The weight of the Olympics
THE PUSH TO SUCCEED
In the leadup to Tokyo 2020, Simone Biles ascended from mere Olympic gymnast to pop culture idol, symbol of female empowerment, and global “it girl.” Feverish headlines billed her as “superhuman,” more akin to a Marvel character than a 24-year-old woman. It was an adjective used over and over ahead of the women’s team gymnastics final.
It’s the sort of expectation that sets its recipient up for failure. When a nation pins not just its athletic, but moral hopes on a single person, the pressure becomes incalculable. This is doubly true for female and minority competitors. They become human sponges, tasked with absorbing their communities’ hopes and dreams, along with the hatred and vitriol of those who’d rather they fail.
The mental overload is akin to saddling a kitchen sponge with the burden of soaking up Niagara Falls. At some point, the sponge simply gets too full. It can’t take any more. It sinks.
Leading up to the final, Biles wrote on Instagram that she feels “the weight of the world on her shoulders at times.” Then, during her first vault in the event’s first rotation, she lost her way mid-air. Thankfully, she staved off disaster and landed awkwardly on her feet rather than crashing onto her back, which is exactly what would’ve happened to most other gymnasts. CBC commentator and former Olympian Kyle Shewfelt called the situation “dangerous.”
Minutes later, Biles pulled out of the team final for medical reasons, which she later confirmed as a mental health issue. She said her coaches fully supported the decision: “They saw I was going through it and they totally agreed it was not worth getting hurt over something so silly, even though it’s so big — the Olympic Games. At the end of the day we want to walk out of here, not be dragged out of here on a stretcher.”
On the same day, tennis superstar Naomi Osaka was eliminated from the Games in a stunning upset to Marketa Vondrousova in which she clocked 32 unforced errors. “I feel like my attitude wasn’t that great because I don’t really know how to cope with that pressure, so that’s the best that I could have done in this situation,” she said after the match.
It’s not mere coincidence that Tokyo’s two highest-profile female Olympians suffered similar fates within hours of one another. That’s because these mental health issues aren’t just personal struggles, but the result of structural problems in the world of sport and broader society. It was inevitable that, having soaked up so much pressure for so long, they would one day reach their saturation limit.
As separate demographics, women and elite athletes are in the midst of mental health crises. Both have skyrocketing rates of anxiety and depression. Female athletes essentially experience the worst of both worlds, making what happened to Biles and Osaka entirely unsurprisingly even as the global media labels both events “shocking.”
To realize these incidents aren’t shocking is to admit we have work to do. Osaka and Biles are both targets of unrelenting racist and misogynist harassment. Biles was a victim of systemically-enabled sexual abuse by USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar. Both are constantly judged not just by their athletic prowess, but their appearance. Moreover, they’re both held to impossible standards in a way few, if any, male athletes are.
These standards are enforced by even well-meaning fans and feminists. Until very recently, female characters in TV shows and movies weren’t allowed realistic flaws. They were either virgins or Jezebels; princesses or witches. We now do this to female athletes, reducing their complexity to simplistic caricatures. Often, this happens because we want to emphasize how great they are, how game-changing! But perhaps it’d be more game-changing to just let them play, to win and lose, without all the extra expectations.
The current fervour around female athletes reminds me of the ill-fated cultism of the #girlboss era. Young women were so excited to finally see themselves represented in stereotypically male roles that they made false idols of flawed human beings. This, of course, ended in scandal and tears. And while the corrosive effects of blind hero-worship may not play out exactly the same in the athletic area, there are plenty of signs it won’t end well.
Osaka and Biles need to take time to work on their mental health, but sport organizations and fans alike also need to see Tokyo’s events as a wake up call. Despite many of our best intentions, we’re still setting female athletes up to fail.