"It's OK not to be OK" - Simone Biles on mental health

Simone Biles is an American athlete. She is considered the best athlete in history in all disciplines of gymnastics. For that resume she was already hyper famous, she has won world championships and 7 Olympic medals. For the Tokyo 2020 Olympics that were held this year when they were postponed due to COVID-19, all eyes were on Simone and the U.S.A. team. They were expected to win many medals and why not, break records. They had a great team and the best gymnast in the world - that should be a piece of cake! The spotlights, cameras, microphones, screens of the world were anxiously awaiting their performances and words.

And Simone Biles made headlines. Not for a medal or a record, not for a jump that defied physics. It was thanks to the announcement of her retirement. Yes, but not just because of her retirement, but because of the reason for that decision: her mental health, or in Simone's verbatim words: "to focus on her mental health ". Is she serious?

Friends, I confess that even though I like this topic of depression and emotional health, mental health and everything related to it, when I read the BBC Mundo article, the first thing I said to myself was: "What? *"What, please, how come? It was a surprise since we are used to seeing many athletes or sportsmen and women in other disciplines stop competing because of physical injuries, but not because of mental or emotional injuries. That's very strange. What exactly happened to Simone Biles to make her make a decision like this?

It turns out that Simone Biles began to suffer from "twisties", which is nothing more than a mental blocking hazard in which gymnasts lose orientation in the air resulting in the possibility of falling by not landing correctly on the floor or the bar. And to paraphrase the words of the gymnasts themselves, it is as if your mind is disconnected from your body and you forget for a second how to turn or how to land, endangering your life or physical integrity, as you may injure yourself.

This post is not to learn about this topic, but to highlight the courage Simone Biles had when she announced her retirement in the middle of the Olympic Games. When she participated in her first event, her performance was poor, her face said so. After that she decided not to participate anymore. The fact that she chose not to do so and that the reason was her mental health set a precedent and brought the issue of mental health in high-performance athletes to the forefront. Unfortunately, many committees or governments, companies and sponsors exploit athletes, putting their mental health in second or even last place. It is thought that they are machines, that they do not suffer or suffer. But as Simone Biles explains, the pressure they are under as athletes is enormous and that was limiting her a lot.

If an athlete of this caliber in a country as rich and powerful as the United States can see her mental health diminished, but who also decides to take matters into her own hands and take charge of it to the point of giving up glory, to make history, to earn more money, to not care about the criticism or mockery of others, how much more should we prioritize our mental health or that of our children, family, employees, etc.!

It's okay not to be okay, dear reader. So says Simone in her gymnastics team's tour of the United States. Go in the mirror and listen to the words of this magnificent athlete. Don't feel bad about feeling bad, but rather do whatever you can to improve your mental and emotional health.

_{Sources consulted for this article:}.

._{Simone Biles for World Mental Health Day: "Use every outlet given to you. You're not alone" (olympics.com)}
._{Gymnastics: What are the twisties? (olympics.com)
La gimnasta Simone Biles hace historia con un impresionante salto que desafia a la fisica - YouTube}
._{Tokio: cómo Simone Biles y Naomi Osaka están cambiando el deporte con sus decisiones - BBC News Mundo}
._{Simone Biles sobre sus problemas de salud mental en Tokio 2020: "Es un milagro que aterrizara de pie en el ejercicio de barra" - BBC News Mundo
La imagen de Simone Biles junto a su entrenadora es una captura de pantalla hecha a una foto de su cuenta der Instagram. No coloqué foto de ella conseguidas en la web ya que las que encontré no eran de libre uso. https://www.instagram.com/p/CR8p8yZHdp_/}

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@garybilbao

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Original G.S. Bilbao

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G. S. Bilbao

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