I just felt like it would be a little bit better to take a back sea, work on my mindfulness,

and I knew that the girls would do an absolutely great job, and I didn't want to risk the team a medal for kind of my screw-ups because they've worked way too hard for that.

So I just decided that those girls need to go and into the rest of the competition. We've already seen our share of Olympic upsets in Tokyo by now,

whether it's in soccer or in basketball or in swimming.

But when Simone Biles chose to take a back seat yesterday in the middle of these Olympic games

out of a concern for her mental health,

it felt like the world stopped.

Today, Alyssa Ronik explains why the greatest gymnast of all time withdrew from her team's

Olympic final and what that choice says about who she is and what she survived and where this conversation

is headed next. I'm Pablo Torre. It's Wednesday, July 28th. This is ESPN Daily, presented by

UKG. Our purpose is people.

Alysoronic, I've been waiting all day to talk to you on a particularly existential day for U.S. gymnastics.

So thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me.

I've been waiting all day to talk to you as well.

The U.S. is not, it turns out, just massive head and shoulders above everybody else in the world.

And the difference, Alyssa, in these competitions, is oftentimes so razor thin, like the landing of a foot going wrong or a slightly bent knee in the air or even less than that.

So when you think back at what you saw today in Tokyo in the women's gymnastics team

finals, how does all of that sort of take center stage?

I think there's two things that are sort of merging in 2021.

And the first is that the rest of the world, even since 2019, when the U.S.

you know, won the world championship by, I think, two points over Russia, you know, Russia,

...