Gymnast Simone Biles retires from the 2021 Tokyo Olympics to focus on her mental health.
In the case of Simone Biles, an athlete who has become known worldwide for taking gymnastics to another almost superhuman level, I have now come to touch the ceiling of the reality of a pressure that has not been well channeled or learned.
These days there are hundreds of articles that talk about the pressure that elite athletes have to endure, and this is really something that is part of their life process and their careers, and that in this case has been too strong to be able to be supported. But I personally disagree with those who say that Simon Biles has suffered or is suffering from some type of psychological problem that needs special treatment, and on the contrary I believe that we are clearly talking about a person who has not been known to help manage and prevent what happened.
In training with elite athletes, and some I have treated in my practice and others I continue to work with, it is important to take into account the existence of that environment pressure, not only from fans and families, which leads the person to always have to give 120% of themselves. We are not only talking about the exterior, but also the interior, and that is not something easy to manage, because you always want to go further, faster or higher, and it is never enough, which sometimes leads to a total blockage and athlete’s breakup.
The fact is that Simone Biles has decided to completely leave the competition due to the situation that has been created for her. Now she no longer had a solution to the problem. During the years that he has been competing, and especially during the last ones in which he has had a more media profile, it was time to channel and resolve those situations that he was going to encounter, to work on his mental strength to be able to move forward. . Now she has broken, and in that context it is true that the best option she could take was to withdraw completely since otherwise the result would have been much worse.
In contexts of maximum pressure, where the athlete cannot continue with the pressure, withdrawal is not a solution in itself, but it is the only way to prevent further damage. In that context, the athlete believed that they were only looking at her results, that everything depended on her, and that created a toxic situation. If she had continued, it is possible that she would have suffered a panic attack in the middle of the competition, and this is precisely what she has tried to avoid, the greater evil.
With this example, it is clearer than ever how necessary the value of the psychological work that is done with athletes is, and that it is an essential part, and that this mental strength is as or more important than the physical strength.
