There are various levels to greatness in sports.
There's greatness in the traditional sense. That's the kind of greatness that we associate with awards and championships. We talk about these individuals and reflect fondly on their careers. We can easily tell the story of their career through their many wins and noteworthy losses. We recount their individual honors, team successes, and memorable moments that took place in stadiums or arenas.
And then there's greatness that manages to transcend the sport. These are the athletes who achieve all of that traditional success, ascend to the highest tier of their field, and then somehow manage to find a way to levitate over everyone else. They matter in the grand scheme of our culture, not just in sport. We're talking about generational icons. These are the athletes who we can claim are the “GOAT” and hardly anyone bats an eye.
Simone Biles has achieved greatness at that level. In a decade's time, Biles has ascended and is now widely considered to be the greatest gymnast in the long history of the sport. She's catapulted past Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci, Gabby Douglas, Mary Lou Retton and any other gymnasts who has ever stood on the podium with a gold medal around her neck. Her impact, however, transcends the sport. It's been felt in a multitude of ways, never more so than over the last couple of years, and now rightfully, she has been named the AP Female Athlete of the Year.
This distinction likely comes as a surprise to anyone that was forecasting who might take home this honor back in the beginning of 2023, and that's because at that time, Biles had been away from the sport for nearly two years. During the 2020 Summer Olympics, Biles failed to win any gold medals after winning four in 2016 Olympics. She withdrew from multiple gymnastics competitions, citing struggles with “the twisties” and other mental health concerns. Amazingly, it was in this moment, in her darkest days as an athlete on the biggest stage imaginable, that Biles officially transcended the sport.
Simone Biles' willingness to talk openly about her mental health struggles opened the door for that conversation to be acceptable in any setting. There have been many other high-profile athletes who have detailed their struggles with mental health, but none with a star as bright as Simone Biles. If the greatest female athlete in the world could talk about the hard time she was having dealing with the pressure to perform at the highest level imaginable, why can't you and I have that very same conversation? If Simone Biles can put everything else aside and prioritize her own mental health, why shouldn't we be able to also? If Simone Biles, whose life since she was a teenager has revolved around being the best gymnast in the world can step away from her sport to take care of herself, why shouldn't everyone else learn from this approach?
As someone who has been called “a perfectionist” and struggles with anxiety on a daily basis and goes to therapy, it's always refreshing when I hear an athlete come out and talk about their own mental health struggles. For Biles to be able to say, “Whenever I was 19, it was the end of the world if I had bad days. Now I'm like, ‘It's OK, it's just gymnastics and I'll come back tomorrow and we'll get it started again,'” and not be judged for it, I don't know, it somehow takes a burden off of my own shoulders. And now to see Biles make her comeback, and in 2023 win a national championship, a world championship, and be named AP Female Athlete of the Year, that's pretty damn cool.
It's expected that Simone Biles will compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, and this time, the weight of the world hopefully won't be on her shoulders anymore. Not only has Biles managed to gain a healthier outlook on her relationship with gymnastics, but now, she doesn't need to defend her title as GOAT anymore. There's nothing left for her to prove. For Biles, an appearance at the Olympics would just be about competing in the sport that she loves. The sport that she's transcended.
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