upworthy

tokyo olympics

Pop Culture

Kerri Strug vaulting with a broken ankle at the 1996 Olympics lands a bit differently now

"I was excited to show my daughters Kerri Strug's famous one-leg vault...But for some reason I wasn't as inspired watching it this time. In fact, I felt a little sick."

Byron Heath/Facebook

Kerri Strug landed her vault with a broken ankle at the 1996 Tokyo Olympic Games.

In July of 2021, Simone Biles withdrew from the team final in the Tokyo Olympics and subsequently withdrew from the individual all-around finals after getting a case of the "twisties" that had the world talking. She received overwhelming support as well as overwhelming criticism for the move, with some praising her for recognizing her limits and others blasting her for not persevering through whatever she's dealing with.

Some people pointed to Kerri Strug, who landed on one foot after vaulting with a broken ankle in the 1996 Olympics to help the U.S. win gold, as an example of the kind of sacrifice an athlete should be willing to make for their country.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

But was it really? A dad named Byron Heath shared some thoughts about that fateful day in a viral Facebook post that was shared more than 370,000 times in less than a day.

Heath wrote:

"This realization I had about Simone Biles is gonna make some people mad, but oh well.

Yesterday I was excited to show my daughters Kerri Strug's famous one-leg vault. It was a defining Olympic moment that I watched live as a kid, and my girls watched raptly as Strug fell, and then limped back to leap again.

But for some reason I wasn't as inspired watching it this time. In fact, I felt a little sick. Maybe being a father and teacher has made me soft, but all I could see was how Kerri Strug looked at her coach, Bela Karolyi, with pleading, terrified eyes, while he shouted back 'You can do it!' over and over again.


My daughters didn't cheer when Strug landed her second vault. Instead they frowned in concern as she collapsed in agony and frantic tears.

'Why did she jump again if she was hurt?' one of my girls asked. I made some inane reply about the heart of a champion or Olympic spirit, but in the back of my mind a thought was festering: *She shouldn't have jumped again*

The more the thought echoed, the stronger my realization became. Coach Karolyi should have gotten his visibly injured athlete medical help immediately! Now that I have two young daughters in gymnastics, I expect their safety to be the coach's number one priority. Instead, Bela Karolyi told Strug to vault again. And he got what he wanted; a gold medal that was more important to him than his athlete's health. I'm sure people will say 'Kerri Strug was a competitor--she WANTED to push through the injury.' That's probably true. But since the last Olympics we've also learned these athletes were put into positions where they could be systematically abused both emotionally and physically, all while being inundated with 'win at all costs' messaging. A teenager under those conditions should have been protected, and told 'No medal is worth the risk of permanent injury.' In fact, we now know that Strug's vault wasn't even necessary to clinch the gold; the U.S. already had an insurmountable lead.

Nevertheless, Bela Karolyi told her to vault again according to his own recounting of their conversation:

'I can't feel my leg,' Strug told Karolyi.

'We got to go one more time,' Karolyi said. 'Shake it out.'

'Do I have to do this again?' Strug asked. 'Can you, can you?' Karolyi wanted to know.

'I don't know yet,' said Strug. 'I will do it. I will, I will.'

The injury forced Strug's retirement at 18 years old. Dominique Moceanu, a generational talent, also retired from injuries shortly after. They were top gymnasts literally pushed to the breaking point, and then put out to pasture. Coach Karolyi and Larry Nassar (the serial sexual abuser) continued their long careers, while the athletes were treated as a disposable resource.

Today Simone Biles--the greatest gymnast of all time--chose to step back from the competition, citing concerns for mental and physical health. I've already seen comments and posts about how Biles 'failed her country', 'quit on us', or 'can't be the greatest if she can't handle the pressure.' Those statements are no different than Coach Karolyi telling an injured teen with wide, frightened eyes: 'We got to go one more time. Shake it out.'

The subtext here is: 'Our gold medal is more important than your well-being.'

