like, if you re simone biles doing moves that literally no one on earth can do other than her. how does that play into the mental health aspect, the stress that ultimately sidelined her? right. you know, first of all, no one is more frustrated about this and more upset than simone herself. so, you know, i can t imagine what it s like. yes, i was in the olympics, but i was never the best gymnast in the world. i mean, simone has some titles that are uniquely her own. so to come in and have everything go so different than what was expected so quickly, you know, i can t imagine what her frame of mind is like. i think she s done a fantastic job supporting the team, and they, of course, have rallied around her, which tells you that they are fully supporting her and believing her. but for her to start to get into a skill that s very difficult, i think what people forget is that this is not just a case of extreme stage fright.
gymnasts are 10 to 15 feet in the air. they re upside down, and they re twisting. so it s not just a matter of not getting a good score. it s a matter of a catastrophic fall onto the head, neck, or back. that s the difference with gymnastics versus some other sports, is it s not just an issue of not scoring well. it is an issue of getting pretty seriously injured. yeah. i want to ask you about some of the criticism that she s received. because as an olympian, i m sure that you have had to deal with the public in your own athletic career, and a lot of people either don t know simone s story and perhaps have judged her too harshly or are simply people that i can t use these words to describe them on television. my mom would get really angry at me. what s your message to those people? well, you know, armchair quarterbacks are a dime a dozen. we re living through an age right now where it seems like
throwing out the harshest criticism that you can possibly find in the heat of the moment somehow makes you a real tough guy. and it s pretty pathetic, to be honest. athletes all over the world in every sport know exactly what simone is going through, just not at this particular time in their career. coaches know exactly what she s talking about. they ve all tried to deal with their own athletes who are going through this. so it is very hurtful, even for someone like me who, you know, hasn t experienced anything like this since my career ended a very long time ago, but i remember it distinctly. and knowing how much pain simone is in and how she is trying to just she s doing such a good job holding it together in front of the public eye, supporting her teammates and being seen there screaming for them, hugging them, having her own teammates, you know, like mykayla skinner did yesterday, saying, i m going to do this for you, simone. i ve got this for you. she s taking her place on vau
once that threshold is crossed where you, me, anybody else out there, it s a very different version of ourself. simone realizes that about herself. what risk would she have posed to herself had she competed? the reason i ask is when you watch her do what she does with the twists and the turns and the flips, her head is circling six inches off the ground at a velocity i can t begin to imagine. yeah. that s a great question. i actually talked to two top gymnastic coaches about this very question. what they told me was this, simone s level of skill is like nothing else the world has ever seen. so if the mental side of her performance isn t there, she literally is potentially risking catastrophic, life-long injury. so it s not surprising she might say, i don t want to have that happen if my mental focus and ability isn t there, it s not worth the risk. so one of the phrases that i think people who don t frankly
could get herself in a space where she felt comfortable, safe enough to compete there? well, of course i don t know simone, i never worked with her. but you, me and everybody else would love to see her rally and find somehow the mental capacity to get back out there and compete. so i think we re all rooting for that and i think we re opt opti optimistic, yes, it might occur. but it s a time and place and history the world will say to her, we ve got you. we understand it. because at this time in the pandemic, like who among us isn t really struggling at some point along this journey? and for this pressure cooker to be so big and the whole world be looking at her, i think most people would give her a pass today and say we understand. we get it. we re cheering for you. but we do understand that this is just not wise for you to move forward. that s a great point and you said it so well. she s given so much. you know what, we got you.