In Defence of Those Who Criticise Simone Biles

I should probably start this article by stating I fully support Simone Biles decision. I believe if anyone feels they’re not ready for the day ahead, they should go home, have a big fat nap, try get their head in order and see how they’re feeling the day after.

Simone Biles has every right to take a day off if she wants. With a combined total of 31 Olympic & World Championship medals, she’s the most decorated gymnast in American history & arguably the World. WTF is a 32nd medal when you are literally the world’s greatest at what you do.

Speaking of the ‘World’s Greatest’, it was revealed in 2018 that the former USA Women’s Gymnastics Team Doctor: Larry Nassar had been guilty of historic sex crimes against many members of the USA Women’s Gymnastics’ team when they were minors. In July 2020, Simone Biles herself talked about how the revelation and only the revelation of Nassar’s crimes made her realise she had been abused by him also. Then in February 2021 Larry Nassar after being charged killed himself.

Carrying the weight of realising someone who you previously thought cared for you had in fact abused you… and then committed suicide, on top of the mental angst that would have came with the pandemic on top of the pressure of training for a high intensity competition with the World watching understandably may cause what Simone defined as the ‘twisties’: an inability to spin in a particular or any manoeuvre within gymnastics.

Even if these particular traumas did not in anyway cause her case of the ‘twisties’, HAVE YOU SEEN OLYMPIC GYMNASTICS? THE SH*T IS DANGEROUS AS HELL. THESE PEOPLE FLIPPING THROUGH THE AIR 50 FOOT HIGH AND SH*T. And regardless of your mental state, if you don’t feel physically up to such a dangerous task, then yeah! Take a time out. A gymnast who did not take a timeout was Russia’s Elena Mukhina. In 1979, competing for the then Soviet Union, Elena was pushed too hard, too quick by her coach, to do a move called the ‘Thomas salto’ which she herself later stated if she mistimed by ‘half a second’ would lead to her breaking her neck. She said later that ‘I had said more than once that I would break my neck doing that element. I had hurt myself badly several times, but he (coach Mikhail Klimenko) just replied people like me don’t break their necks.’ Luckily in 1979, while practicing this very move, Elena only broke her leg. However, the Soviet Gymnastics Programme keen to show the World how elite their athletes were pushed her to recover quickly & two weeks before the Moscow Olympics in 1980, when attempting the Thomas Salto again, she landed on her chin, snapped her spine, was left quadriplegic for life & dying at the tender age of 46 as a result of her injuries.

So yeah, Simone Biles is entirely justified in taking a time out from the Olympics. But most of the people who’ve complained about her are equally justified in voicing their frustration with it. Notable exceptions include Piers Morgan who took a time out from his own show because a weatherman presented him with a counter argument to his dislike of Meghan Markle, & unfortunately didn’t take a time out from media in general 10 years ago after hacking a dead childs phone… or 10 years before that when he photoshopped images of British Troops torturing Iraqi prisoners of war. Novak Djokovic too, who commenting on Simone’s position made an eloquent point about having to handle pressure as an elite athlete, before missing out on bronze in the singles men’s tennis this year & subsequently turning the tennis court he was on into an ECW pay per view.

Increasingly we are seeing that elites don’t quite live the privileged life we’ve come to imagine. Whether it is Meghan Markle stating she was suicidal after press attacks, or countless sports stars (Ben Stokes, Naomi Osaka) all having raised their voice about mental health issues they have faced.

But all these celebrities, Simone included have had the privilege to stop…. And that is indeed a privilege. Meghan managed to escape her pesky in laws by fleeing to a $15 million mansion across the Atlantic… something the vast majority of married individuals could only dream of doing. Ben Stokes has taken ‘an indefinite break’ from cricket, & Naomi Osaka pulled out of Wimbledon. These athletes are immensely talented & worked very hard to be outstanding in their field & all are entitled to put their mental health over a lifelong passion they’ve probably never taken any prolonged break from since childhood.

Yet most of us would kill to have reached a point in our life where we can do the thing we love for a living, & if most of us achieved that position, we probably wouldn’t sacrifice it regardless of our mental health. But most of us don’t do what we love, and most of us simply cannot take ‘an indefinite break’ from jobs we either despise or at very best tolerate. If we did, we’d get fired, end up losing our house, in a spiralling pile of debt, and our kids would have to go to a food bank. For many people, this is in fact the day-to-day reality of life.

This isn’t a critique of sports stars putting their mental health first, it’s a critique of the fact that ordinary people by & large do not even get to attend to their mental health. Simone Biles net worth is $6 million, Ben Stokes is $15 million, Naomi Osaka’s: $60 million, & The Sussex's is a whopping $100 million. Assuming you don’t have the fiercest addiction to cocaine & prostitutes (which given who Meghan is married to is no guarantee), if you’re a millionaire, you get to take a day off… The rest of us do not.

Even for people who like their jobs & those higher up the ladder, trying address unhappiness & mental health is a torrid battle as the employees of Tesla, Goldman Sachs & Activision Blizzard have all revealed this year. Mental health is increasingly & in this author’s opinion rightfully becoming more & more of a talking point in the media, but never for the people who need it most. Millionaires complain about their unhappiness, and individuals in both legacy (newspapers) & social media rush to either criticise & defend people who have access to the best therapist’s money can buy, while those at the bottom of the income ladder have little to no access to underfunded & broken mental health systems in the developed world & beyond.

When people in these positions see people in positions of power complain it’s too difficult, and then see people rush to defend & justify people who have privilege beyond their wildest imagination while they struggle to pay for the roof over their head, the gas to keep their house warm, and struggle to explain to their kids why dinner is the same as it was last week: beans on toast from the foodbank down the road all while working five jobs they hate, they are not only going to get angry, they are right to be angry. Because that is what mental health, depression and anxiety become when not treated: anger, which in turn can become raw unchecked hatred… & that is if you’re lucky.

According to the World Health Organisation, in 2019: there were ‘more deaths due to suicide than to malaria, HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, or war and homicide.’ & 77% of suicides occurred in low- and middle-income countries. We could extrapolate that this probably the same for low- & middle-income families. Bear In mind, this was in 2019!!!! BEFORE THE PANDEMIC & ALL THE MENTAL & ECONOMIC TRAUMA THAT BROUGHT!

And from this perspective, I simply cannot, no I refuse to criticise those who criticise Simone Biles, because many of them need & will never receive the mental health assistance she will be receiving right now. It’s all well & good having a conversation about mental health, but we really need to be having a conversation about WHEN we’re going to properly fund it.