Our athletes shouldn't have to destroy themselves to meet our standards. If giving empathetic, authentic support to our Olympians means we'll earn less gold medals, I'm happy to make that trade.

Here's the message I hope we can send to Simone Biles: You are an outstanding athlete, a true role model, and a powerful woman. Nothing will change that. Please don't sacrifice your emotional or physical well-being for our entertainment or national pride. We are proud of you for being brave enough to compete, and proud of you for having the wisdom to know when to step back. Your choice makes you an even better example to our daughters than you were before. WE'RE STILL ROOTING FOR YOU!"

Many people shared Heath's sentiment, with comments pouring in thanking him for putting words to what they were feeling.

We're in a new era where our lens of what's admirable, what's strong, and what's right has shifted. We understand more about the lifelong impact of too many concussions. We have trainers and medics checking on football players after big hits. We are finding a better balance between competitiveness and well-being. We are acknowledging the importance of mental health and physical health.

We are also more aware of how both physical and mental trauma impacts young bodies. Though Kerri Strug pushing through the pain has long been seen as an iconic moment in sports, the adults in the room should have been protecting her, not pushing her through an obvious injury.

And the way this fall of Dominique Moceanu at age 14 was handled is downright shocking by today's standards. She said she never received an exam for it, even after the competition was over. So wrong.


Athletes are not cogs in a wheel, and the desire to win a competition should not trump someone's well-being. Elite gymnasts already put themselves through grueling physical and mental feats; they wouldn't be at the top of their sport if they didn't. But there are limits, and too often in our yearning for a gold medal—or even for a triumphant Olympic story—we push athletes too far.

Now we see some of them pushing back, and knowing what we know now, that's 100% a good thing.

This article originally appeared three years ago.

From Your Site Articles
sports
Wellness

Former gymnasts explain the dreaded 'twisties' that prompted Simone Biles to withdraw

assets.rebelmouse.io

Since Simone Biles backed out of the team final at the Tokyo Olympics two days ago, the question everyone's been asking is "What the heck happened?"

After two botched vaults, Biles took herself out of the competition, later saying, "I had no idea where I was in the air."

Former gymnasts recognized her wording and have taken to social media to explain a condition known as "the twisties." On a basic level, the twisties is a mental state where your muscle memory shuts down in the air mid-twist. It can happen to any gymnast at any time, but is more likely under intense pressure. It might seem like a mental block is not something that could happen to the unrivaled Simone Biles, who routinely performs incredibly well under pressure, but brains are fickle things.

This explanation from former gymnast and diver Catherine Burns lays it out:

She wrote:

Hi, your friendly neighborhood former gymnast and diver here to attempt to explain the mental phenomenon Simone Biles is experiencing: the dreaded twisties. 💀

When you're flipping or twisting (or both!) it is very disorienting to the human brain. When training new flips and twists, you need external cues to learn how it feels to complete the trick correctly. (In diving, a coach yells "OUT" and you kick your body straight and pray).

Once you've practiced a trick enough, you develop the neural pathways that create kinesthesia which leads to muscle memory. Your brain remembers how your body feels doing the trick and you gain air awareness.

Think about something that took you a while to learn and required a lot of concentration at the time to get it right, but now is second nature. Driving a car is a good example (especially stick!)

Suddenly, in the middle of driving on the freeway, right as you need to complete a tricky merge, you have totally lost your muscle memory of how to drive a car. You have to focus on making you foot press the pedal at the right angle, turn the steering wheel just so, shift gears.

It's terrifying. You're moving way too fast, you're totally lost, you're trying to THINK but you know you don't usually have to think to do these maneuvers, you just feel them and do them.

The twisties are like this, and often happen under pressure. You're working so hard to get it right that you stop trusting your muscle memory. You're getting lost in the air, second-guessing your instincts, overthinking every movement.

It's not only scary and unnerving, it's incredibly dangerous even if you're doing basic gymnastics. The level of skills Simone throws combined with the height and power she gets can lead to catastrophic injury if you're not confident and connected to your kinesthesia.

