USA Gymnastics doesn't know who called Simone Biles a 'gold-medal token.' That's unacceptable.

[Jilly_in_VA]

Simone Biles deserved better from USA Gymnastics. Still does.

The four-time Olympic champion said after her triumphant comeback at the U.S. Classic earlier this month that someone from the federation had told her at the Tokyo Olympics she was their “gold-medal token.” Already feeling stressed from the massive expectations on her, along with the isolation created by COVID restrictions, the suggestion heightened Biles’ anxiety.

That anxiety, of course, manifested itself in the twisties, causing her to lose her sense of where she was in the air and jeopardizing her physical safety. Unwilling to put herself in harm’s way, she withdrew from the team competition and four individual event finals before returning for the balance beam final, where she won a bronze medal.

“I was really disappointed to hear that,” Li Li Leung, the president and CEO of USA Gymnastics, said Wednesday ahead of the national championships here. “And, frankly, that was the first that we had heard of it. We don’t know who said that. So I can’t tell you whether they’re still with us or not.

“But I can tell you that we do not tolerate that behavior,” Leung added.

Yes, but if you don’t know who it was, how can you be assured the behavior isn’t continuing? Or won’t in the future? Like at, say, next summer’s Paris Olympics, where, if Biles competes, she’ll command an even bigger spotlight than she did in Tokyo?

And if it wasn’t important enough for Leung to find out who was crass enough to say that to Biles, can you really insist, as Leung often does, that USA Gymnastics has turned a corner on the indifference that caused harm to so many athletes in the past, Biles included? If this truly is a warmer, fuzzier USA Gymnastics, one where athletes feel free to advocate for themselves without fear of repercussion, how did Leung not know someone in the organization was seeing — and treating — Biles like a meal ticket?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/columnist/nancy-armour/2023/08/23/usa-gymnastics-response-simone-biles-golden-medal-token-comment/70664434007/

Same old "we look the other way" USA Gymnastics

[getagrip_already]

1. Did she ask biles?

Seems like a simple enough question to ask.

[viva la]

2. This is, of course, the same association that didn't listen when the gymnasts said they were being--

abused by the team doctor.
Dozens of them.
Over and over.

the doctor is FINALLY serving time for this, but the association that enabled him and gave him access to hundreds of girls?
Still putting their hands over their eyes and their fingers in their ears.... even when the greatest gymnast of all times speaks out about racism in their leadership.