Sam Quek defends Simone Biles amid criticism of USA gymnast over Tokyo Olympics withdrawal

Biles’ decision to prioritise her mental health over medals has drawn criticism from some corners

British Olympic gold medalist Sam Quek has defended Simone Biles amid criticism of the USA gymnast over her withdrawal from the women’s team and all-around finals at Tokyo 2020.

Biles, a four-time Olympic champion and 19-time world champion, pulled out of the women’s team final on Tuesday after just one rotation on the vault, before later announcing that she would not take part in Thursday’s all-around final.

The 24-year-old, who is widely considered the greatest gymnast of all time, cited a determination to protect her mental health as the reason for her withdrawals. It is as yet unknown whether Biles will compete in her four other finals next week.

In the aftermath of Team USA claiming silver in the team final, Biles came under criticism for her choice to pull out of the event, and Quek was among those defending the gymnast.

Quek won gold in women’s hockey for Team GB at the 2016 Olympics in Rio and has since retired from the sport.

The 32-year-old has been presenting on BBC Breakfast during this summer’s Games, and said on the programme on Wednesday: “I was watching it unfold yesterday and, as it was happening, I was getting more and more frustrated.

“I’d see these headlines popping up saying how she was weak, she wasn’t mentally strong enough to deal with the pressure. Then, on social media, people accusing her of using it as an excuse to pull out of the vault because she wasn’t performing as well.

“I just think it’s absolute nonsense. She said she wasn’t in the right mental frame of mind to go and perform well enough and that she could have caused herself some damage.

“Every sports person knows that if you go in half-cocked, you’re going to cause yourself an injury – none more so than in gymnastics.”

Quek took exception to some observers accusing Biles of using her mental health as an excuse for recording her lowest ever Olympic vault score on Tuesday.

“That is just so wrong,” the Liverpudlian said. “We talk about mental health and physical health, they are just as important as each other.

“We can take the Andy Murray incident as an example: He pulled out of the [tennis] singles because he had a strain, a bit of a niggle, he didn’t want to put his doubles opportunity to any detrimental affect. Nobody batted an eyelid, but because this is a mental health issue, people are now saying she’s making excuses. It’s ridiculous.

“And to the people who are accusing her of not being a team player and that she just wants to focus on the individual, again, in my mind she couldn’t have been more of a team player. She recognised that the moves she was doing, she wouldn’t be able to execute and get the score she needed to get a gold medal with her team.

Simone Biles watches her teammates compete after her withdrawal from the team final (Copyright 2021 The Associated Press. All rights reserved)

“And she trusted her team implicitly to take Simone out of it and do the moves to a standard of an Olympic medal, which they did.

“And also Simone could have hid in the background, she could’ve been in the changing room, left the world guessing: ‘It must be bad if she’s not come out.’ But she didn’t; she got her tracksuit back on, she got out there and stood and clapped on her teammates. That to me is a champion.

“You can’t stand there and second guess what’s in someone’s head. And I think if people start comparing themselves to other people and say, ‘well I can do it, why can’t you?’, that’s really, really going to cause some issues. And to be quite frank, that’s why some people don’t speak out, that’s why some people don’t seek help, and unfortunately go to the extreme of taking their own lives. It’s just got to stop.”