{"id":12294,"date":"2021-07-30T02:33:59","date_gmt":"2021-07-30T09:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12294"},"modified":"2021-07-30T02:35:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-30T09:35:28","slug":"simone-biles-just-demonstrated-a-true-champion-mind-set-the-new-york-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=12294","title":{"rendered":"“Simone Biles Just Demonstrated a True Champion Mind-Set”, The New York Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

By <\/span>Lindsay Crouse,\u00a0<\/span>Opinion, July 29, 2021<\/p>\n

Leer en espa\u00f1ol<\/a><\/p>\n

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What kind of champion withdraws at the Olympics?<\/p>\n

One who can recognize her limits and stop before she crashes into them. And so in dropping out of the team gymnastics competition at the Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles, the best gymnast America has ever produced, issued a statement as powerful as anything she\u2019s done in competition: She said \u201cenough.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an unusual underperformance at the preliminaries \u2014 by her own high standards \u2014 Biles realized she could not execute her planned vault in the team finals. After some deliberation, she bowed out<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the end of the day, we\u2019re human, too, so we have to protect our mind and our body rather than just go out there and do what the world wants us to do,\u201d she told<\/a> reporters after the competition, in which her team earned Olympic silver medals.<\/p>\n

Biles joins a growing number of younger athletes<\/a>, including her fellow Olympian the tennis star Naomi Osaka, who are pushing against the traditional American narrative of gold at all costs, including the expense of their own mental or physical health.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There was, predictably, plenty of pushback. Critics on Twitter lamented that<\/a> quitting is the new winning, casting it as weak and lazy Generation Z behavior. But in a social-media-driven world, young elite athletes have a new power<\/a>, too: They have more control of their own careers, and the narratives around them.<\/p>\n

Obviously, everyone wants to win. So it\u2019s exciting that many of these stars are also recognizing that being the greatest means knowing your own variable limits and when to push through the pain \u2014 and when not to force it. How many Olympians have we seen push, persevere and then crumble when the Games are over? Some compared Biles unfavorably against Kerri Strug, the teenage gymnast who landed a vault on a torn ankle<\/a> to help her team win the 1996 Olympics. (It later turned out that this heroic performance was unnecessary; America already had enough points to win.)<\/p>\n

In fact, that\u2019s a worthy comparison, but not in the way Biles\u2019s critics contend. While it was roundly applauded at the time, and it still is often held up as a moment of Olympic glory, what Strug went through was horrific \u2014 hurting herself while America cheered. She never competed professionally again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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This is what change looks like: choice.<\/p>\n

Biles has spent her entire career defining her own boundaries <\/a>\u2014 usually by pushing them. She won the national championships with broken toes and the world championships with a kidney stone. She survived sexual assault at the hands of her own team doctor, Larry Nassar \u2014 and instead of running away, she stayed and leveraged her fame to push for progress. Her desire to be a symbol for change is part of why Biles has stuck around to compete in these Games at all, she has said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

So Biles knows how to be tough. But, of course, the burden of that toughness gets heavy. This week, she posted on her Facebook page, \u201cI truly do feel that I have the weight of the world on my shoulders at times.\u201d<\/p>\n

The pressure on athletes<\/a> may be more intense now than it\u2019s ever been. It\u2019s a time when any armchair sports analyst can dissect your form, question your commitment or remind you that the goblins sowing doubt in your mind may be right.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Biles said that she dropped out for mental health reasons, in addition to physical ones. But they\u2019re not so different \u2014 especially when you\u2019re performing moves as difficult as those Biles has wowed crowds with lately. (Some of these moves were so potentially dangerous<\/a> that judges scored them lower to discourage other, less-skilled, gymnasts from attempting them.)<\/p>\n

And sometimes the best thing an athlete can do for her performance is to take a break. Especially when you\u2019re in a rut, quitting to regroup can be the fastest way to refresh and re-energize. After two disappointing performances in a row, Biles was wise to stop and refresh, said Steve Magness,<\/a> a performance coach for Olympians and the author of a forthcoming book, \u201cReal Toughness.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a fundamental misconception of what it means to be tough,\u201d Mr. Magness told me. \u201cIt\u2019s not gritting our teeth through everything; it\u2019s having the space to make the right choice despite pressure, stress and fatigue.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible for most of us to understand the kind of pressure that elite athletes face, Mr. Magness said. And in her decision to stand down, Biles offered a master class in how to deal with that pressure. If anything, she probably only helped her team by ignoring ego and staying out when she recognized she wasn\u2019t capable of performing at her high standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cPerformance is all about self-awareness,\u201d said Mr. Magness. \u201cYou are trying to match your skills on that day with the demand of the event. So Simone is aware when to go for broke and pull out the big difficulty tasks, but she also knows when she is slightly off and needs to scale it down slightly.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It\u2019s worth remembering: Simone Biles is not a viral GIF flipping through your phone. She may be wearing a U.S.A. leotard, but she doesn\u2019t work for us. No matter what hopes and dreams we invested in her, she earned her place, and she gets to decide. Athletes, and their physical and mental health, are not commodities. Biles knows that \u2014 and is not willing to be disposable. Rather, she is investing in her longevity.<\/p>\n

Despite all the hullabaloo and recriminations against Biles for not competing, the American team performed brilliantly and took silver. Biles still has the opportunity to perform in the individual competition. Rather than sulking, she cheered for her teammates from the stands, hugged the gold-medal-winning gymnasts from Russia and proudly posted a picture of her teammates smiling with their medals on her Instagram feed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n