Today, gymnast Simone Biles announced that she would resume competing in the Olympic Games. But, six-time gold medalist Jackie Joyner-Kersee tells Rolling Stone, the conversation she started is an important one.
withdrawing from the women’s gymnastics team final because she wasn’t “in the right headspace,” she felt admiration for her. “She was brave enough to even speak up and not to give in to the pressures of ‘I’m Simone Biles; I’m supposed to do this,’” she says.
Things were different during Joyner-Kersee’s own career in the Eighties and Nineties, during which she won six medals, including two golds in record-setting heptathlon performances and one gold for long jump. In 1999, she was named “Greatest Female Athlete of the 20th Century” by“When I was coming up, you said anything about mental health they’d say, ‘Oh you weak, something wrong with you,’” she says. “We [only] talked about our mental health as far as being tough.
In an era of social media and the 24-hour news cycle, Joyner-Kersee believes athletes face additional pressure that she didn’t have to contend with, including more press obligations and the constant availability of athletes to their fans on social media. “When we were training, we knew after April 15th, our interviews, any magazine covers, you shut it down so you could just really focus,” she says.
She also points to the Covid-19 pandemic as an added stressor for this year’s athletes. “All of a sudden everything is shut down,” she says. “There’s nowhere you can practice and, yes, you’re being creative, but that’s a lot of change that’s going on.” Enough to throw anyone off their game. Joyner-Kersee hopes Biles’ high-profile choice to withdraw from both the women’s team finals and the all-around competition will continue prompting conversations around mental health that will make a real difference for the next generation of athletes. The great thing about a high-profile event like the Tokyo games, she says, is that they can bring to light issues that happen outside the glow of primetime coverage.
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