This isn't as easy to fix as just sleeping it off and hoping for a better day tomorrow. It can look like retraining entire routines and tricks. I never mastered my front 1.5 with a full twist because I'd get the twisties and it would mess with my other twisting dives.

So. When Simone says she's taking it day by day, this is why. She's not soft. She didn't choke. She isn't giving up. It's a phenomenon every gymnast and diver has experienced and she happens to be experiencing it at the Olympics. Can you imagine the frustration? The heartbreak?

I'll also add that @Simone_Biles choosing to bow out pushes back against a dark narrative in gymnastics that you sacrifice yourself for the sake of the sport; you are the product of your coaches and you owe them wins, no matter the personal cost.

No. You owe nobody anything, and you especially don't owe them your body, your health, or your autonomy. I hope every single tiny baby gymnast got that message on self-advocacy and setting boundaries loud and clear. Thank you, @Simone_Biles."

Biles herself retweeted a post that reiterated how dangerous her situation truly was:

"For non-gymnasts, the fact that she balked mid-air and accidentally did a 1.5 on her first vault instead of a 2.5 is a big deal. It's terrifying. She could have been severely injured getting lost in the air like that. The fact that she somehow landed on her feet shows her experience and is incredible The margin for error on a skill like that is insanely low. A very small wrong move, and career-ending or even worse, life-threatening injuries can occur."

And other gymnasts have weighed in with attempts to explain to people outside the sport what the twisties mean and how real the mental block is.

One particularly sobering response came from Jacoby Miles, who was paralyzed after a gymnastics accident at age 15.

"I experienced those mental blocks throughout my career as a gymnast," she wrote, "and to be quite blunt, it only took one bad time of getting lost (or what they call the "twisties") in the air in a big flip to break my neck and leave me paralyzed...most likely for life...so I'm SO SO glad she decided not to continue until she's mentally recovered."

Many armchair commentators have attempted to explain why Biles backed out of the team competition and what it means about her as a competitor, but the only people whose commentary counts are those who have experienced what she's going through. Arguably, no one knows what it's like to be in Simone Biles's shoes, but other gymnasts understand the mental elements of the sport and what can happen if everything isn't aligned just right.

It's an act of wisdom to acknowledge when you're faced with a limitation out of your control, and an act of courage to sacrifice a dream in order to protect your well-being as well as your teammates. Good for Simone Biles for setting an example to other athletes to know when it's time to call it.


From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
olympics
Popular

Okay, so skateboarding is officially an awesome addition to the Olympics

NBC Sports/YouTube

For the first time, skateboarding is an official Olympic sport, and after watching the men's and women's street skateboarding events this weekend, our family has decided it's officially a totally welcome addition.

I grew up with a skateboarding brother during the earliest years of Tony Hawk's career, so the sport itself isn't unfamiliar to me. But I've never really followed skate competitions and wasn't sure how it would translate into an Olympic event. As it turns out, there are several things that make it both entertaining and refreshing to watch in comparison with other sports.

For one, let's talk about the "uniform" the athletes wear. As debates rage over volleyball bikinis and gymnastics leotards, here are the male and female skateboarders in long, loose pants and baggy t-shirts. They are the most comfortable-looking Olympians I've ever seen (being out in the humid Japanese heat notwithstanding). They look like they just popped off the couch after watching a movie and decided to go out and hop on their skateboard.

Secondly, hearing the announcers call out the names of the tricks was surprisingly entertaining. We laughed out loud as they strung together words like "That was a gnarly Frontside Half Cab Kickflip to a Nollie Backside 180!" as if those are just normal things everyone recognizes. Half the time it sounded like they were making things up (they weren't, of course), which we found just delightful. At the same time, the announcers were good about explaining what the tricks entailed so that those of us who aren't familiar with the ins and outs could appreciate what we were seeing.

Third, it was awesome to see the chill culture of skateboarding take root on the world's biggest, most intense sports stage. Skaters are competitive, no doubt, but they also all cheer each other on and seem so supportive of one another. In skateboarding, anyone landing an epic trick is a cause for celebration, and anyone who stumbles gets a pat on the back and a high five for the attempt. There's no cutthroat vibe here, just a unique combo of concentration and laid-backness, which is fun to witness.

