Did Simone Biles Do Us All a Favor?

Twenty-five years ago, while watching the 1996 Summer Olympic Games on television, I got into a fight with my mother.

“That poor girl needs to go to the hospital!” my mother yelled as she watched American gymnast Kerri Strug collapse during a vault jump. We weren’t in Atlanta, but even we could see that Strug had hurt her ankle. No one could land the way she did without sustaining a major injury.

“No!” I shouted with the misguided zeal of a child who had an overdeveloped sense of achievement, “She needs to finish! America has to win the gold medal!”

“Would you keep going if you broke your foot like that on the playground with your friends?” my mother asked.

“I would break my foot just to have some more friends!” I snorted. In my defense, it had taken a few years for me to really trust the American kids, especially the beautiful, blonde ones. “Just one more vault!” I yelled.

That second vault, as it turned out, won the U.S. women’s gymnastics team (“The Magnificent Seven,” as they were called) its first gold medal in history. It also ended Strug’s career at the age of 18, forcing her to retire.

In hindsight, my mother was right. I couldn’t feel Strug’s pain; all I could smell was the redeeming aroma of a gold medal just minutes within reach. It reminded me of every classroom pop quiz and playground race I felt I had to “win” in order to not let others down.

But my mother, being a mother, watched only the screen and saw a child in agony.

Few Americans that summer could forget the seemingly heroic sight of coach Bela Karolyi, who encouraged Strug to keep going, and then, after she performed, carried her off the mat (and toward now-convicted doctor Larry Nassar). Strug later said regarding the injury that she actually heard her ankle pop when she landed.

Since learning that four-time Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles, considered by many to be the GOAT (“Greatest of All Time”), withdrew from multiple gymnastic competitions in the Tokyo Olympic Games this week, I found myself thinking a lot about that moment in Atlanta, when Strug was touted as a national hero.

Of course, she was a hero. She was also never able to get atop a vault again.

In addition to the physical and emotional pain (not to mention her long road to recovery), it seems that Strug was, in one way or another, forced to mortgage her future. One can only imagine what brilliance she would have displayed at the 2000 and 2004 Olympic games.

I now wonder whether I would forever sacrifice my ability to do something I truly loved, if it meant getting the highest prize and taking one for the team. It’s a more difficult question than it seems. A fool would argue that bones break, but gold lasts forever. But is anything worth that kind of sacrifice?

A fool would argue that bones break, but gold lasts forever. But is anything worth that kind of sacrifice?

There have been many inevitable comparisons between Strug and Biles this week. Most of us know about (or have Googled) Strug’s Olympics performance, but few know what transpired minutes before Strug took to the vault: Then-fourteen-year-old American gymnast Dominique Moceanu fell during her landing on the first vault (enduring a tibial stress fracture); she again fell during the landing of the second vault (Why was she even forced to get back on the vault? She should have been getting a cervical spine exam).

When Moceanu fell, a collective gasp descended over the crowd. Karolyi and the American team were demoralized, which had them hoping for salvation from the next competitor: Strug. The pressure to perform and succeed was now greater than ever. Even the announcer declared, “Keri Strug. It is up to her.”

But Strug stumbled during her first vault landing and limped off of the mat. In a 2013 video called “My Olympic Moment,” she admits to thinking the following seconds after her injury: “Whatever is in my ankle is just gonna go away. It has to. This is the Olympics.” She turned to Karolyi, who famously affirmed again and again, “You can do it!”

Strug had only one more chance to bring her team to gold, and so she walked back up to the vault. The moment she landed on that injured ankle again is agonizing to watch. She managed to pull herself off of the mat with her knees (a heartbreaking sight), and the announcer ominously said, “Keri Strug is hurt.” But the audience seemed too bewildered with thunderous applause to even notice. If it had been me, I would have shouted expletives, sobbed and screamed again. But I am human, not an Olympic gymnast.

Strug was quickly bandaged up, but if you watch closely, you’ll see that she is the only American to stand on the podium without any pants. I don’t know whether the pants would have fit over her bandages, but someone must have been in such a rush to send Strug up to that podium that she wasn’t even afforded the dignity of pants. To me, that’s the ultimate metaphor for how the Olympics unintentionally put medals ahead of humans (and, in some cases, women).

That’s the problem when we don’t see people, but performers. Elena Mukhina, the 1978 women’s gymnastics world champion, broke her leg before the 1980 Olympics, but her Russian coaches told her to keep training. During one practice, her weak leg couldn’t withstand the dangerous Thomas Salto artistic move (which is now banned), and she landed on her chin, breaking her neck. She became a quadraplegic at age 20, and died at 46.

I’m not likening Biles to Mukhina. But in stepping aside and choosing her mental health, Biles may have done us all a favor.

Who, especially in the last seventeen months of a soul-crushing pandemic, hasn’t thought of stepping aside or walking away? I know young mothers who temporarily hide in closets; children who stay beneath the covers lest there’s another Zoom-based instruction session; fathers who wear thick headphones and pray for five minutes of quiet; and workers who hold their tongues and look the other way as they’re verbally abused, yet again, by customers who won’t comply with requests to wear masks.

Yes, there are some who have criticized Biles, but they’re outliers. In fact, the generally warm (and self-identifying) way with which most of us have received Biles is a signal of the times: Imagine if Biles had competed during the Cold War and withdrawn; she would have been booed upon her return to the airport and accused of handing the gold medal to the Russians. I don’t even think Biles would have received such encouragement and compassion 25 years ago (one can only imagine how much Strug would have been criticized if she’d walked away after the first vault).

But that’s precisely why Biles is receiving so much support from former gymnasts around the world. If anyone gets it, it’s them, and not us. In fact, many of us are guilty of staying up late to watch the Olympics, and then cursing at the screen when our team doesn’t win a medal. I know one friend who woke up in the middle of the night to watch the games, then shouted at losing athletes on the screen, “I woke up at 4. a.m. for you!”

But that’s precisely why Biles is receiving so much support from former gymnasts around the world. If anyone gets it, it’s them, and not us.

Biles’ predicament has made me realize that I never want to be called the “Greatest of all Time” with regard to anything (unless it’s haggling at a bazaar—a skill I mastered in Iran before the age of 5). I think I’d be perfectly happy being called “Sporadically Above Average.”

In fact, I mean no disparagement in saying that, from now on, whenever I choose my precious mental health first, I will gratefully acknowledge having “pulled a Simone Biles.”

Tabby Refael is a Los Angeles-based writer, speaker and civic action activist. Follow her on Twitter @RefaelTabby