TOKYO — Simone Biles, the four-time Olympic gold medalist, came into the Tokyo Games as the headliner propped up by NBC and sponsors like Visa as a can’t miss star of the show. But after she withdrew from both the team final and individual all-around gymnastics events this week, citing mental health issues, a new question emerged: Is this the end of her Olympics? She has four more opportunities to compete next week, but to do so she would need to overcome the mental block that she said caused her to pull out of the team final on Tuesday night. Some coaches — including Jess Graba, who coaches the American Sunisa Lee — say that recalibrating that quickly is easier said than done for a gymnast, whose mind and body must sync for particularly complex and dangerous moves. Regarding Lee’s experience, he said: “If you have a week or two to prepare, you could probably get her back to what she needed to do.”

Source: New York Times July 28, 2021 12:07 UTC