Simone Biles Withdraws From Team Competition At The Tokyo Olympics
According to USA Today, Simone Biles has pulled out of the Olympic team final on Tuesday, leaving the competition after struggling to land a vault, the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee has confirmed to outlets, noting that she would not compete in the remaining events.
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ESPN reported that “There was an audible gasp from the crowd after Simone Biles’ deep landing on vault in which she needed to take a significant step forward. She was supposed to do an Amanar but ended up doing a Yurchenko 5/2 twist. She received a 13.766 — substantially low by her standards.”
It was eventually revealed that Biles pulled out to focus on her mental health. She later delivered a powerful message to Olympic teammates after exiting gymnastics event.
“I’m sorry. I love you guys, but you’re gonna be just fine,” Biles told her teammates. “You guys have trained your whole entire life for this, it’s fine. I’ve been to an Olympics, I’ll be fine. This is your first — you go out there and kick a–, okay?”
Biles, who is still eligible to compete in the individual all-around this week, told reporters that she wasn’t injured, but she was “dealing with a few things.”
“No injury thankfully, and that’s why I took a step back because I didn’t want to do something silly out there and get injured,” she said, via Olympics.com. “I thought it was best that these girls took over and did the rest of the job, which they absolutely did — they’re Olympic silver medalists. They should be really proud of themselves for how well they did.”
She went on to admit that “Today has been really stressful, we had a workout this morning; it went OK but during that five-and-a-half hour wait I was shaking – I could barely nap. I had never felt like that going into a competition before. I tried to go out here and have fun; the warmup in the back went a little bit better but once I came out here I was like, ‘no, mentals [sic] not here so I just need to let the girls do it and focus on myself.’”
Biles was widely praised for her brave move, with many people saying she’s a winner in their eyes.
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