Simone Biles Opens Up Saying “I Should Have Quit Way Before Tokyo”
Simone Biles might be one of the greatest gymnast of all time and the 24-year-old has been pretty open about mental health. Also speaking on the unexpected loss of a family member during the Olympics.
“If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team,” Biles shared with New York magazine.
TOKYO, JAPAN – AUGUST 03: Simone Biles of Team United States poses with the bronze medal during the Women’s Balance Beam Final medal ceremony on day eleven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on August 03, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
“I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was six years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.”
Biles testified in-front of the Senate Judiciary Committee about the FBI’s handling of sexual abuse claims towards Nassar alongside three other gymnasts — McKayla Maroney, Aly Raisman and Maggie Nichols — all of whom were Nassar abuse survivors.
These allegations started back in July 2015, but one of the Justice Department inspectors said that the agency, “failed to respond to the Nassar allegations with the utmost seriousness and urgency that they deserved and required, made numerous and fundamental errors when they did respond to them, and violated multiple FBI policies.”
TOKYO, JAPAN – AUGUST 03: Simone Biles of Team United States competes during the Women’s Balance Beam Final on day eleven of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Ariake Gymnastics Centre on August 03, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by An Lingjun/CHINASPORTS/VCG via Getty Images)
“If I still had my air awareness, and I just was having a bad day, I would have continued. But it was more than that.”
“Say up until you’re 30 years old, you have your complete eyesight. One morning, you wake up, you can’t see sh*t, but people tell you to go on and do your daily job as if you still have your eyesight,” Biles explained.
“You’d be lost, wouldn’t you? That’s the only thing I can relate it to. I have been doing gymnastics for 18 years. I woke up — lost it. How am I supposed to go on with my day?”
