Forever love y’all.’
Simone Biles Speaks on Mental Health
After Biles withdrew, the USA Gymnastics announced that she would be evaluated every day. The 24-year-old has a total of 25 medals from the World Championships, 19 medals out of 25 are gold.
Here’s what she has to say about mental health:
‘Yes, I say put your mental health first because if you don’t then you’re not going to enjoy your sport and you’re not going to succeed as much as you want to. So, it’s okay to even sit out big competitions, to focus on yourself because it shows how strong of a competitor and person that you really are. Rather than just battle through it. It’s been really stressful this Olympic Games. I think, just as a whole, not having an audience. There are a lot of different variables going into it. It’s been a long week, it’s been a long Olympic process, it’s been a long year. So just a lot of variables and I think we are just a little bit too stressed out. But we should be out here having fun and sometimes that’s not the case.’
‘There’s more to life than just gymnastics.’
Simone has spoken up about an issue that is considered taboo. The impact of her thoughts will be felt all over the world. We support you.