I should have quit way before Tokyo, not during it
In the months following her withdrawal from the Tokyo Olympics, Simone Biles has offered the world a rare and searching account of what it costs to carry grief, trauma, and abuse into the arena of human excellence. The 24-year-old gymnast, long regarded as the greatest of her generation, has come to believe she should never have competed at all — not as an admission of failure, but as a reckoning with how much she was silently asked to endure. Her story asks something larger of us: what do we demand of those we celebrate, and what do we refuse to see?
- Biles was simultaneously managing her aunt's death, years of unresolved trauma from Larry Nassar's abuse, and the psychological weight of being the world's most scrutinized athlete — all while attempting to perform at the absolute limit of human capability.
- Mid-competition, her mind and body severed connection entirely, producing 'the twisties' — a dangerous spatial disorientation that gymnasts fear precisely because it can turn a routine into a life-threatening fall.
- Rather than push through at the risk of serious injury, Biles stepped back from competition, a decision that ignited global debate about athlete mental health, Black women in sport, and the price of excellence under impossible pressure.
- She then carried her pain into a Senate hearing room, testifying against Nassar and holding both the FBI and the U.S. Olympic Committee accountable for systemic failures that allowed abuse to continue for decades.
- Now in therapy and away from training, Biles speaks with clear-eyed honesty about a healing process she expects to last twenty years — and with equal clarity about the historic legacy she has already secured, owing the world nothing more.
Simone Biles has spent the months since Tokyo sitting with a difficult question: should she have gone at all?
In a late September conversation with The Cut, the 24-year-old gymnast described the full weight of what she carried into those games. She was grieving her aunt. She was navigating the relentless reemergence of Larry Nassar's name in the news — a constant reopening of wounds from years of abuse. And she was attempting to perform at the absolute peak of human athleticism while her mind fractured under the pressure. Then, mid-routine, her body simply stopped communicating with her brain. Gymnasts call it the twisties: a loss of spatial awareness in the air that is not merely disorienting but genuinely dangerous. She stepped back. She has no regrets about that. But she wishes she had stepped back sooner. "I should have quit way before Tokyo," she said. She didn't, because she refused to let a predator take something she had worked toward since she was six years old.
What Biles articulates is a form of psychological endurance that transcends sport. She was competing not only against other gymnasts but against trauma, grief, and the unspoken expectation that she would absorb all of it and still deliver greatness. As a Black woman at the pinnacle of her field, she noted, the bar is never acknowledged as extraordinary — records are dimmed down, treated as ordinary. The world watches and expects. It rarely asks if you are okay.
After withdrawing from competition, she walked into the Senate Judiciary Committee and testified about Nassar's abuse and the institutional failures that enabled it for decades, holding both the U.S. Olympic Committee and the FBI to account. It was not a celebration of her medals. It was a demand for change.
She is now in therapy, away from training, and honest about the timeline ahead. "This will probably be something I work through for 20 years," she said. The grief about Tokyo still arrives without warning. But so does clarity. With 32 medals to her name, Biles knows she has already given more than the world had any right to ask. That is not arrogance. It is simply true.
Simone Biles has spent the months since Tokyo working through a question that most people never had to ask: should she have shown up at all?
The 24-year-old gymnast sat down with The Cut in late September to talk about her Olympic withdrawal, and what emerged was a portrait of someone carrying far more weight than any balance beam. She was processing the death of her aunt. She was managing the ongoing trauma of Larry Nassar's abuse—a man whose name had been in the news for two years straight, a constant reopening of wounds. She was trying to perform at the absolute peak of human athletic ability while her mind was fractured in multiple directions. And then, mid-routine, her body simply disconnected from her brain. The twisties, as gymnasts call it: a phenomenon where an athlete loses spatial awareness mid-air, where the mind and body stop communicating. It is not a minor inconvenience. It is dangerous.
Biles decided to step back from competition. She has no regrets about that choice. But she wishes she had made a different one earlier. "If you looked at everything I've gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team," she told the magazine. The Nassar coverage alone, she said, was too much. "I should have quit way before Tokyo when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much." But she didn't quit. She pushed forward because she was not going to let a predator take something she had worked toward since she was six years old.
What Biles is describing is a kind of psychological endurance that goes beyond sport. She was competing not just against other gymnasts but against her own trauma, against grief, against the expectation that she would simply absorb all of this and deliver excellence anyway. There is a particular pressure that comes with being a Black woman at the top of her field, she explained. "As a Black woman, we just have to be greater. Because even when we break records and stuff, they almost just dim it down, as if it's just normal." The world watches and expects. It does not often ask if you are okay.
After withdrawing from the games, Biles faced another ordeal: testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee on September 15 to speak directly about Nassar's abuse and the systemic failures that allowed it to continue for decades. She held both the U.S. Olympic Committee and the FBI accountable. She used her platform not to celebrate her medals but to demand change.
Since then, she has stepped away from training. She is in therapy. She is healing. When asked how long this process might take, she was honest: "This will probably be something I work through for 20 years. No matter how much I try to forget. It's a work in progress." The disappointment about Tokyo still surfaces unexpectedly—sometimes she is fine with how things unfolded, and then suddenly she is crying at home. But she has also learned something from it all. With 32 medals and titles to her name, she knows now that she does not owe the world anything more than she has already given. "It will be a long time for someone to accomplish what I've accomplished," she said. That is not arrogance. That is fact.
Citações Notáveis
If you looked at everything I've gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team.— Simone Biles, to The Cut
As a Black woman, we just have to be greater. Because even when we break records and stuff, they almost just dim it down, as if it's just normal.— Simone Biles, on the pressure she faces
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
When she says she should have quit before Tokyo, not during it—what does that actually mean? Is she saying the decision itself was wrong?
No, the decision to withdraw was right. She's saying the mistake was competing at all while carrying all that weight. She should have recognized earlier that she couldn't do both—process the trauma and perform at that level.
But she did compete. She won medals. Why does that feel like a failure to her?
Because medals don't measure what she was actually carrying. She was grieving her aunt, reliving abuse through media coverage, managing her mental health—and still expected to be perfect. The medals are almost beside the point.
She mentions the pressure of being a Black woman in her field. How does that connect to what happened in Tokyo?
It's about the expectation that excellence is the bare minimum, that you have to be greater just to be seen as equal. When you're already carrying trauma, that pressure becomes impossible. There's no permission to be human.
What does she want people to understand about the twisties?
That it's not weakness or quitting. It's a physical manifestation of a mind that's overwhelmed. Her body was telling her what her mind already knew—that she couldn't keep going.
And now she's in therapy, not training. Is that the end of her story?
It's a different chapter. She's saying this will take 20 years to work through. The healing is the work now, not the medals.