What Next: What Happened to Simone Biles?

Slate News

Slate Podcasts

News, News Commentary, Politics

4.6 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

On Tuesday morning, Simone Biles, the most decorated gymnast of all time, withdrew from the team all-around competition at the Tokyo Olympics citing mental health concerns. Biles’ move shocked most watchers but may reveal a deeper cultural shift happening within USA Gymnastics. Guest: Rebecca Schuman, former gymnast and the author of Schadenfreude, A Love Story. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I mean, is there a word for which has happened with the US gymnastics team in Tokyo?
0:12.1	Implosion.
0:15.6	Rebecca Schumann writes about gymnastics for slate.
0:19.8	Your tweets from the last 24 hours have been like this real time look inside your brain.
0:25.7	They were right.
0:26.7	They were right.
0:27.7	Yeah.
0:28.7	At one point you just tweeted, oh my god, oh my god, this is over, it's over.
0:34.2	It was.
0:36.7	For the last few days, Rebecca has been getting up at 3.30 in the morning, flipping
0:40.8	on a couple of different streaming services and watching the Olympic Games live.
0:46.8	For a gymnastics enthusiast, this has been a little harrowing.
0:51.8	She watched the women's team flub their qualifying events, even though they managed to stay
0:56.8	in the competition.
0:58.7	And then yesterday in the team finals where Simone Biles was expected to help bring home
1:03.6	the gold.
1:04.6	Rebecca held her breath as the star gymnast seemed to psych herself out on live television.
1:12.6	The vault was where things really seemed to go south.
1:21.6	She gets ready for this vault and I'm sitting here in the pitch dark in my bedroom.
1:26.6	You know, watching TV alone and I'm just like, come on, you got this, you got this.
1:30.8	It doesn't matter what vault she does, it's, it's a show stopper and it's my CTV.
1:36.2	I'm a journalist but I also care about this person that I've been following so closely
	...

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