Hi everybody!
Like many of you, I just finished watching the 2024 Olympic Games. All of it was exciting, and it’s great to see the other Olympians perform and be brave in the attempt – just like us! This time, I was especially rooting for one athlete who is a great example of that part of our motto: Simone Biles. She came through with a BIG win to help her team and then went on to show why she has the title of GOAT (Greatest Of All Time). The thing is, though, that she is a lot more like us than you might know.
Let’s look at her story….
When Simone was young, she had to be adopted by her grandparents because her mom could not take care of her. Many people in our community have similar problems and have to live with other family members or foster families. Her grandparents ARE her parents in this case, and they are a good family. They helped her start in her sport and got her a coach when she was just 8 years old.
During the 2016 Olympics, when she was 19 years old, she was already one of the best gymnasts in the world. She showed it by winning Gold medals in 2 individual events and a bronze in another, plus helping the U.S. win the team Gold medal and getting the best gymnastics medal there is, the All-Around Gold. While she was competing, the Russians tried to say she took drugs to perform better, but she revealed that she actually has a disability –Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) – and takes medicine to control it. A lot of my friends get questioned about medications, and her being honest and open about it helps us all!
She came back to the U.S. and started planning for the next Olympics in Tokyo, but things are different when you are famous. She had to meet with a lot of press people all time and fit that in with college study and her gym. It started to be too much all at once. Even though she competed in the season before the Olympics, when she got to Tokyo she started experiencing something called the Twisties, where you can’t tell where you are when flipping and turning. She had falls and mistakes in her events because of this and was scared she would get hurt. She also had her aunt pass away while she was in competition.
She said (and her friends agreed) that her mental health was more important than winning, so she did not finish the competition. Some people were VERY mean about it, calling her a quitter and other things. After getting home, she spent time talking to newspeople about how important it is to have proper mental health, and that it is worth more to your life than Gold medals.
After a rest that she needed, she got back into training for her sport, and (if you were watching) completed her best-ever Olympics. Both her team and the TV viewers were on her side – and with better understanding of the mental challenges of competing in front of the world. In THIS Olympics, she repeated her Gold medal performance with her team and individually on vault and in the all-around. She also won Silver in floor exercise.
There is a reason she has the title GOAT, but what I really like about her is that she has challenges just like all of our community and has to face them to succeed. If she can do it, we can too!
Talk to you in the Fall!
