Simone Biles Reflects on Olympics Career, Says She "Should Have Quit Before Tokyo"

Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast with a total of 32 Olympic and World Championship mdeals, got candid about her state of emotions during the Tokyo Olympics and the Larry Nassar assault.

Just two weeks after delivering a heartbreaking testimony at the U.S. Senate hearing investigating the Larry Nassar sexual assault case, the Olympic champion spoke to The Cut about the difficult choices she made to withdraw from the remainder of the events at the Tokyo Olympics. In the interview, she gave fans an insight into her thought process throughout the competition:

“If you looked at everything I’ve gone through for the past seven years, I should have never made another Olympic team. I should have quit way before Tokyo, when Larry Nassar was in the media for two years. It was too much. But I was not going to let him take something I’ve worked for since I was 6 years old. I wasn’t going to let him take that joy away from me. So I pushed past that for as long as my mind and my body would let me.”

During the Tokyo Olympics, she cited “twisties,” a phenomenon that occurs amongst athletes when the mind and body are not in sync, causing muscle memory to not kick in. She explained, “Say up until you are 30 years old you have your complete eyesight. One morning, you wake up, you can’t see shit. But people tell you to go on and do your daily job as if you still have your eyesight. You’d be lost, wouldn’t you? That’s the only thing I can relate it to. I have been doing gymnastics for 18 years. I woke up — lost it. How am I supposed to go on with my day?”

Former Team USA doctor Larry Nassar has been accused by more than 330 women and girls at Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics of sexual abuse. Biles came forward to make her own experiences known in 2018. Nassar is currently serving a life sentence in prison.

In other sports news, James Harden called the Milwaukee Bucks, not the Brooklyn Nets, the team to beat in the East.