Biles pulls out of additional events
Simone Biles has withdrawn from Sunday’s event finals in vault and uneven bars at the Tokyo Olympics, USA Gymnastics announced.
The 24-year-old U.S. gymnast continues to be evaluated daily to determine whether she’ll compete in the finals for floor exercise on Monday or balance beam a day later.
Earlier Friday, Biles opened up about her fateful “twisties,” the condition she said led her to pull out of earlier competitions in Tokyo to focus on her mental health — revealing to her fans in an Instagram Q&A that her “mind and body are simply not in sync.”
“I don’t think you realize how dangerous this is on hard/competitive surface,” Biles — who has won four Olympic gold medals, as well as a silver and bronze — wrote in a story.
“Nor do I have to explain why I put my health first. Physical health is mental health,” the 4-foot-8 Texan added.
The Team USA gymnast also posted, then deleted, two videos of her attempting a dismount on the uneven bars.
“For anyone saying I quit. I didn’t quit my mind & body are simply not in sync. As you can see here,” wrote the athlete, who stunned the world when she dropped out of the team final and women’s individual all-around.
Her teammate, Suni Lee, captured the marquee all-around title by edging out Brazil’s Rebeca Andrade.
Biles told her followers that during competition, she is supposed to do one-and-a-half more twists than she managed to do in training.
“Almost there but not quite,” she wrote. “Sometimes I can’t even fathom twisting. I seriously cannot comprehend how to twist. Strangest & weirdest thing as well as feeling.”
The “twisties” cause a gymnast to lose a sense of where they are in the air and can often lead to dangerous landings.
Biles opened up about the situational awareness bugaboo, telling her fans that she could “literally not tell up from down.”
“It’s the craziest feeling ever. Not having an inch of control over your body. What’s even scarier is since I have no idea where I am in the air, I also have NO idea how I am going to land. Or what I am going to land on. Head/ hands/feet back…” she wrote.
“It’s honestly petrifying trying to do a skill but not having your mind & body in sync,” she wrote, adding, “10/10 do not recommend.”
Biles pointed out that she had been affected by the twisties previously, writing, “btw it’s never transferred to bars & beam for me. It strictly likes floor & vault, but this time it’s literally on every event. which sucks… really bad.”
She insisted that she “didn’t have a bad performance and quit. I’ve had plenty of bad performances throughout my career and finished competition. I simply got so lost my safety was at risk as well as a team medal.”