Surely, there was heartbreak among those who hoped to medal, as there is in any sport. But the vibe was just different than it is n most sports. I mean, this is Margielyn Didal, who finished 7th and had some hard falls during the finals. She was like this pretty much the whole time. Pure joy.

And how about the diversity in ages, especially among the women skaters? We almost ended up with two teens and a 34-year-old on the podium in the women's street competition, with a spread of 21 years between the youngest and oldest. (American skater Alexis Sablone turns 35 in a couple of weeks and ended up in 4th place after the final trick.) The gold and silver medal winners are both 13 years old, and the bronze winner is 16. And while the young skaters dominated in the end, Sablone showed that it's not just a sport for the youth.

(But let's also take a moment of awe for these 13-year-olds, Momiji Nishiya of Japan and Rayssa Leal of Brazil. Holy moly. So much talent and such great sportsmanship and such a young age.)

Finally, let's have a moment of appreciation for the sport itself. It took a long time for the athletic world to fully appreciate the skill and practice it takes to do things like flip a moving board with four wheels several feet into the air with your feet, make it do just the right number of flips and turns in the air beneath you, stop it in exactly the right position to slide down a railing over a flight of stairs, and then land it on the ground—all while the board and you are flying through the air—without falling off. When skaters do it perfectly, it looks easy. But it's a million little movements and balances and weight distributions and calculations that make these tricks work, and as we saw from how many they don't land how hard it really is.

Also, they land on concrete when they fall. Ouch. And sometimes things like this happen:

Double ouch.

Our family and friends have thoroughly enjoyed seeing skateboarding take its place on the Olympic stage, and are looking forward to seeing the park skateboarding competition coming up. Good move making skateboarding an official Olympic sport, finally. Definitely recommend checking out the highlights if you missed it:

THIRTEEN-year-old Momiji Nishiya wins gold in street skateboarding | Tokyo Olympics | NBC Sportswww.youtube.com

From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
skateboarding
Family

Tunisian teen swimmer shocks with surprise gold, and his family's reaction is everything

@SportsJoe/Twitter, @EttachkilaTN/Twitter

Ahmed Hafnaoui had the swim of his life at just the right time on Sunday. After eeking into the men's 400-meter medal race in last place out of the eight finalists, the 18-year-old swimmer from Tunisia shocked everyone by taking home the gold in the event at the Tokyo Olympics.

Prior to the semi-finals, Hafnaoui wasn't even listed in the DraftKings Sportsbook odds of winning list, so the fact that he overtook the Australian favorites to win was extra impressive. Australia's Jack McLoughlin won the silver and American Kieran Smith took home the bronze, and though the race was close, it wasn't that close by swimming standards. Hafnaoui was the fastest swimmer, hands-down, after being the slowest of the finalists just the day before.

This, as they say, is why they play the games.

And this footage of Hafnaoui's loved ones in Tunisia reacting to his epic win is why everyone loves an underdog.

In a video originally shared by Tunisian sports news channel ETTACHKILA, Hafnaoui's family is heard cheering and screaming as they watch him swim in medal contention throughout the race. But as they watch him retake the lead in the final stretch and touch the wall first, their joy is palpable. (Definitely want the sound up for this—just maybe not too high.)

A win is always exciting, but a win by someone who was given slim-to-no chance at even medaling is incredible to watch. Talk about peaking at just the right time. Simply incredible.

A clearly overwhelmed Hafnaoui told NBC, "I just can't believe that. It's amazing."

He said he felt better in the water this morning than yesterday, and that he just put his head in the water. "And that's it," he said.

"I'm Olympic champion now," he added. "I just can't believe."

Congratulations to Hamed Hafnaoui and Tunisia, as well as all of Hafnaoui's loved ones. Thanks for giving us the Olympic thrill we love to see.


From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
olympics
Trending Stories